I overheard my landlord talking with his children, who are 9 and 13 years of age, on Saturday morning. He was talking a little about banking, investing, and mostly credit cards. He was talking with them about using credit cards responsibly. He was getting into all the math and everything with them, and talking about how the credit card companies make money.
I'm all for parents teaching their children to spend money wisely and to save. However, I'm thinking to myself "do kids their age really care about credit cards"? They're not even going to be able to apply for a credit card until they're 18, unless their parents cosign with them. I can understand maybe talking with them a little more when they're 16 or 17, and definitely before the kids head off to college. When I was somewhere between 9 and 13 years of age, do you know what I cared about? Video games! I wasn't the one making the major financial decisions. I didn't have a credit card and I still don't. I do have student loans to pay off, though. I know about being responsible with credit cards and how the credit card companies make money. You know what? My parents never had a talk with me about credit cards.
My landlord has also had a talk with me about investing on way too many occasions. I think he forgets that he even had these talks with me. He keeps asking me "have you heard of the rule of such and such"....something I learned about in school. He tells me "I doubt they even taught you this when you're in school..." I remember one time I said "Yes, they taught me that" and he said "no they didn't". I know what I was taught.
Anyway, that's a little off subject there. Back to what I was talking about. If the kids had questions, I think it would be reasonable to explain the basics of how it works. In fact, it's probably a great idea when you're talking about spending. But how much do we need to get into the math of this? And do they not teach this stuff in school anymore? They taught this stuff when I was at the School of Communication Arts, not too long ago. They taught this stuff at least starting with algebra classes. I know our education system has problems, but has it gone that far downhill since I graduated from high school? And does a father really need to go that much in depth with his children when they're at 9 and 13 years old? I think just explaining the basic stuff would have been ok. They didn't need a whole lecture about it at their age.
If they were talking about what they learned at school the previous week, and it involved the math of a credit card, that's one thing. But that's not what was going on. It was just kind of random, really.
There are lots of other things that this guy is teaching his kids that my parents never taught me, I just learned from observation of others. Are these kids not able to observe others and learn from that? Did my parents just totally neglect me or something? OK, I admit my parents weren't perfect, there were a lot of things they could have done better, and I mean A LOT! But at the same time, they didn't give me an information overload and try to beat this kind of stuff into my head.
And I guess I will get to the spiritual side of this. A lot of this, from what I've seen, is rooted in the idea that the world is a dark place and it's only getting worse. He has told me that he's concerned about his kids' futures (understandably) because wages here in the US are going to have to go down if we won't to compete with other countries where jobs are being outsourced to, and he's basically telling his kids "brace yourselves, it's going to get ugly" instead of saying "yes, it's going to get ugly, but God has your back, he will provide." He is emphasizing the negative and neglecting to tell us what God has told us in his word. We do need to be realistic. We live in a fallen world, and quite frankly, many things have been getting worse. But you know what? We've got the holy spirit inside of us if we've been born again. He gives us the wisdom and the power to make a difference in this world.
Anyway, I'm just curious. Unless you just have really "nerdy" kids, how much is too much information on credit cards when it comes to the average 9 year old and 13 year old? I think if they're really curious about it, that's great, explain it all to them. But otherwise, stick with the basics, be an example to your children with your own spending habits, and when the children get closer to an age where they're thinking more about credit, go into greater detail. For a 9 and 13 year old, I kind of feel like the amount he went into it was information overload.
I will say that there's a possibility I could be very off base here. If you think I am, feel free to let me know. And I do want to make it clear, I am not against parents teaching their children good spending habits. That's a good thing. But how much detail about credit is too much? Does a 9 year old really need to know all the mathematical formulas that go into that?
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2 comments:
I do think you may a tad off base with this...and please know that I say this with love :)
Usually a parent can gauge the interest level of the child when he or she talks to them about something.
I have very inquisitive kids. Some of them would be extremely interested in a detailed conversation about credit cards at that age, and some of them wouldn't!
And I disagree with the implication that its the school's job to be a child's primary teacher. IMO the parent is always a child's primary teacher in life regardless of where/if the child goes to school.
And I wouldn't necessarily equate a parents sharing a topic that they are passionate about with giving that child information overload.
Regardless of how much a parent shares or doesn't share with their child, kids can't help but observe and pick up things from the world around them. One way of learning doesn't negate the other.
I totally get that this man may have a fear based concern about finances - and that he runs the risk of passing this fear along to his children.
But I do think that it might be a good thing to separate your concern that he is giving the children too much information from your concerns about his sharing his fears with his kids.
Remember,its possible that the kids enjoyed the fact that their dad was sharing his interests and passions with them!
They may have learned to just enjoy the emotional connection with him and tune out the mathematical details.
I see what you're saying there.
I didn't mean to say it was the school's job to be a child's primary teacher. I guess I came off sounding that way though. The parent should definitely be the child's primary teacher.
I just know that I learned about this stuff in school, and it was sufficient for me. What I did notice, however, was a lot of the students weren't caring about what was being taught. Then some of those people that were in the very same classes I was in would be saying "wow, that kid is smart" even though they had the opportunity to learn it and didn't care.
But still, I think parenting had a lot to do with that.
Honestly, I didn't see much enjoyment from the landlord's kids while they were discussing this. Maybe they were actually enjoying it, I dunno.
Quite honestly, having lived in this house for 3 months, often times these kids seem way too stressed out for a 9 year old and 13 year old, unfortunately.
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