Survey finds adults doubt money skills of children
CBS MarketWatch
NEW YORK — A recent financial literacy survey shows that adults generally have little confidence in children's ability to understand and handle money.
Adults think most youth learn about managing their money through the school of hard knocks, not necessarily in the classroom, according to a survey by VISA USA of 1,000 adults.
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Survey participants took a dim view of young people's ability to deal with money, but half of adults with children at home said their oldest child's money skills had improved in the last year. However, about 60 percent of parents with high-school-age children said their kids couldn't balance a checkbook or understand the meaning of the term "compounding interest."
There seems to be a great interest in offering kids a chance to learn about money earlier in life. More than half the adults in the survey think children should begin learning the basics of money management in elementary school. VISA is sponsoring an Internet-based personal finance curriculum to be used in 100,000 schools.
