The Finest Techniques for How to Teach Kids About Money

Anyone interested to find out how to teach kids about money should read the following illustration, which indicates best practices for the process.

Cheryl Otero was a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) and single mother of two boys, aged 10 and 15. Given her profession, she knew educating people to manage their money was important. But what were the best methods for how to teach kids about money? She talked with her sons to find out what they knew and what they needed to know. She learned that her younger son had an interest in setting up a savings account, while the elder wanted to know the ins and outs of buying a car when he turned 16.

Cheryl set a primary goal of helping her sons get the information they needed at each of their current life stages. She decided to set aside an hour a week with each of them individually. If she was going to succeed in her effort to start teaching kids about money, she needed to address their unique interests. Her first objective, then, was to help her 10-year-old set up a bank account, and teach her 15-year-old everything involved in the car-buying process. According to Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Theory, Cheryl thought they could attain their objectives if they reached Level 3, Strategic Thinking (planning, reasoning, and explaining thought processes) – which would take maybe 10 educational sessions.

Having identified her short- and long-term targets, Cheryl needed to understand the pacing and delivery options involved in how to teach kids about money. She wanted to deliver the lessons informally herself, in one-on-one interactions with the kids. Cheryl selected self-paced training because her kids were at different ages and stages of development.

Now Cheryl sought the next piece of information related to How to Teach Money to Kids, which was choosing the subject matter. Her sons had specific interests – account management and car buying – so she decided to focus her instruction on those topics initially, while leaving the option open of expanding into more subjects in the future.

Cheryl wanted to deliver the lessons herself, but although as a CFP she knew a lot about finances, she didn’t know how to teach kids about money. Since their educator needed to be qualified both in content and teaching skill, Cheryl decided to improve her credibility by doing some training in How to Teach Money to Kids. She located a comprehensive certification program through the NFEC.

Now Cheryl’s task was to choose financial literacy curriculum. She wanted something age-appropriate, with practical lessons and engaging activity suggestions. She accomplished her goal by locating a package that was specifically scaffolded for each target age group, and that used interactive, action-based strategies.

While doing the CFEI training, Cheryl learned that measurement was also important when one tries to teach kids about money. She drew on the resources here to develop short quizzes her kids could take before and after each lesson. Both her sons improved their knowledge levels – on average, by 18%. Cheryl kept track of this information so she could reward them for doing well.