Care for the Family helps parents raise financially savvy kids

Care for the Family has launched a new finance course to help parents raise financially savvy kids.

The course has been put together by the family support charity to help educate the next generation on issues of finance as the financial crisis rumbles on and governments around the world pump trillions into rescuing troubled banks. In the UK, personal debt is at an all time high and the number of people being made bankrupt is now up to 1 person every 5 minutes, the charity said.

Parents are under "enormous pressure" today to make ends meet in the face of rising fuel and food costs and the need to provide their children with the latest 'gizmo', said Care for the Family.

A survey by the charity found that 90% of parents in the UK believe they are best placed to pass on money management techniques to their children, despite average the household debt standing at £9,000, according to Credit Action, and nearly a third of parents going into their overdrafts and a quarter taking out a loan or using credit cards to provide for their children. A SHEU survey in 2007, meanwhile, found that 83% of children turn to their family as the first port of call for support when facing financial difficulty.

Care for the Family said parents equipped with the right tools were still in the best position to teach their children about money management.

Quidz In, a new course for parents and their children was launched at the House of Lords on Monday with the backing of former Conservative Party Leader Iain Duncan Smith.

Rob Parsons, Executive Chairman of Care for the Family and author of The Money Secret, believes that teaching parents and children about finance is the way ahead.

"Teaching children about money matters is no longer just a nice idea: the financial traumas we are experiencing at the moment are partly caused by the fact that we have not prepared people to cope in a situation where credit is easy, good advice is hard to obtain, and where the pressure to own the latest and the best is overwhelming.

"It's not enough to regulate lenders. We have to educate future generations - and in this we all have a part to play - Government, school - and perhaps most important of all - parents."

'Quidz In - raising financially confident kids', is a course for parents of children in key stage 2 and upwards. It uniquely combines parenting skills training with financial education. The course will show parents how to teach the next generation of bank account holders to confidently save, spend, assess risks, see the difference between 'needs' and 'wants' and priority and non-priority debts.

On the web: www.quidzin.org.uk