How do we provide financial education to children?

How do we provide financial education to children? At home, most often, through games – the fundamental activity in childhood.

Financial education can start at home. Children can learn the secrets of money at home with their parents.

A solid education is done from the age of 3, within the family, based on games, discussions and activities in which they are also involved.

How do we provide financial education to children?

Financial education includes discussions, games, readings about what money is, how money came to be and how it is made. When we are young, we will discuss with our children how money came to be, namely barter and how it determined the appearance of money, removing the inconveniences of exchange. Also, what money includes: coins and banknotes.

Children learn through action with the material, with the concrete in order to be able to intuit the information transmitted. Practical activity is the basis of learning at this age. Sorting money is a basic practice in learning about money.

Children will enjoy being able to interact with money, to sort it; they can put it into groups: coins – banknotes or of the same shape or color. Commercial money will be used – papers with the shape, print and color of real money.

At the age of 3-5/6, children will “buy” things, they can be trained in “shopping” games to understand that they receive things based on the exchange made: they receive what they need/want and give money in exchange. They begin to learn, with the help of their parents, the value of money: coins are used to purchase small and very small things: an ice cream, a ball, a candy, and with banknotes – larger things: a sandwich, a bag of cereal, a truck, clothes, etc. Once they have become aware of what money is and what its value is, we move on to financial education, to working for money and saving it. From the age of 4, we can have children do various tasks and earn money, and with the money earned, teach them to save for what they want but cost more.

Once they are 6-7 years old, children can put money in jars/envelopes for savings, current expenses and donations. We can teach them to donate, creating the habit of giving to those who do not have.

What is financial education for children?

Financial education for children is a way of life. It is the model that children receive to organize their adult and family life; their family in the future.

Financial education represents the habits, the behaviors that we create in childhood and to which we are faithful throughout our lives. As we form ourselves, so we will be in adult life. If we have learned the “taste of money”, we will not be able to avoid expenses and money will always come out of our pockets recklessly.

Money will never be ours until we “direct” it, we do not tell it what to do: to stay with us, respectively to save it or to work for us: to invest it, so that our money produces other money for us and to learn financial health, prosperity.

Financial education is about behaviors, habits, information but also about positive thinking in relation to money

Why financial education now, in childhood?

Children aged 3-6 have a mind like a sponge; the most absorbent sponges there are. At this age, they store a wealth of information and shape their behavior. Now the foundations of the adult they will become are laid.

The seven years at home are aimed at the child’s education. It is the most important. To lay the foundations for a behavior of wise spending, saving and intelligent investment of money, the appropriate time is represented by childhood. Curiosity helps in achieving financial education, but not only. Being curious, the child integrates into his set of values, principles and we can also integrate those of a financial nature.

“As you raise him, so you will have him” says a saying. Now, while he is little, you can educate him for how you want him to be. Do you want to have a responsible adult? Talk to him about money and give him financial education! Do you want him to be independent, then offer him the opportunity to earn money and take care of it. Do you want to form a hardworking, disciplined adult? Then make him “work”: talk to him about work and offer him tasks that he enjoys in order to develop diligence, responsibility, discipline, fairness, diligence and the determination to do something well and to the end.

Do you want to learn more about financial education for children up to the age of 12? Order the book: “101 ideas on how to give your child financial education”. The book is in electronic format, has just over 200 pages and includes information about how children learn and what activities are financially appropriate for them to enjoy and how to provide solid financial education, according to their age and preferences. https://www.e-learning.psihologiabanilor.ro/product/101-idei-despre-cum-sa-faci-educatie-financiara-copilului-tau/

Good luck in raising awareness of money and the importance of early financial education! And be patient in the educational process, namely the financial education provided to your child!