Teaching Teens Financial Literacy

Believe it or not, good money habits learnt early in life can save your child from bankrupt. 

 Apart from the allowance from parents, teenager may be interested in earning more money through occasional odd job. Although, this has been associated with negative effects on a teenager, but there are also some benefits of doing a part time work. It can provide a teenager with a source of income, career guidance, independence, real-life experiences, responsibility, the chance to develop interpersonal skills in the workplace, the opportunity to learn new skills and time management experience.

However, as said earlier one should note that there are also drawbacks to working. Teenagers who work - especially those who work more than 20 hours per week - may have a harder time completing their school work, may have lower grades in school (often due to fatigue and lack of preparation), may have increased stress (trying to "fit it all in") and may develop a negative view of education. Naturally, the negative aspects of working are not one-size-fits-all, and while one teenager may suffer in school because of a job, another might thrive because of a growing sense of independence and accomplishment. Because no two kids are alike, it is important for parents to be aware of how work may be affecting each child. Therefore, in this regard making any changes to the job and scaling back hours is necessary.

On this note, we’ll be examining financial literacy for teenagers and the role of adults in monetary education.

Is it really important to educate a teen age child on money? 

People talk about how important it is to teach teenagers sex education but little or nothing is usually said about monetary education for teens.

For many adults, however, talking about money is like to talking about challenging subjects. Unsure of where to begin and worried about saying the wrong thing, many adults simply avoid conversation about money. It is often made worse by adults’ lack of confidence in their own handling of finances.

Truthfully, the role of financial educator falls primarily on parents, guardians and other adults in the home. Teach your children financial principles in accordance with their age’s void of complicated explanation of income tax, stock market or economics.  We need to derive methods on how we can make it fun, keeping it as simple as possible, and not bore them with too much details like poor state of economy that easily disrupt the message you are trying to pass across. 


These are some tips for financial literacy and management for teenagers:

1)   Teach your teenager how to give God and the poor from his/her allowance/income (tithe, offering and  alms giving).

2)      Involve your teenager in financial planning and budgeting.

3)      Take him/her along with you for shopping.

4)     Show your child how to spend money and make choices. Consequently, he/she will imitate your attitude towards money and its use.

5)     By example, showing your child how to be responsible with money (that is, being responsible with money should start from you).

6)  Ensure that he/she realize that there are different brands and price options, by doing so; you are developing your child to become a critically skilful customer as he/she grows old.

7)     Let your teenager know that you are not picking/buying a good because of the name of the brand, but it is because of the value. That is to say, when choosing a brand of product, it must be worth its cost.

8)    Advise him/her to judiciously manage his/her money well to avoid borrowing and getting into debt, also educate him/her on the consequences of getting into a habit of debt.

9)    Explain to your teen age child how to differentiate between needs and wants, and how to attend to need before want.

10)  Give him/her pocket money and encourage him/her to budget, put aside some for savings and buy some things for himself/herself and give an account of how the rest is spent. As a result of this, the child is given the sense of responsibility, independence, and prudent spending.

11) Above all, open a savings account in his/her name, ensure that he/she pays at least part of his/her allowance into the bank, or part of the earnings from the part time job. This will give your child knowledge of banking system, as well as, prevent unnecessary spending due to excess cash available at hand.

12)   Emphasize that money saved is not to be withdrawn without a pressing need and a reasonable purpose.