Financial Education For Kids

Yesterday I read an article about “Financial Education for Children’ in one of a local business newspaper, Kontan Weekly. It’s a simple guide for parents. I, myself, really concerned about how important it is for young children to understand the value of money in this era of credit cards and ATM.
I believe the importance in giving them financial “training”. The earlier we gave them the better result they’ve got and in the long run would save difficulties for them in managing their own money.

These are the steps to start:
Parents as a role model.
Did you remember how was your parents managed their money when you were kid? Then take a look at their financial condition now. However they are our first role model in forming our way of thinking about money. Maybe you would follow your successful parents in managing money or vice versa. For me, I really turn to the different 'direction' from them since I don’t want to follow their mistaken.
From the beginning of this year I’ve started to share with my 2 teens about our financial condition. It doesn’t matter for them to know it since they’ll learn something. My hubby and I feel free to discuss with them where we want to invest our money and why we did it or for what reason we’d spent the money into this or that…

Stop to save money in piggy bank. Teach them how to spent money.
That’s true. Piggy bank would not give financial education to your kids. It only teaches your kid to put in the coin or $$ into a narrow space. Kids should understand money is a legal payment device. It means money should have to be spent :). Kids should understand shopping is necessary, but it doesn’t healthy if we did it to much!
With my family -at the end of the kids’ school year- we usually go for traveling and at that moment they could spend their saving money (often it comes from their all year long extra ‘snack’ money that we gave them weekly and from our “rewarding” present if they did something good and special). But still spending in a moderately way.

Teach them how to earn money
For you that already have kids, surely we had ever got these questions:
“Mom, if you don’t have enough money why shouldn’t you go and get some money from that ATM booth?” or “You could scratch your card, isn’t that easy Dad?”.
You need to tell them money comes from hard works and we save it in a bank. ATM or credit cards just a kind of card to access the money we’d saved before. (for a 3 – 5 aged kid usually need a longer time to make them understand). I often show to my kids when I need to transfer some money for paying bills at the ATM.
So, there is no ‘money tree’, honey. But you know what, once my 4 year old kid saw an Angpao Tree and asked me a question when we were shopping at the mall around Chinese New Year, “Mom, there is a real money tree here. You said it doesn’t exist”. Ha ha …
Sometimes learning to start a ‘little business’ could be fun for teens. I’ve ever posted to this blog about my daughter sold her own made name cards and how my 2nd boy often run out of money. Last week he made a good progress and we’re happy for him. This the ‘story’ goes….
Last week end we all go to Makro -a wholesaler place- to do monthly shopping for home supplies. The he saw a pack of eraser -contain 40 ones- for only Rp 8.000,- (about less than 1U$). “How cheap”, I said, but does it good?
“May I have it, mom?” he asked for permission. I’ll agree. At home he tried the eraser and said it was a real good quality.
The next day after he arrived from school, he gave back my Rp 8.000 because he had sold them to his friends for Rp 1.000 each. He sold out 37 pieces; keep the 3 pieces rest for him and 2 of his siblings. Gosh…he gained Rp 29.000 !
Sure he was glad and spent part of the money for an action figure of a Japanese comic hero. It was his first ‘selling’.

Well, the financial education never comes to the ending. All the good habit should start from the very young at ages. Also don’t forget to remind them about the habit of giving and sharing to the needy. Good luck!

Kartini SALE ??

I’ve just arrived at home, after picked up my son from school. An hour ago while I was stop driving at the traffic light, my eyes stared on a colorful street banner with big letters: “SALE only TODAY….CELEBRATE KARTINI’S DAY. Discount up to 50% for ALL ITEMS”.
You see, that ad comes from one big department store in Indonesia.

Something is bothered me to see that ads, I read it again…
I think this is all wrong to celebrate Kartini day with shopping!
Ok, I’ll explain to you who Kartini is, maybe some of my blog reader is not come from Indonesia. Kartini is an aristocrat Javanese woman who lived a century ago. She married to a regent, who was a widower with couple of children. She has progressive thinking about women in her era and all of her thinking was written to her European best friends by letters. After she died, her letters were booked in “After the Dark, Rising the Light”. Her thinking became a beginning of Indonesian women movements, that’s why we celebrate her birthday every April 21st as Kartini’s Day. It seems like ‘Indonesian Women Day’ here. Kartini has become a women emancipation personage here.

Ok, now back to my thinking….(not Kartini’s of course).
I think to continue Kartini’s struggle not just only wear traditional costumes every her birthday with all the ceremony blah, blah, blah….. (the students here still do this way, I don’t agree at all). That’s not the point. The most principle on women development here is education. Women here should reconstruct her own paradigm. For women, school is not only for looking good jobs with good salary, more than that…. School is a must and necessity to change the paradigm of thinking and to see the world with different perspective. Oh, you should read this sentences, I read today at Kompas Daily:
“ If you educate one man, you educate one person. But if you educate one woman, you educate one generation “ (Meutia Hatta).

Beautiful, isn’t it?

In our hands as women, new generations with more good behaviors, high moral standards and good qualities will be born. So, let’s build our motivation and don’t be broke our enthusiasms down in improvement our selves to a better one….
Remember, don’t shopping today just to get Kartini’s Sale…That’s not us!
Ha-ha-ha….
Hope the Department Store that gives ad “Kartini’s Sale” would hire a smart woman for its Marketing Department next year.

Is it true, EDUCATION for ALL ?

Yesterday, I had two interesting experience, but they're so contrary to each other although both of them is about education in the same city, same country.

The first...

In the morning I went to a prescholl in a remote area in Ngaliyan-Semarang with all of my 50 preschoolers and their parents ( I run a private preschool next to my house). It's one of our program in this month, we called it "berbagi kasih" or "sharing love". The scholl we visited, was really need so much help. Maybe I could describe how its condition. No electricity (it's still in central Java province!), for all the 18 students they only have 5 wood puzzles (15 cm x 15 cm, that's the only one educational toys they have, beside one blackboard, chairs and tables and one teacher that sometimes had salary, sometime not). No books at all...Can you imagine, school without books? On the beginning of the school academic year, the teacher often should to pick the children up for school, because sometimes their mothers affraid they couldn't afford the school fee every month (Rp 20.000/month or about 2 U$). The teacher was so happy when we gave them story books (each of my students collected 2 ), stationaries, magazines, etc. We're all happy because we're friend now, our students know other children that has not have the same opportunity like them and will learn something good from this. I hope we could always get in touch.

The second one....
In the afternoon I attended the gathering and presentation of the new Catholic private school (with national plus curricullum and international standart they said) in Semarang. The venue was in Novotel, a really nice and cozy place to meet. The school itself will be start running on the next academic year, this July. The program of the school, facilities, teachers,etc, as long as the same with the yesterday presentation, of course has the best quality in town. Don't ask me the tuition...I don't feel good to tell you, especially after I went to the first school in the morning. You could guess or imagine by yourself....

Deep inside me, I feel terribly sorry for those 2 experiences I went through.

Is it true, EDUCATION for ALL?