Getting Them Early

My part time job as a teller at a bank has been a valuable experience for many reasons. Before I became an employee of a financial institution I really had no experience with banking in general. My first checking account was a custodial account with my mother throughout my undergraduate studies. I've been thinking about a way to incorporate my weekly time at the bank with my visual culture journal, and alas, this new promotional advertisement popped up in the lobby last week. Is this the best method to get high school students to open accounts? Or is this advertisement geared toward the teenager's parents.

I see a few regular high schoolers in this Carroll Gardens neighborhood come into the bank usually to withdrawal money from the savings accounts their parents have supplied them with. It's rare that a high schooler or adolescent will need a personal checking account, A.) because of the responsibility they have yet to acquire and B.) many hardly have enough money to avoid fees associated with these accounts.
As I have said before I have learned many valuable things from working at the bank. A coworker of mine has three teenage sons all with checking accounts at Chase Bank. I decided to discuss the pros and cons of this responsibility with her, and maybe this will answer my questions about adolescents banking in American society. Is it the norm for highschoolers to begin banking at such a young age? Are demographics a factor? Do the teens that have bank accounts influence their friends to get them as well?

Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist came up with the Social Development Theory in the 1970's his studies were published on the social development of children and the factors that influence this development. Specifically a part of his theory I feel relates to these questions I have is that of imitative learning. "All personal psychological processes begin as social processes shared among people." Basically where a teenager is socially in society is based on their environment. I feel like the teenagers that live in the more developed and more financially stable areas of Brooklyn (Carroll Gardens being one of them), are more likely to have bank accounts. Financial status is important to teenagers as imitated by their parents and their peers.

My coworker shared with me that her children are thrilled to carry around debit cards with them. "Mom, can you transfer me some money" is a common phrase she is used to hearing. On the negative side her teenagers think that money "grows on trees." Her youngest at the age of 15 doesn't quite understand the concept of banking yet. He thinks his mother just has the money and that because she works at the bank she can support him with any of his spending habits. On the positive not she shares that he does not lose money like he used it. Adolescents are notorious for absent mindedly misplacing valuable items. "With a debit card it's easier him to keep track of what he has."