Interview with Dr. Marcel Naas
What is the best way to introduce children to the topic of money?
Managing money responsibly is an important skill that cannot be acquired with a unique learning situation, but is developed and refined over the course of a person's life. Competencies include knowledge, ability and will. Talking about money is therefore not enough. In addition to factual knowledge, children also need action and the will to implement what they have learned. Children should therefore also be able to manage, spend and think about money. And that, of course, with increasing responsibility in line with age.
If you want
Why is it more difficult to teach children how to manage money in a digital world?
The virtual world is abstract. However, in order to learn how to deal with quantities (and money is nothing else), children need an illustration. If you hand in six out of ten coins, four remain in your hand. This experience is crucial before the quantity can also be understood as an abstract number on a sheet of paper or on a screen. In addition, you can't spend more than you have with real money. It's different with digital money. The debt trap for young people is a major risk if no value is given to the figures.
If you want
What are many parents doing wrong when raising money? What would you advise against?
As with other skills to be acquired, it must be a matter of strengthening young people's self-control, relinquishing responsibility and taking themselves back more and more. Too much control is therefore wrong, and I also regard rewarding and punishing with money as counterproductive. It is about reflecting on and discussing their use of money together with the children.
If you want
What was paid particular attention to when developing the educational concept of bling?
I can pick up on the points from above. On the one hand, there is a focus on action orientation and increasing assumption of responsibility. Successful visualizations show how much money a child receives, saves or spends. This in turn forms the basis for discussion for parents, who accompany their child in the sense of scaffolding (derived from the English “scaffold” = scaffolding) with decreasing control.
If you want to learn more about the educational Bling Card & app, click here!
If you want
