As parents we spend a great deal of time, energy, resources and money teaching and training our children across a massive spectrum, from eating, walking, talking, toilet training, riding a bike, getting on with others …… the list appears endless. We then ensure they go to school for up to 13 years to be educated in the basics, maths, English, science, history ……, and then onto University or further training for 3 or more years to gain qualifications to create the best opportunity for a future career – so they can follow in our path, or a better one.
In all of this there is a crucial element missing – FINANCIAL training. Not the formal training to be an accountant or a financial adviser, the training on how to deal with their own money. A very limited number of schools are now adding financial parts to the curriculum, but many are not – and that really doesn’t help those at the schools not participating, or indeed those that are well through, or have finished in the formal education system.
In the absence of teaching at school, how many of us sit down and consciously teach our children about money? Most of us would like to think we do, we may even claim we do – but in reality, how much time and effort do we actually put into this area?
So, if the schools don’t teach them, and we, as parents, don’t teach them, where will our children learn?
The answer is copying what we do, copying what they see on TV (and just consider what they see on TV with regards to money), listening and copying their friends (who are learning from their parents and the TV – and that’s all out of your control) …… Add to this factor that when something is wanted, latest iPhone, designer clothing, the big trip from school that “everyone else is going on”, do we go into debt to pay for it (i.e. put the cost on the credit card)? Does this provide a good example? From a personal perspective it took a numbers years for my kids to understand that after we paid for something on the credit card, the credit card bill had to then be paid.
Alan & Clare Beeston
