Question: Kids are not learning personal finance. Why don’t schools teach our kids more about money issues?
Answer: Indeed, personal finance as well as a few other essential subjects are severely lacking in school systems and yet there has not been much, if anything, done to change it.
In grade schools, for example, children are taught how to add and count using fake money, and in high schools the occasional personal finance class is offered (but students still have to opt-in to take it and many don’t). That is essentially the extent to which our young people are learning personal finance.
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"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
- Woody Allen |
Ultimately, it is up to the parents to teach their children how to earn, handle, and invest their money.
If parents fail in this area, they may end up watching their kids graduate from high school without even the basic knowledge of how to manage a checkbook. Teaching children the value of money early on is critical to their future financial success.
Some parents simply give their children a weekly allowance without the child either earning it or being shown how to manage it. As adults, we know that money is never free; hard work and patience earns our income. The same should apply to our children.
Household chores have always been a great way for a child to learn both responsibility and that hard work and persistent effort leads to greater rewards. In many cases, money is seen as the reward, however, the self satisfaction one experiences from having completed a job well done is of even greater value.
Positive reinforcement of this kind is a tremendous motivator to young people. Children do not always understand the enormity of what parents do in order to provide for them. Helping them to understand the real effort that it takes to keep a family clothes, fed and under a roof can be highly enlightening to kids.
There are other ways of rewarding your child for their positive contributions. For instance, when they get good grades it’s reasonable for parents to recognize their efforts monetarily.
Parents have used many ingenious methods of rewarding their children with money in return for their focused efforts. Find what works for you and then move on to showing your child what they can do positively with that money.
Learning personal finance can actually be fun. You can show them how investing 10% of their money can lead to earning more money (and this time, without work!).
Agree to match the same amount that your teenager has saving for the purpose of buying their first automobile. This may encourage them to proactively seek out that summer job, which will get them out into the real world where they can learn the ins and outs of being employed.
Learning personal finance is something people of all ages should do. Young people in particular will avoid making costly mistakes if they learn our money early on.
In truth, the public school system should be teaching kids more on the subject of money and finances. However, in an economic climate where schools are constantly being asked to do more with less, you cannot count on anything anymore.
It is important to remember that as parents, we need to take an active role in teaching our children about the world around them and teach them how to lead a productive life.
"There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding,
and that which is lost by not trying."
- Francis Bacon |
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Debt is NOT your friend. It's not a wonderful "tool" for building wealth. That's a myth.
