Should we be educating young people about the danger of financial vulnerability?

[Brefugee]

Don't want this to be a TAAT but there is one running right now that is quite shocking.

Do we have a responsibility to young people - maybe in secondary school as part of their (what is it? PHSE?) lessons to learn or show how things like "common law marriage" don't actually exist? And that it is sensible to try to be as watertight as you can regarding finances both out of and within a relationship? And that leaving yourself open to poverty in your later years because you believed your partner wouldn't dump you (and children) without a penny?

How can we cut down on this happening?

Parents and carers should be.

Stop getting schools to teach more stuff, the curriculum is already packed!

The more information young people have regarding financial responsibility the better, but it should be coming from the parents, the schools have enough to do

The best idea is to be a good role model yourself.

It's another area parents need to take responsibility. Seems these days we expect schools to teach our kids everything.

This 100%

Yes as we all know lots of children aren't lucky enough to have parents or guardians who are able to teach them this. But I'd also change the entire curriculum rather than adding more to it.

I agree there are loads of ludicrous myths that persist about this. Generally critical thinking skills and strategies about how to actually question and determine whether something is true - yes, should be taught in schools.

The financial implications of buying property and starting a family - yes, I think somewhere this should be mentioned, along with legal implications of marriage. But perhaps at college rather than school, or to the population in general.

There are loads of things we have to suddenly take on board at points in our life - navigating benefits, taxes, applying for jobs, credit, driving, dealing practically with deaths... we need to equip people with the knowledge of how to access decent resources for these sorts of things, and have the resources in place.

Eg Age UK is great at telling you what to do when someone dies.

Is there an equivalent financial abuse charity/advice provider?

Bring back Public Information Films on TV.

We get a lot of posts about things that schools should teach on here and I think that most teens aren’t going to listen to that kind of info because they see it as hypothetical and so far in the future that it’s not relevant to them. They assume that they will earn plenty or are too savvy to end up with an abusive person. Im not saying that people who end up with abusive people are stupid btw- but I think that a lot of people with no experience of abuse think that they wouldn’t end up in that situation in the first place )

Destiny's Child used to have a great line in TED talks on personal responsibility for Independent Women who paid their own Bills, Bills, Bills, and so forth. Maybe Beyonce could be the new Charlie Says cat? Beyonce says, Put a Ring on It and Also Your Name on the Deeds Boo.

Its tricky, because parents should be teaching this, but the parents don't know themselves. There's been threads this week where women have assumed they can stay in the family home until the children are 18 as a given. There's always threads about people wanting to break up with their partners but have been working part time and are dismayed that they won't have enough money. Women give up years of their career for child rearing then struggle when they have little pension to show for it.
There's also still a real insistence in society that preparing for a worst case scenario is unromantic, or untrusting. Couples should absolutely all be sitting down when times are good and going 'how do we ensure things work out well if we split' WITHOUT people making promises to 'not leave you in the lurch' that they might not keep.

well i know parents should be teaching this. But are parents doing this? and if they don't we just say "oh well, you gave 30 years of your life to this waster and now you have nothing, take it up with your parents"?

I do like the idea - like Rock the Vote back then - of getting people talking about this in public information films.

@Brefugee the information is out there for people to access.

People really do seem to be incapable of doing anything these days without a school or government agency spoonfeeding them.

Parents aren't toilet training their kids, I heard a stat this morning that something like 17% of yR are not toilet trained. This is not on the schools / teachers to deal with.

DTs are in y8, they have covered off financial stuff in PHSE already.

My mum was a SAHM, she was extremely vulnerable and when my dad had an affair when I was 16 forgave him partly due to her circumstances.

I vowed never to be in that situation. Their marriage was definitely not happy, my mum died at 60.

I divorced at 40, not as financially comfortable as I'd like (ex a gambler) but I was able to get a mortgage and have a good public sector pension.

My own children are young adults. I regularly share my financial situation with them. They need to have a good understanding around finances and how to ensure their own financial stability into adulthood. I am happy to share mistakes I've made, along with positive financial decisions. I see that as my role as parent and provider through their formative years. Not the schools responsibility.

There is also the argument that not everything has to be taught: some people can learn by listening, reading, observing, asking questions and using that information to make informed decisions.

Too often people try to put responsibility for their ignorance on other people: eg "no one told me babies would be so much work!" Really? I have never wanted to have children but could see early on that babies are a lot of work. "I didn't know that there was no such thing as common law marriage." Really? You couldn't look this information up or ask someone who knows what they are talking about?

I don’t understand where people get their (wrong) information from? It takes seconds to find out online. I think in this day and age, it’s a bit much to turn around as an adult and just say, oh I didn’t know, I never checked, I just floated along until it all went wrong.

Cross-post, totally agree

I definitely think that secondary schools should teach the basics of how to manage your own finances, which could include the legal and financial implications of marriage and the importance of saving for a pension. We can’t rely on parents to teach this as too many of them are clueless.

To make space on the curriculum, how about ditching “British Values”? There no values unique to the British, only cultural norms, so it was a silly idea in the first place.

Teachers can't teach everything, but many schools have a Finance week where outreach sessions run by banks are carried out and the sessions delivered by professionals they cover things like how to read a payslip, what a mortgage is and topics like that.

The thing is, how much do you actually remember from school by the time you get old enough for it to be actually relevant to your life? There are plenty of free online financial training sessions aimed at children and adults but you've got to be aware of them interested to actually do them and most people who end up financially vulnerable either think it'll never happen to them as they are so in love or simply don't understand that they are.

Ds has just been doing financial stuff in year 7. It’s bored him witless and I doubt he’ll retain much. I think it would be better if it was covered at sixth form age, together with other life skills.

But at the end of the day, I still don’t know how useful it would be. For example, I can remember my parents, teachers and other adults banging on about pensions and how I should start paying into one as early as possible. Did I? Did I chuff. I just rolled my eyes and spent all my money on travelling.

so consensus so far is: they won't listen in school so no point (and teachers are too busy teaching things like British Values anyway) and that the information is out there so meh, we shouldn't try to do any more than that?

There was a thread here a while ago (may even have been in FWR so nobody read it) where someone who was heavily involved in the church was talking about the pre-marriage courses offered by her church. Of course, that doesn't help those whose partner won't get married, but even info stands in towns or posters like the "ask for Alice at the bar if you need help" or "here's the number for a DA charity" on the back of a toilet door in a café - would that help?

Dd is 7 and for ages she asked why I wasn’t married like her friend’s parents. I basically just explained that I don’t want to share my savings and I own my home outright and no chance is anyone getting half of that 😅 in kid friendly terms of course!

It should just be a part of life as they grow up, explaining how finances work and how to protect themselves. Same way you explain anything else to them.

so consensus so far is: they won't listen in school so no point (and teachers are too busy teaching things like British Values anyway) and that the information is out there so meh, we shouldn't try to do any more than that?

Who is the we you are talking about? People seem to increasingly need help with everything, and given full instructions for life.

I don’t feel any responsibility to do anything. I’d help family out if they needed it, but why should we all need to help out ostriches with their heads in the sand?

People need to learn to be up front about money. Also to understadn that ultimately as an adult, the ony person responsible for your financial well being is you. Start from that point when negotiating any calls on your time that reduce your earning capacity.