While talking about money isn’t always easy, it’s probably a pretty good idea for parents to start teaching their kids about financial responsibility at a young age, and it seems parents could be doing a much better job of it. The new Junior Achievement-Jackson Children's Financial Literacy Survey polled 500 children, ages seven to 10 and their parents to find out just how much kids know about money, and it turns out they still have a lot to learn.
The survey finds that 33% of youngsters don’t know how to get or earn money, while 41% haven’t been taught how to spend money, and 47% don’t know how to give money to help people. And while 53% of kids know that people put money in a bank to save it, only 25% are aware you could earn interest on that savings.
But kids aren’t totally clueless. In fact, 91% of children know that you earn money from working at a job, and most know the basics, like how to count and save money, probably because 82% of them are earning an allowance by doing things like chores, homework or getting good grades.
- And it’s not like parents don’t know it’s their responsibility to teach their kids about finances. Overall, 77% think money is pretty easy to explain to a child, as compared to things like death, or where babies come from. What’s more, another 77% believe the best place for a child to learn about finances is in the home, with the most parent starting to teach kids at around eight, although some parents start as early as five.