Financial intelligence - kids need it now

Sitting having dinner the other night with my 17 year old daughter and her boyfriend, I was listening to them talking about their lives. Both at college and looking for part-time jobs to supplement their life-style, they were bemoaning the fact that neither of them had any idea how to make money. And it's the same for their friends too. They're all broke and miserable. They have been taught at school to be employees - being paid what someone else thinks your worth.

In the 21st century, simply not knowing how to make money will become a serious problem, and it's already started.

Why don't they teach this in school? You'd think in this day and age, they'd include just maybe one class a week on 'How to make money' wouldn't you? Why not? Maybe because the teachers themselves have no idea how to make money, so how could they teach it?

Financial intelligence, money management, exchanging your value (not your time) for money, creating leverage through other people and systems should be compulsory study for all children in the 21st century. Why are we still teaching them what we needed in the 20th century? The world has moved on now, so must we. We need to be teaching new knowledge now, coupled with the idea that 'failure' ie: it's not working, is OK

How will they be able to take care of themselves if they don't know how to make money? Gone are the days when we could turn to the government for help. By the time we (the parents) have been through the system, they'll be nothing left for our children. We must teach them self-reliance, inter-dependence and financial intelligence.

What can we teach them? Good old-fashioned money management would be top of my list. Next, comes delayed gratification. We live in a society of instant gratification and it teaches sloppy money habits. Investing - too risky, you say? Not if you know what questions to ask. Buy assets, not liabilities. Our homes are filled with liabilities - stuff that costs money and that is soon forgotten. Ignoring the assets column will eventually lead to poverty

Comments

[Marion Ryan]

Yvonne

Yes, I agree, I too am surprised at what they don't teach our children about money! Mind, Jake does do business studies while in my day, it was all Latin, maths and biology. Not even a sniff of a cookery lesson...

Having learnt what I learnt about money, wealth and prosperity the long, hard way I can only say that I've made sure Jake understands something about the way money works.

He understands about mortgages, credit cards (the good and the bad aspects), assets and though only 12, he gets his monthly allowance on the first of the month and puts aside the majority to save before working out his other expenses.

In fact, instead of giving him pocket money, his allowance now covers an amount for clothes, outings, phone credit etc so he's learning how to allocate it all properly. It's saved me a fortune, ha ha.

So I'm impressed at his self discipline now but when they are handing out credit facilities the way they do, I can't be certain that when he's old enough, he'll be able to delay gratification.

Though I never knock employment as the best option for many people, I am quietly hoping he'll be too entrepreneurial to make that his choice.

Marion