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Edwin Nazarian

Founder, Unlimited Insights

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Financial Education?

When do we teach our children about Money?

In today’s financial crises many are going through tough times while others are making themselves a fortune. If the way that education system teaches our young generation about economy and finance, what stopped them from seeing what was coming when they "knew" all about finance and economy?

What do today’s youth know about money and money management, apart from being the biggest consumers of all time?

Through my experience in dealing with youth I hardly see any young teenager who does truly cares what’s going on in today’s financial world. (not to mention the adults who do not care to watch the financial news on TV during the NEWS)

How can we bring to their awareness of fair trade and educate them how to be smart with their own economy?

Topics: behaviour critical thinking economy education finance
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  • Joshua Freckleton

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    Feb 6 2013: Consider the case of the U.S., children learn personal financial management mostly from their parents and other peers, who are on average awful examples of financial management. They learn how to have high consumption rates, little investments, and the government incentivizes this by saying hey, if you don't have enough money because you've been unwise, we'll give you some money from some of the people who know how to generate and keep money. (which is another topic but it's gross how the govt redistributes money from the people who have proven they can provide the most good per dollar).

    Also, consider your question from a stimulus-response point of view. Humans are very animal in certain kinds of learning and if we don't see immediate rewards for certain actions, or if certain actions hurt us in the now, we avoid them. Investing money takes it out of our pockets now, meaning we can't spend it. People have got to learn to feel better about having $20,000 dollars in their bank account in ten years, than having a new $10,000 car in the driveway today. But since they can't see that money in their future bank account, they do what makes them happy today.

    We need to simply help people feel the benefits of a wise stewardship over money (the hard part), and teach them the basics of how to be wise stewards (which is the easy part).

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