Ive just got back from dropping my kids to their school, kindy and daycare. I hung around this morning to listen in to a visiting bank manager at the kindy. This I was very interested to see and hear. What the manager of an institute we trust with our money had to offer such young impressionable minds.
Turned out not to be much. They were all given a money box and pretend money to play with.
I actually got more value in the 10 minutes before her presentation when we chatted. On mentioning my interest in her talk today, and telling her about the Pure Young Minds program, suddenly she made me feel like the money expert. She quickly acknowledge her bank had no support or advice aimed at children. She also feels we as a society are failing to teach kids enough or the correct things about money. She asked me to step in and tell the kids about smart money decisions. I declined the opportunity and watched as they were told to put their new money tins away, given $175 pretend money, then taken to the pretend store to spend that money.
To hear that from bank manager took me quiet by surprise. I actually felt sorry for her. I wasn't expecting her to teach them to be investors or savers in her time with them, and considering their tender age to be just 4 years old, but I would have expected a big bank to provide their staff and managers with more resources for teaching children. The only notion taught this morning was spend, spend, spend.
Our society is already encouraging this type of carefree, spend all now culture and its that very concept that is seeing the gap between the poor and the wealthy grow constantly wider.
Unfortunately or fortunately, however you like to see it, the change starts at home. Whatever is happening under your roof is the foundation to your child's future relationships with money.
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