Teaching Children About Money
By Lucy Wood
Money. They say “it doesn’t grow on trees”, but also that “it makes the world go round”. They say “it doesn’t buy you happiness” although admittedly it’s very rare to see someone looking sad while on holiday in Paris! It’s a big topic and it affects life, and lifestyle, in lots of different ways.
In researching this article, I came upon a lot of advice saying that teaching our tamariki about money is important, and that we can’t start early enough. Even infants can begin to learn about the concept of delayed gratification, an important skill for managing finances later in life.
How can we as ECE kaiako help tamariki to develop positive attitudes about money, and to see themselves as capable and competent when it comes to things like saving? While conversations about money are something which likely will also be happening at home, in ECE spaces we can support this learning, in ways that are age appropriate, positive and empowering for our tamariki.
