To Secure The Future Of Kenya, We Must Train Our Children About Money Today

As a nation, we tend to shy away from the topic of money. Our financial habits and attitudes to household finances are formed from a very young age and are largely influenced by how we saw our parents manage their finances.

Unfortunately as a country, we seem to have left this responsibility to everyone else except us. Look at how we managing our national resources. Look at the student loans at HELB. It’s a deep, roaring cry that something needs to be done and done now before it’s too late.

Our children need to know that money has a value that money needs to circulate, that it’s important to pay back any money you borrow and that above all, money with value and ability to create genuine wealth is money that is legal and real, not fake or wash-wash.

Money plays a big role in our lives, it can affect our relationships, our stress levels, and our overall well-being. Our lives are basically designed around the essence of money, in whatever form we can access it.

How we use and talk about money has a massive impact on how our children’s relationship with it develops as they grow up. The drama we are witnessing in Kenya from our elected leaders to inheritance and succession issues indicates that the generation ahead of mine, those born between 1963 to 1979 never learned the essence to train and teach their children the essence and value of prudent management of money.

Watching and reading the news every day is sickening because of what is always happening with killings and court fights over money and inheritance.

This is a serious conversation that no one is having yet it’s the denominator in our society that is tearing apart at the seams because of constant change that life seems to be handing us every day.

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There are so many critical skills that children need to survive and thrive in today’s world. Developing solid financial skills is one of these and it’s vital to their future well-being. It’s never too early to begin but equally important is it’s never too late. This is the conversation that we as parents, other stakeholders like banks, regulators, and teachers need to start and sustain. I wish I had been taught some basic financial aspects when I was young, it would have guided me and protected me in my old age.

As parents, we all want the best for our kids. We want our kids to get the best upbringing, the best education, the best quality of life, and the best financial situation. An important part of raising our kids and giving them a good upbringing is making sure that they grow up to be financially responsible individuals.

We are the biggest influence on our children’s development and it’s important that we set good examples and become more transparent about money with our kids. This includes teaching our kids about money. This is something that we need to take up and be deliberate about it. No one else will come to teach our kids about personal finance. This is their critical foundation and it is upon us.

The good and bad habits that our kids learn and develop come from us, so we have to be more aware of how we discuss and treat money in front of our children. What they read, what they see on TV, and hear on the radio needs to be deliberate and credible to ensure that we raise a better generation than what we are and have become.

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With the rise of mobile money, debit card, pre-paid cards, credit card usage and the increasing number of digital and blockchain payments, the notion of currency is becoming more and more abstract. If children are not able to get a grasp of the actual exchange of money and goods, then they will develop the idea that money is endless and easy to come by. They need to understand the basic, crude aspect of what money is and grow up understanding that money is constantly evolving to fit the current economic status and they must be able to appreciate that, or else they will destroy everything that we have built. The same way our forefathers used to train as warriors, we must train our children to be financial warriors for the sake of better development and creative investments.

Also, our children do not see us save when all our money interactions are digital. They do not see our salaries being wired to our accounts, and part of that being wired to our savings account. These distant digital-only transactions make it all the more important to create interactions around money at home for children to observe and copy. They need to understand how money has moved from the brick and motor to the digital wallets and that the aspect of looking for money is the same. The only difference is the delivery of the proceeds once we reach a certain threshold.

Research shows that kids learn best from those they respect. This research also points out that kids learn through what they call “modeling,” or you might call it, “Monkey see, monkey do.” Kids will mimic what they see, especially by those they trust and respect and are in contact with the most.

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