Denise Drysdale: kids not learning the right life lessons

They may be nailing the basics of reading, writing and ‘rythmatic while they’re at school (although the latest NAPLAN results don’t necessarily back this up) but are our teenagers missing out on learning real life skills that will carry them into adulthood?

Television personality Denise Drysdale says yes – especially in the area of personal finances.

“I think that’s the problem with schools,” she said on Channel 10 talk show Studio 10.

“They don’t teach the skills that you need as a teenager to manage your money; to be able to live on a budget.

“We don’t teach those in the schools and they are the life skills you need.”

Do schools teach students enough about managing finances? Denise says those essential life skills are what's important. #Studio10 pic.twitter.com/xACDB5B54y

— Studio 10 (@Studio10au) August 1, 2017

Journalist Ita Buttrose chimed in, saying that many women who had lost their partner were also struggling to understand how their household finances worked, having preferred to leave that side of domestic life to their husbands.

“I know a woman whose husband had died, I think they’d been married about  30, 35 years, she’d never written a cheque, not that you write many cheques now,  but she’d never written a cheque because he’d always written them,” Buttrose said.

Are the ins and outs of saving to buy a home or a car, learning how to budget for a household, managing a credit card or knowing the difference between good debt and bad debt a suitable subject for the classroom?

What do you think teenagers are missing out on in the learning department? What do you wish you’d learnt in high school that would have been handy when you hit adulthood?