Girl Scouts to Earn New Financial Literacy Badges
Exciting news for the future of financial literacy, my friends: the Girl Scouts of America (GSA) is rolling out 136 new badges for its members and among them are several relating to areas of financial literacy. And here I was thinking the organization was great only because of Thin Mints.
Apparently, the overhaul is the first major revamp of the GSA’s merit badges in a quarter century and organizers got their ideas for new badges by polling current GSA members. I guess those young ladies in brown and green have been paying attention to dire economic news reports – or maybe it’s impossible to avoid the doom and gloom.
Either way, young women in the GSA will now have the opportunity to earn badges that address areas including maintaining good credit, managing money, budgeting and plotting a financial future.
Real-World Guidance
In order to earn the honorable (and decorative) badges, members are required to:
- Complete a five-step process designed to help members develop competency in the area addressed by the badge.
- Participate in real-world practice to apply the skills defined by the badge.
- Learn about and engage with actual problems or challenges they might face in their futures. High school scouts, for example, may be required to speak with a loan officer at a bank. Middle school scouts may have to determine what salary they would need to finance their dream life.
A Tradition of Financial Literacy
While many of the badges of yesteryear were geared toward mastering household tasks, insiders from GSA insist that financial literacy – in one form or another – has always been a central part of GSA’s mission. After all, they didn’t call it “home economics” for nothing.
And I guess it isn’t exactly easy to sell dozens of boxes of cookies and take care of all the organizational tasks that go along with that.
Take the Message to Your Home
Whether or not you (or your kids) are members of the GSA, the organization has some valuable lessons to teach:
- Learn from the times: There’s no denying our nation’s in a bit of financial turmoil right now. Rather than simply worrying about money, it’s smart to use the turmoil as a call to action to learn (or teach) as much as you can about matters of money and credit.
- Practice in real life: Kids can learn valuable money lessons at any age. Look online for tips about activities to do so your offspring start to get an idea of what goes into a household budget and what it takes to earn the money they spend.
- Reward progress: Even if your home isn’t on a badge system, you can set up rewards for when your kids demonstrate that they’ve mastered an important skill. Given the theme, why not offer to deposit money in a savings account or match their deposits?
