Teaching Kids About Money Management can best be accomplished according to a specific procedure involving eight steps. What follows is a good illustration of how the process works:

The problem facing Patricia Grant, Teacher’s Aide at Madison Middle School with an interest in Teaching Kids About Money Management, was how to reach out to low-income families. Patricia’s desire for Teaching Kids Money Management stemmed from her experience overseeing the free lunch program at Madison. The kids who received the free lunches could benefit greatly from learning more about managing money, Patricia believed. That knowledge might help them break out of their socioeconomic situations as they matured.

Because Patricia knew the children’s families were fiscally challenged, her initial plan was to launch a program that would be either free or very low-cost to the participants. Her hope was to build a sustainable program that involved parents and kids alike in the process of Teaching Kids About Money Management. Over the course of a full-scale initiative, Patricia wanted the children to reach the Extended Thinking level on Webb’s Depth of Knowledge scale – capability for complex reasoning and analysis.

Patricia’s program for Teaching Kids Money Management was beginning to take shape. Now she had to determine program delivery – how to pace the education, and what type of instructional options to choose. The families she wanted to reach were low-income, so some of them might not have access to the Internet at home. She decided in-person instruction would work best, with a hybrid of self-directed and achievement-based pacing.

The subsequent phase of Teaching Kids About Money Management involved choosing the topics of focus. Patricia was working on a broad-scale initiative, so she wanted a comprehensive program that would include the full range of subjects age-appropriate for middle schoolers. She decided the instruction should cover financial psychology, budgeting, savings, career planning, insurance, and entrepreneurship.

Patricia had to select an educator for Teaching Kids Money Management. This person would need strong qualifications, both in teaching middle school kids and knowledge about personal finances. Patricia’s research uncovered a CFEI (Certified Financial Education Instructor) who had children attending Madison Middle School. Patricia contacted the woman, who had up-to-date NFEC certification credentials and was both willing and available to teach the training.

Patricia set about locating a curriculum that would cover all the topics she’d identified, one that met educational and compliance standards. She wanted something both comprehensive and practical. Patricia found just what she was looking for – a broad-based curriculum that incorporated adequate scaffolding, could accommodate any schedule, and had lessons for Teaching Kids Money Management that were both practical and action-oriented.

Prior to launch of the comprehensive program, Patricia sought measures for demonstrating program impact to attract collaborators and funding. For the first presentation, she conducted a pre- and post-test among the 53 students and parents who attended. The average percentage of improvement after the program was 35% – a major accomplishment. Patricia wrote media releases to publicize these results, with the goal of raising funds to support and sustain the program ongoing.