I teach upper primary and as part of financial education, we look at ‘average salaries’ for different professions. We look at the cost of everything; the local housing market; rent/mortgages; council tax; bills, etc.
We make pretend families, give them incomes and create a spreadsheet of the their possible income/outgoings. We decide what we have to pay for and emergencies that we might need to put money aside for. We look at the cost of the things they desire, family holidays, trips to the cinema, etc. and see if we can afford them in our budgets.
Through our pretend families, we discuss things like larger families needing more resources, double and single incomes, when families split up they usually split resources and need an additional home, what happens in families with low/no income, how much minimum wage is, what your options are if you are short of money, how loans and credit cards work and what the benefits/dangers are of them.
I’ve done something similar with younger children, giving them each an amount of Monopoly money as a ‘salary’. I take most of it away to cover bills and then we look at what we have left and what we might like to do with it (spend/save,etc).
You don’t necessarily need to disclose what you earn to your kids, but I think children need to develop a better understanding of money, where it comes from and where it goes. I’d never even heard of council tax until I was 17 and living in my student flat…