Teaching Kids About Money Through Play

At Save-Then-Play Camp (TM) children learn how to save, budget, and invest money while earning cash and prizes.

Kids ages nine to 13 learn to manage their dollars through the Junior Finance Literary Academy offered through the Fort Worth, TX Public Library.

Attendees go to an orientation/registration and attend finance workshops at schools and the Central Library in downtown Fort Worth.

The program is free and open to the public.

At Camp Colman in Olympia, Washington, kids learn how to play games and other skills while also learning about reducing waste at mealtime.

"When my own kids came it was funny to watch," said one parent who attended the camp as a kid. "It was the first time they had money to spend. I think it's an important lesson."

At the Money Camp, nicknamed the camp that lasts a lifetime, parents can come with their child or not.

"Our society has done a very poor job of teaching our children about how money works," said Camp Founder Elisabeth Donati. "Like parenting and relationships we are left to learn about it from family, friends, the media, and our parents who themselves may never have been taught basic financial principles."

Girl Scout Leader Cindy Persico, herself an entrepreneur who owns her own business, teaches her girls in her troop about earning money and even gives them little opportunities to do so.

"When I first started with them they thought our troop got the Girl Scout cookies for free," she said. "I had to explain things to them."

"Not many people view having children as a financial decision but the costs start well before the blessed event," said Don Kuehn, a finance writer. "Modeling appropriate behavior does a large part in teaching kids about money."

In Denver, CO at the Young Americans Center for Financial Education kids learn how to run a business, manage business, hold a job, run a town, and even the world.

"Kids make mistakes. That's why it's important to teach them how to handle money very early," said Mary Harrison a consumer education professor. "Otherwise they may have to learn through trial and error when they get out on their own and the stakes are higher."
Allowances can teach financial lessons according to writer Diette Courrege.

Jeff Herring, who wrote an article recently about teaching teens about money, said most teenagers go into the world not knowing about finances.

"Even if their parents have attempted to teach them about money they still haven't had the wonderfully frightening experience we adults have had with it," he said. "Teach them to pay themselves first."