Financial literacy refers to understanding concepts such as saving, investing and budgeting. It also means that you are able to practice these concepts and apply them to your own financial situation. It is an invaluable tool for everyone to learn. However, people sometimes make the mistake of thinking that such concepts should be taught in-depth later in life.
But children, especially teenagers, should be at the forefront of any effort to teach financial literacy. Like any facet of education, financial literacy requires a great learning environment.
Thankfully for parents, there is an organization that helps teach financial literacy for kids. This enterprise is called Next Gen Personal Finance and their efforts can be helping create a generation that knows how to be responsible and intelligent with their money.
Today, learn about Next Gen Personal Finance, the importance of financial literacy for kids and why you should teach your teenagers to manage their money.
What is Next Gen Personal Finance?
Financial literacy isn’t often designated in any part of a school’s curriculum. Instead, the onus of teaching your children how to manage their money to their parents. Although there are financial literacy books and personal finance clubs that kids can join, formal education is still the most effective method for children, especially teenagers, to learn complicated concepts.
Next Gen Personal Finance is a non-profit organization that works with teachers in middle and high schools across the United States. Their organization has helped over 30,000 teachers by providing them with personal finance curriculums. The organization’s lessons don’t just include the type of information you can find in financial literacy books.
Next Gen Personal Finance ensures that the course work they offer teachers are customizable, acknowledging that students from different areas will have different economic backgrounds. Instead of simply giving teenagers a personal finance Quizlet test, teachers with materials from the organization can make their students participate. Such hands-on and memorable lesson plans mean that students are more likely to take the information to heart.
Teachers can access all this information and get the guidance they need by singing up on Next Gen Personal Finance’s online portal. Their online professional development courses are free to access. A teacher who signs up for their program will take 4 workshops every day. One of their courses helps teachers to effectively communicate financial literacy for kids over the internet.
Next Gen Personal Finance managed to teach over 50,000 of professional development courses to thousands of teachers in a single year. Thanks to their efforts, teachers across the nation have managed to effectively teach more than 2 million kids financial literacy and responsibility.
Why Is Financial Literacy for Kids Important?
According to experts, approximately 80 percent of teenagers in the United States get their allowances through cash rather than online banking. It’s vital that teenagers understand how to properly manage their allowances because it will help lay the foundation for more complex financial management concepts in the future. Below are some of the most important reasons the work of organizations like Next Gen Personal Finance is important.
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Decrease Their Anxiety
Current events have made everyone anxious and teenagers are just as sensitive to stress as adults, even with money matters. Your teens can be anxious about facing life in college, when they have to fend for themselves and beyond. Teaching them the basics of personal finance can help them confront their fears of the future. If they know that they have the information and the skills to manage their money effectively, your teenagers may be less anxious about what’s to come.
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Help Them Save Up
Although teenagers shouldn’t be worrying about setting up a retirement fund, that doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from lessons from financial literacy books. Your teenagers may appreciate having the ability to save up for their own purchases. Explain to them how learning financial literacy can help them get their car sooner or fund their next spring break trip. Framing financial literacy in such terms can help get teens on board much faster than telling them it’ll be important for buying a home in their 20s. Not to mention it can excuse you from having to buy them expensive items outright.
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Prepares Them for Later Life
When you teach your kids financial literacy, you give them the tools they need to avoid fiscal emergencies and hurdles they could face later in life. If they can handle the basic problems from learning personal finance in Quizlet, they will have an easier time managing their finances so they can pay off their college debt quickly and build hefty savings accounts for a rainy day.
You can also be more confident in entrusting them with handling their own money when you send them to college. A few tips and information from personal finance blogs can help them even be better prepared for when they start working.
Next Gen Personal Finance’s efforts to teach teenagers financial literacy is as crucial as your own efforts. Supporting organizations like them and continuing to impart lessons of fiscal management to your kids are crucial if you want to prepare teens everywhere for later life.
