Andrew Bradley, CEO Old Mutual Wealth and co-author of the book “How Much is Enough?” explores a few ideas to educate children about the value of money and its impact on their well-being and happiness.
The book “How Much is Enough?” which you co-authored with Arun Abey and Andrew Ford explores the relationship between money and happiness. What would be a great way to introduce this topic to children, and to discuss this fine balance with them?
Andrew Bradley: We need to start by creating time and space to have these critical conversations. We should then assist our children to come to terms with what they really enjoy; and what they are good at, or would like to be good at. There are a number of questionnaires and frameworks that can assist with this. As part of these interactions with our children, we need to deeply probe what makes them happy. We often think that something will make them happy, and then enable them to get involved in these activities. This will enable us to discover whether it does bring them the fulfilment we expected. This is often because we build our reference points off our observations of others. When we are younger, we get our frames of reference from our parents, their friends, and later on from our friends and peers. This can provide some guidance– but if we are trying to emulate others this can be dangerous, especially if we assume that we will be happy with their level of materialism. So keep exploring this, and validating and moulding this on an ongoing basis. This is a journey and not a once off exercise.
Children today are increasingly aware of brands’ appeal and their peers’ choices. What can parents do to make sure their children understand the value of money, and do not grow up to be too materialistic-centred?
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Read the full interview in the digital magazine, Issue 15, pages 11 and 12.
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