Several days ago I made a post (#678286) consulting with the stackers for educational material to teach children about bitcoin, it was a total success in my opinion because they gave me a lot of information that I didn't know and that has been very useful, just what I was looking for to teach my 7-year-old daughter.
Days later @Catcher made a post ( #684185) proposing that there be a territory where people can post information about teaching methods to teach our children about bitcoin. This post started a small debate in which a couple of people thought that children are not interested in learning about bitcoin because they just want to play or that they simply will not understand it just because they are children. Your opinion is valid, we do not all think the same, we do not all have the same ideas.
I want to explain the reasons why I believe it is appropriate to teach children about bitcoin:
Money is part of our life whether we like it or not, without money we can do nothing. I want to be the one who educates my daughter about economics, not the school, not society, because that can only lead her to debt and more debt.
I don't know what your relationship with money was like when you were children and I would like to know your experiences, but in my case I was raised by an enterprising woman who was very poor but thanks to her discipline, savings and investments in her small business she managed to buy her house, several small stores, pay 3 student tuitions at private schools, brand name clothes and good food. We were not rich, we were not upper class, but we were comfortable, thanks to my mother. Since I was very little, she taught me the value of money, the value of work, she even told me several times to say, "I'll give you some capital to invest (candy or clothes) you take care of selling and you keep the profits." Don't think that my mother was exploiting me at work, her idea was something similar to having a lemonade stand in front of the house; She didn't know much, she didn't know how to protect her wealth, she made some bad investments, she trusted the wrong people and ended up losing a lot of money too, she was scammed twice, on top of all that you have to add the political, social and economic decline of Venezuela, the most violent devaluation in America and yet she is still standing, learning, raising her family, I admire her because she went from being a girl who lived in poverty and had nothing to eat to being a super woman who raised her family, she achieved all of that without financial education, I only think about the potential my mother has and if she had had the right education, this story would be different.
On the other hand, I know people who have a concept of money as something "bad." They teach their children that children should not have/touch money, under the excuse that they will later become fond of money and that is bad. I have heard them say exactly that.
I consider any extreme to be bad. Obviously children should not work, children should not have the responsibility of running a family, it is not the responsibility of children to work to get their food, clothes and education. The only duty of children is to make their bed, pick up the plate from their table and if they are old enough, wash the dishes, pick up the toys they mess up and do their homework. But that is not the reason why children should be put in a bubble and prevented from being educated about money, for that same reason there are fun games like Monopoly, books, stories, videos among other methods that you can teach children about basic finances, such as simple things like playing store, your child can be the owner of the store and you the customer, in that small act that they are having fun with you you can teach them to add, subtract, give change and the payment methods that exist, cash, cards or sats.
I go back to the beginning of everything: money is part of our daily life and it is our duty to educate them to have a healthy relationship with it. Logically, you are not going to sit your child down for 2 hours a day to read the most technical and boring book about bitcoin because he will never understand it and he will get bored. It is not necessary to give him a master class on cryptography to take him down that path. Simple examples on a day-to-day basis are more than enough and as they grow and their curiosity increases, you will teach them. Just by the simple fact that your child has heard the word "bitcoin" at 5 years old, you are one step ahead in this matter and no, not everyone knows bitcoin, not every child has access to that information, it all depends on us.
Why I want my daughter to know about bitcoin?
Because I want her to be a free, independent woman, because I don't want her to be trapped in the Fiat system, because I don't want her wealth to disappear, because I don't want her to depend on the state, because I don't want her to depend on a pension when she's an old woman, because I don't want her to depend on her children, because I don't want her to depend on a man.
I am far from being the perfect mother, I am far from doing the right things, but in my egocentrism something tells me that I am not wrong about this.
We are an ordinary family, with some debts, trying to get out of the normie world, swimming to have some success and so that our economy is not a problem, everything takes time, but in the process I want to show my daughter that it is possible, she has accompanied me throughout my role as an immigrant, she has suffered with me, she knows and understands the value of work, she knows that there are no magic ATMs that give you money, she knows that to buy something we want we must work for it. She is a girl like any other, she loves to play, dance, eat sweets, watch series and movies, but in her being she has an entrepreneurial spark, she has ideas some fantastical and crazy and others very realistic, I support her and go with the flow, I will never tell her that money is bad, on the contrary, I will not cut her wings of ambition, she tells me that she wants to be a professional soccer player, I support her, that she wants to be a writer, I support her, that she wants to direct movies. Yesterday for some reason she had the idea that she wanted to have a garage sale (we don't have a garage) and she started collecting all the toys that she no longer wants, she said that she was going to donate some and others she was going to sell, it was very funny because she said to me "mom, come with me outside to sell these toys" (it was a small bag) I told her that we can't sell outside because it's prohibited, that if she wanted we could sell them on the Internet and she accepted, at that moment we had to leave because I had to run an errand at the mall, when we finished, we stayed walking through the stores and talking, then we entered a toy store, she likes to go into toy stores to look at them, I have no problem with that because she has never thrown a tantrum asking me to buy her anything, normally we go in see what's new and leave, but yesterday was different she saw the mermaid reveal barbie and for her it was like seeing the sky and she made this face at me 🥺 and she asked me if I could buy it for her ($40) the answer was no, I told her that she could buy it from the money that she is collecting or that she should ask Santa Claus, with some sadness I accept it and we continue calmly, when we were on the way home she told me: Mom, when we get there please lend me your phone to take photos of the toys that I am going to sell and teach me how to publish them. We got home and that's what he did, he took my phone and all the photos he could:
It was even funnier that she didn't want my help with anything. I let her take control, she also made up a name for her business, she told me she wanted to order stickers with her logo to put on the bags she sells, she said everything very determined, she even told me that I was going to be her employee, she said "relax mom, I'll pay you what's fair," I admit that I wanted to laugh a lot, I told her it was okay, I was going to help her with everything, I took the photos and made the posts on the Internet, we are waiting for someone interested, I warned her that sometimes sales are made quickly or that it can also take time, then she had dinner and went to sleep before my husband arrived, this morning when she woke up the first thing she said to my husband was: "Dad! I already have my own business" and then she added with her innocence and laughter "I don't need you to give me money anymore".
We all live in different realities, but in any case, finances should be a point of interest.
I don't know how to do polls here on SN, but I want to know what your opinion is on all this. Is it right to teach children about Bitcoin? Is it useful? Do you think they can learn the basics little by little? Or do you prefer to wait until they are adults to instruct them?