Canadian parents are increasingly concerned about the powerful role that social media platforms, viral trends, and online financial influencers are playing in shaping how their children think about and manage money. This growing anxiety reflects the reality that financial education is no longer confined to family dinner table conversations or traditional classroom instruction. Instead, young people are absorbing financial information, advice, and attitudes from their social media feeds, often from sources whose qualifications, motivations, and accuracy remain questionable.
The Scale of Parental Concern About Digital Financial Influence
Recent research conducted by TD Bank Group has revealed the extent of parental worry about social media’s impact on children’s financial development. According to the survey findings, 61 percent of Canadian parents express concern about how social media platforms, viral trends, and influencer culture are shaping their children’s attitudes toward money management, spending decisions, and financial priorities. This represents a clear majority of parents who recognize that the traditional sources of financial guidance—parents, schools, and established financial institutions—now compete with a constant stream of digital content that their children consume daily.
The concern is well-founded when considering the pervasive nature of social media in young people’s lives. Children and teenagers spend hours each day on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and others, where they encounter content ranging from lifestyle influencers showcasing luxury purchases to self-styled financial experts offering investment advice, often without proper credentials or regulatory oversight. These “finfluencers,” as they’ve come to be known, can wield substantial influence over young audiences who may lack the critical thinking skills and financial knowledge necessary to evaluate the quality and appropriateness of the advice being presented.
Parents Taking Action Through Conversation
Recognizing the challenge posed by social media’s influence, Canadian parents are not remaining passive observers. The TD Bank Group research indicates that an overwhelming 99 percent of survey respondents intend to actively engage their children in discussions specifically focused on digital money habits. This near-universal commitment to addressing the issue through conversation demonstrates that parents understand they cannot simply restrict their children’s access to social media and hope the problem resolves itself. Instead, they’re choosing to equip their children with the knowledge, critical thinking skills, and values necessary to navigate the complex digital financial landscape.
The timing of these conversations is also significant. According to the survey, 58 percent of parents plan to initiate these important discussions about digital financial behavior by the time their children reach age 13. This timing reflects parental recognition that early adolescence represents a critical period when children begin developing greater independence in their financial decisions, often receive their first smartphones with unfettered internet access, and become more deeply engaged with social media platforms. By starting these conversations at age 13 or earlier, parents aim to establish a foundation of financial literacy before their children are fully immersed in the potentially problematic aspects of online financial culture.
Kristy Irwin, who serves as Product Group Owner for Youth and Student banking at TD, contextualized the situation clearly: “Social media is increasingly becoming a powerful force in our daily lives and – for better or for worse – kids are learning about money from their feeds as much as they are from their families. Financial literacy is evolving with digital culture and parents have an opportunity to help kids learn how to spend wisely and not impulsively.”
This observation captures a fundamental shift in how financial education occurs. Previous generations learned about money primarily from their parents’ direct instruction, their own experiences earning and spending money, and perhaps some limited financial education in school. Today’s young people are exposed to thousands of financial messages, recommendations, and examples through their social media consumption, creating both opportunities for learning and significant risks of misinformation, manipulation, and the development of unhealthy financial attitudes.
The Financial Literacy Gap: Concern Without Confidence
The TD Bank Group survey revealed a troubling disconnect between parents’ recognition of financial literacy’s importance and their confidence in their children’s actual financial knowledge. Almost all respondents—representing near unanimity—believe that financial literacy is at least as critical as media literacy or online literacy in today’s digital environment. This acknowledgment reflects parents’ understanding that their children need robust financial knowledge and skills to navigate an increasingly complex economic landscape where digital transactions, cryptocurrency, investing apps, and sophisticated marketing all intersect.
However, despite this universal recognition of financial literacy’s importance, only 43 percent of surveyed parents feel confident about their child’s current level of financial knowledge. This stark gap—where nearly everyone agrees financial literacy matters, yet fewer than half feel their children possess adequate financial knowledge—exposes what the survey characterizes as “a clear mismatch between intent and preparedness.”
This gap suggests several potential issues. Parents may lack confidence in their own ability to teach financial concepts effectively. The rapid evolution of financial technology and digital payment methods may leave parents feeling that their own financial knowledge is outdated or insufficient for addressing their children’s needs. Schools may not be providing adequate financial education to fill the void. Or perhaps the complexity of modern financial life—encompassing everything from traditional banking to cryptocurrency, from credit scores to investment apps—has simply outpaced the ability of traditional financial education approaches to keep up.
Priority Financial Competencies: What Parents Want Children to Learn
When asked to identify the most important financial competencies they want their children to develop, Canadian parents in the TD survey identified three clear priorities that reflect both timeless financial principles and contemporary concerns.
The top priority, cited by 75 percent of parents, involves prevention of fraud and scams. This emphasis reflects the very real threat that online fraud, phishing attempts, identity theft, and various scams pose to people of all ages, but particularly to young people who may be less experienced in recognizing red flags and more trusting of online communications. The digital environment creates countless opportunities for fraudsters to target victims, from fake investment schemes promoted on social media to phishing emails designed to steal banking credentials. Parents recognize that teaching their children to identify and avoid these threats represents a fundamental protective measure in the digital age.
