There's nothing children like better than hidden places where they can keep the things they consider important. Teens, too, like to have somewhere they can stash things like diaries, the money they are saving up to buy a car, and other items that they want to keep away from prying eyes and hands.
Although you're probably not going to want to go out and buy an expensive steel safe for your children to hide their possessions in, there are still models intended for younger members of your family that will help to teach them to be careful with their things, save money, and the necessity of leaving other people's possessions alone.
For children there are toy safes which are built to look like the real thing. These are often equipped with combination locks which require the child to commit the numbers to memory in order to access his safe. This is excellent practice for bike locks and locker combinations he will face in later years. In addition, you can use a safe as a tool to teach your child to save money. Most piggy-type banks allow children to put money into them but make it difficult to get the money back out. Instead of learning to control his own money and to exercise willpower, the child will try to figure out ways to circumvent the system. A child's safe, therefore, can be an excellent tool for teaching monetary concepts.
Teens need to learn responsibility, too. They need to learn to control their budgets and be responsible for their possessions. Providing them with small safes can help reinforce these concepts. They also learn to respect the needs people have for privacy. They learn organizational skills that will stand them in good stead as they go out on their on in life. In their teens kids start having important documents and items that they need to learn to keep organized and protected. The skills they can learn from having their own safe can help them become more responsible adults.
We bought our son a safe when he was in high school. He used it as a place to keep the coins he'd been collecting since he was a child and other various items, and when he moved out to attend college, he took it with him to safeguard his things in the dorm and in apartment situations. When he moved across country following college, he left the safe with us, because he couldn't take it along. However, his important papers, his savings bonds, and his coins are all still in the safe. When he needs something, like his car title, his passport, or his birth certificate, he knows exactly where it is so that he can call us and request we retrieve it for him.
Buying a safe for a child or teen is just another tool you can use to help them learn and grow. Instead of giving them still another toy or electronic gadget this Christmas, why not give them a small safe. They've probably never considered asking for one, but they'll love the gift, and they'll end up learning without even knowing it.
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