Financial Education | Tali Te'eni-Harari, PhD

Promoting Wise Financial Education

How Did it all Begin?

In the last 20 years I have been examining in depth the behavior of young consumers in many academic studies. The most significant insight emerging from my research is that children and adolescents must learn to be smart consumers, must acquire tools and skills to reject gratification, to be critical, to be selective, to be able to deal with different sources of information and to learn to plan long-term.

This insight has led me to work intensively to promote education for the wise consuming: I wrote children’s books on the subject, participated in forums and committees to promote the it, raised awareness of this important issue in the media and helped the Ministry of Education formulate curricula in the field of wise consumerism.

Relevant Today More than Ever

The Corona crisis has further deepened the need for education for smart consuming: many children are now experiencing their parents’ financial difficulties, feeling their parents’ worries, realizing that the world has changed significantly and this is accompanied by feelings of uncertainty and sometimes insecurity.

On the other hand, children are connected to the media for many hours, using different platforms, are constantly exposed to marketing and advertising stimuli that encourage materialism, and link happiness and success to brand consumption.

Within this environment in which children grow up, smart consumer education will help children cope better with challenges and changes. Financial education and education for prudent consumerism have been found to make a significant contribution to the empowerment of the children and to the better coping of the children at school and other fields.

Moreover, financial education and smart consuming education may contribute in the long run to reducing the gender gaps (and other gaps) in Israeli society, to reducing and preventing economic welfare cases and to turning Israeli children into mature citizens with economic resilience.

I believe it is our duty, as adults and as a society, to empower children growing up in a dynamic and busy environment and to provide them with tools for prudent consumption and financial education. I believe in the right of every girl and boy to acquire tools and skills to empower them so that they can cope better in the world in which they grow up”

Books

The Cash Box Behind the Sock Drawer

Dr. Tali Te'eni-Harari and Hani Nachmias

The Cash Box Behing the Sock Drawer is the first book in the series: “economics from the beginning”, which aims to give 21st century’ children tools for controlling and intelligent consumption through a fun and empathetic story.

The book was written by Dr. Te’eni-Harari together with the actress and children’s author Hani Nachmias, and deals with providing tools for wise consumption and better coping for children in their media environment, with an emphasis on savings.

The book is intended for joint parent-child reading and encourages dialogue and activity between the child and the parent around the issue of consumption and criticism. In this book, the protagonists of the series will learn what the role of money is in our lives, why it is important to save, and what the implications of the “economic choices” we make at an early age are.

Behind the book stands extensive academic research in the field of consumerism and the economic conduct of adults and children in particular, which forms the basis for its writing. The book suits children aged 5-8, and is adapted to these ages in terms of language, message processing processes and the child’s development as a consumer.

"One of the most beautiful books to come out in this genre"

"Pleasant to read and faithfully serves the purpose of discourse"

"Provides tools for critical and intelligent consumption through an empathetic story"

Dr. Tali Thani Harari and Adv. (CPA) Elroy Kanbel

How are prices set? What is a loan and what is a savings account? What is insurance, income guarantee and giving? What do you do to make a business successful and how do you promote sales? What is wise consumption? What are taxes and how is the state budget managed? Stock exchange, banks import and export all these and more you will find in “We made a deal”.

The book was written by Dr. Te’eni-Harari and Advocate Elroy Kanbel with a desire to make the financial world accessible to young children and provide them with knowledge, understanding and tools that will enable them to make informed financial decisions and become wise consumers as they grow older. The concepts in the book are presented with familiar examples and illustrations to illustrate the concepts to young children.

The book “We Have a Deal” introduces young people to important concepts in the fields of consumerism, economics and business, in order to provide them with the knowledge and understanding as a basis for making wise consuming and financial decisions.

The book is divided into three parts: the first part deals with the question of what money is and introduces children to how money developed, how prices are set, explains loans, savings, banks, stock exchanges and insurance and deals with poverty and giving. The second part of the book deals with the question of how to run a business and deals with issues such as the management of the business’s cash register, employee management, liabilities, pricing, marketing and prudent consumerism. The third part of the book deals with the impact of the economy on the business and the management of the state as a business. This section discusses concepts such as taxes, unemployment, imports, exports and more.

The concepts in the book are presented with familiar examples and illustrations, as it is intended for the children themselves and allows them to choose the topics that interest them and delve deeper into them, but is also suitable for a parent-child reading and continuing the conversation on the topics after reading.

"The book encourages enriching conversations on the subject, written in a matter-of-fact, concise, structured and simple manner. The examples also undermine the issue and contribute to understanding"