While the concept of money (and cash) is a very important one for our society the many changes over the past two decades, and specifically the increased usage of credit cards and more so the digitalisation of payments onto mobile phones has reduced the usage of money. As this trickles down to the level of education for children and inevitably this concept loses all sorts of examples in the real-world that those of us who grew up using cash for transactions of every kind and enjoyed holding this in our hands and pockets. This article from The Telegraph highlights that “in 2020, 13.7 million people described themselves as leading an entirely “cashless life”: nearly double the 7.4 million in 2019”. But the main point of the article is that children now growing up have little or no idea of the value of money in this cashless world. When this is coupled by the fact that, especially since the start of the pandemic, most purchases are done online – including for children – there is a great loss to the sensory contemplation of having a few coins in the pocket. A “survey last year found that more than half of six to 10-year-olds simply “don’t understand money”. Schools need to try and address this and reintroduce this with special workshops.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/17/cashless-children-have-no-concept-meaning-money