Your Money previously published a guide to JISAs. Here we consider different JISA products, funds and strategies. As with standard ISAs, there are cash and stocks/shares JISAs; finding the right JISA for your child isn’t simply a matter of finding the best rates – consideration of which ISA best suits your child’s age, and how much risk you yourself are willing to take on, are far more significant.

• Under 5s

Parents with children under the age of five benefit from an investment timeline at least 15 years in length. This means any funds placed in a JISA have over a decade to germinate. Depending on one’s attitude to risk, the longer timeframe could serve as an argument for stocks/shares JISAs over a cash JISA – after all, there’s a longer period in which to recover any losses.

If you choose to go the stocks/shares route, then bear in mind a child can only hold a single JISA; picking a provider that offers the widest range of investment options possible is key.

Jason Hollands of Bestinvest recommends the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust.

“Oddly, this fund has nothing to do with mortgages – and it doesn’t invest in Scotland,” notes Hollands wryly. “The Trust in fact has a global outlook and backs high-growth companies in major economic centres, such as North America and South East Asia.”

Funds that deal with key emerging markets proved popular among the experts consulted by Your Money. Brian Dennehy of FundExpert recommended Jupiter India and Baring ASEAN Frontiers on this basis; “the long-term potential for these markets is huge”.

• Children aged 5-12

In this bracket, investment timelines are naturally shorter, but they’re still long enough to consider a slightly higher level of risk. If a child is aged 8 or under, there’s still a decade in which funds can grow in stocks/shares, which historically have outperformed cash.

Philippa Gee, an independent wealth manager, recommends index funds – funds that match or track the components of a market index, such as the S&P 500. “These funds allow parents to choose the risk profile they’re comfortable with – and costs are low.”

Hollands notes that most CTFs similarly invested in trackers, but charged annual fees as high as 1.5 per cent – JISAs that invest in index funds charge much lower annual fees (some as low as 0.07 per cent). He recommends global trackers, noting “it isn’t sensible to restrict your investments to shares listed on the UK stock market.”

• 13 and above

If your child is aged 13 and above, you and they may be looking ahead to their 18^th birthday – the point at which they can start accessing the funds in their JISA. With only a few years left for the funds to grow, and a potential need to make withdraws sooner rather than later, cash JISA may be your best bet. Picking the best one is a simple matter of comparing the different rates offered by banks – however, with interest rates at such low levels and no rate hikes on the horizon, returns will be fairly paltry for the foreseeable future.

Another option could be funds that combine multiple assets (including bonds, cash and shares) under a single banner. If this route is of interest, Hollands recommends Merlin Income and Standard Life Global Absolute Return Strategies.

Stuart Dyer of rplan.co.uk stresses that it is crucial to avoid being influenced by short term events and herd behaviour. “In 2014, the FTSE 100 was down 7 per cent by mid-October, was 1 per cent ahead in early December, but then ended that month 7 per cent down. Since then the index has broken beyond its record all-time high but those who chased the market probably would not have seen the full return.”

“The bond market has a similar lesson: UK interest rates in the UK were expected to rise and depress the bonds market yet that did not happen last year and total returns on the FTSE Actuaries Conventional Gilt All Stocks Index has seen a double-digit rise over the last 12 months.

“Investors should stick with diversified and consistently balanced portfolios over a number of years,” Dyer concludes. “They should not be moved by the mass of good and bad news that generates volatility.”