How Childhood Shapes Lifelong Financial Habits

Money Lessons That Stick: How Childhood Money Lessons Shape Lifelong Financial Habits
Akshay Sardana on why financial character is built at the kitchen table, not the bank | Gulf News
In a byline for Gulf News, Akshay Sardana, CEO of Continental Group, argues that financial literacy is shaped less by formal lessons and more by everyday behaviour, from trading cards to negotiating pocket money. He explains that teaching children to pause before a purchase builds emotional control that matters more than early investing knowledge, and makes the case for linking effort to earned income earlier than most families consider, whether through family projects or supervised entrepreneurial experiments, so children build an employment history and contributor identity well before adulthood. Sardana also highlights the value of introducing credit awareness and insurance early, framing protection as foundational rather than reactive, and encourages parents to shift children from viewing money as spending power to seeing it as ownership through exposure to savings, investments and family assets. He closes by noting that financial habits form through repetition and lived experience rather than a single decisive lesson.