Within the education we give our children, the teaching of economics is one of the pending subjects in most cases. Teaching how economic relations work, the concept of income and expenditure, the value of things or the concept of money and its use, is not easy to convey or even learn.
To face the teaching of the functioning of the economy in our children, we must follow some basic criteria and a series of rules so that they know how society works and economic relations between individuals. Here are the first three rules for teach economics to our children and know how to value what they have.
The exchange of goods and services, the first lesson
Determining the right age to start economic education is complicated, given that each child shows a different reasoning and learning capacity throughout his life. In any case, The first concept we should teach a child is how barter and trade rudiments work.
This teaching is an innate teaching practically since on many occasions, we teach our children the concept of barter through teachings of good-bad or right-wrong. Using the phrase "if you behave well, let's go to the movies" or "I buy you this gift if you pick up your toys" is one of the first approaches to bartering.
In Babies and more Spanish youths suspend in finance: tips to start teaching them from an early ageBased on this basis, we can explain to a child with relative ease how trade and the exchange of goods or services work and simultaneously we can introduce the concept of money as a key element for the standard valuation of any exchange.
What is money, explained for children
Explaining what money is to a child is a bit complicated if we want to understand money along the same lines as adults. One of the best definitions of money for a child is the following:
Money and its different representations (bills, coins ...) are the symbol of the value we place on things to be able to exchange them for other things. If we use money, it is easier to agree people to be able to exchange what we need and that helps us to live better.
At this point, parents, we can explain to our children how parents get money through their work And with that money, they can buy things for their daily lives. In this same line, we can explain that if we do not have money for our work, it is very difficult to make an exchange with other people.
A simple example for our children to understand this mechanism. Suppose parents work at a car dealership and instead of paying them with money, in exchange for their work, they will be paid in vehicles or car parts. If then, we want to buy food in the supermarket, they will not exchange our food for those parts of cars, since in the supermarket, they do not need them. On the other hand, if in the job of selling cars, they pay us with money, if we can exchange it in the supermarket for food.
The value of things, what two parties are willing to accept
Finally, the next phase of basic economic education for our children is explain how the value of things is quantified and how the value of things is always relative. This value is very easy to explain whenever we define that said value is what two parties are willing to accept for the same.
Just give them a couple of contextualized examples at their age. Suppose we are in the jungle and we have no shoes. How much would we pay for a light bulb in the jungle? Its value would be zero, since in the jungle itself we have no electricity and therefore we would be buying a useless object.
However, if someone offers us some boots, if we could pay for them the amount we consider reasonable and that improves our walking through the vegetation.
How to make our children value what they have
Rate a product, service or implies be aware of the effort we need to get it. Value is a relative concept and it depends both on the need we have for that thing, and on the effort we have to make to achieve it.
All parents explain the value of things with the mechanisms of effort or reward to their children with the examples we have already set. Translating these values into the monetary field can be done by comparison as a first approximation.
In Babies and more Economy for children: Pay and other formulas to learn to driveFor example, we can explain how much we have to work to be able to pay for our home or how they themselves get good rewards or gifts if they achieve high goals. Monetaryly translating a gift, a trip or a vacation can directly teach you how subjective values are translated in economic terms and will learn to formally and emotionally assess what they have.
In summary, the first thing our children have to learn are the rudiments of trade, how exchanges of goods and services are carried out and how the value of things is conditioned by the need we have for them and the supply and demand that It exists in each of the situations we face in the day to day.
In Babies and more | How to make children understand when there are problems in the family economy?
Image | Kaithlin Burkett
