Teenage Take over #12
- March 6, 2024
- Written by Luke Quinn
- 2 months ago
- No Comments
It's the 12th teenage take over: We're talking about getting teenagers to think about pensions
How can you get a teenager to give a pension a second thought?
We’ve been thinking about what to write this month… there’s so many different and complicated areas of pensions, but the people reading this will know way more about those than we do.
When we started this blog there was a lot of learning for us and also some bits that we definitely found more interesting than others. We know that all of you on here will know much more about pensions than us. So, what do we bring to the table?
Well as teenagers we can say that it is very hard to make us give pensions a second thought. We’re going to need a seismic shift in the way parents raise their children, schools teach and society as a whole talks about finances for us to become fluent in money…
But is this the way?
There’s a good reason why young people often make the most mistakes, the older you get the wiser you get – mostly – however the worst thing is not the mistake, after all you still have many more years on the earth, the worst thing is the size and timing of the mistake. So instead of trying to breed a generation of super duper financially intelligent geniuses we’d argue you should instead look to mitigate the size of the mistake. Because mistakes are an integral part of human learning and cannot be avoided entirely.
Mistakes are key, but so is learning!
We imagine the pensions (and wider financial services) industry is pretty on top of their own finance game. But that’s not necessarily true for everyone else. Even basic mistakes are made with financial decisions; for example a lot of households run month to month without saving. A recent survey by Yorkshire Building Society found that 19% of UK adults have less than £100 in savings.
Can these problems be minimised or even avoided with the right financial education? We think by learning key information and important lessons such as budgeting, saving and the value of money these numbers would tell a different story. Of course this all leads back to school and financial education at school however can all the fault really be pinned on the education system?
Why we think learning early is so important
Once you are over 18 and no longer go to school nobody can decide what you study or learn. If you do not already understand money, savings or indeed, the importance of a pension, why would you continue to do your own research and educate yourself further?
So, maybe schools don’t need to teach the ins and outs of every complicated pension detail, but they should at least cover the importance of one. We hear all the time at school about the lack of curriculum time, so maybe teachers can’t teach a whole financial syllabus as if it’s a core subject or examined for your GCSES. But something is better than nothing?
It’s not just what we’re taught, it’s how
In school a lot of teachers believe it’s the time spent being taught something that counts, but believe us when we say they’re wrong. It’s just how we are taught it.
When we are given a bland and boring definition and are told nothing else about it… yawn. When we are bored to tears with pages of text or a monotonous tone…total zone out.
Add a bit of music. Something eye catching. A video. A rhyme. A blue rhino and you’ve made us sit up and pay attention.
Can you not make something snappy and fun to tell teenagers how much a pension can change their life later on? How it could change the world. How it could make life better for us. We think they would definitely give pensions a second thought.
Working for a common goal
We think that if younger and older generations work together we’ll find the best outcome. That’s all for this month, we hope this didn’t sound too much like a rant at schools again…
We look forward to seeing you next month.