The second priority, identified by 71 percent of parents, focuses on budgeting skills. This traditional cornerstone of financial literacy remains as relevant as ever, though the context has evolved. Where previous generations might have learned to budget using cash envelopes or checkbook registers, today’s young people need to understand how to track spending across multiple digital platforms, manage subscription services that automatically renew, and resist the constant temptation to purchase that frictionless digital payments enable. Budgeting in the digital age requires not just mathematical skills but also discipline and awareness of how digital interfaces are specifically designed to encourage spending.
The third priority, cited by 70 percent of parents, involves saving and planning for the future. This competency encompasses both the mechanical aspects of saving—understanding savings accounts, interest rates, and compound growth—and the more abstract but equally important ability to delay gratification, set financial goals, and make decisions with long-term consequences in mind. In an era characterized by instant gratification and constant consumption messaging on social media, teaching young people to prioritize saving and long-term planning represents a significant challenge but also a critical life skill.
New Spending Methods Create New Concerns
Beyond general financial literacy concerns, Canadian parents are grappling with anxieties specific to new forms of digital spending that didn’t exist in their own childhoods. The TD survey identified several particular areas of worry related to how effortlessly children can now make purchases through various digital mechanisms.
Thirty-nine percent of surveyed parents express worry about how easily children can make purchases using digital wallets. Digital wallets—including services like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and various banking apps—allow users to make purchases with a simple tap of their smartphone, without physically handling cash or even swiping a credit card. While this convenience offers genuine benefits for adults managing their finances, it also creates risks for children who may not fully grasp that tapping their phone represents spending real money. The psychological disconnect between the physical act of handing over cash and the abstract gesture of tapping a phone can make spending feel less real and less consequential, potentially leading to impulsive or excessive purchasing.
Similarly, 36 percent of parents express unease about subscription services and in-app purchases. The subscription economy has exploded in recent years, with services ranging from streaming entertainment to productivity software to gaming platforms all operating on recurring payment models. For children and teenagers, these subscriptions can accumulate quickly—a music streaming service here, a gaming subscription there, perhaps several content creators on platforms that offer paid memberships. Each individual subscription might seem minor, but collectively they can represent significant monthly expenses that young people may not be adequately tracking or evaluating for ongoing value.
In-app purchases present a related concern, particularly in mobile games and social media platforms where virtual goods, cosmetic items, or premium features can be purchased with remarkable ease. Many of these purchases are deliberately designed to feel small and inconsequential in the moment—a few dollars for a virtual item or currency—but they can accumulate into substantial spending over time. Moreover, some apps employ psychological techniques designed to encourage spending, such as limited-time offers, social pressure through showing what friends have purchased, or game mechanics that become frustrating without purchases.
A Shift Toward Collaborative Financial Education
Perhaps one of the most encouraging findings from the TD Bank Group survey involves evidence that Canadian households are moving away from traditional one-way financial instruction, where parents lecture children about money management, toward more collaborative and bidirectional financial dialogues that acknowledge both generations have valuable perspectives and knowledge to contribute.
The survey found that 82 percent of parents report sharing both their financial successes and their financial challenges with their children. This represents a significant departure from previous generational norms, where money was often treated as a taboo subject within families, and parents felt pressure to project financial competence and success while hiding struggles or mistakes. By openly discussing both positive financial outcomes and challenges they’ve faced, parents create learning opportunities that help children understand that financial management involves both successes to celebrate and mistakes to learn from. This transparency can help children develop more realistic expectations about financial life and understand that setbacks and challenges represent normal parts of the financial journey rather than catastrophic failures.
Perhaps even more striking, 57 percent of parents report that their children have taught them something about money, particularly regarding apps, digital wallets, and investing trends. This finding underscores how rapidly the financial landscape is evolving and how digital nativity provides young people with certain insights and comfort levels with technology that their parents may lack. Children and teenagers who have grown up using smartphones and apps often have intuitive understanding of how these technologies work and may be more willing to explore new financial technologies and platforms.
This bidirectional learning creates opportunities for families to combine parents’ greater life experience, risk awareness, and financial wisdom with young people’s technological fluency and comfort with digital tools. Parents can provide essential context about financial risks, the importance of security, and how to evaluate financial decisions, while children can help their parents understand how new technologies work and what financial trends are emerging in their peer groups.
Kristy Irwin from TD captured this collaborative approach effectively: “Financial skills aren’t just passed down – they are developed together. Parents guide their children while also taking the opportunity to learn how younger generations think about saving and spending in a world that is rapidly changing.”
The Path Forward for Family Financial Education
The findings from TD Bank Group’s research paint a picture of Canadian parents who are acutely aware of the challenges posed by social media and digital financial culture, highly motivated to address these challenges through conversation and education, yet somewhat uncertain about their ability to provide the financial guidance their children need. This combination of awareness, motivation, and uncertainty creates both challenges and opportunities.
The near-universal commitment to having conversations about digital money habits represents a positive foundation. However, parents may benefit from additional resources, tools, and support to make these conversations as effective as possible. Financial institutions, schools, and community organizations all have roles to play in providing parents with the knowledge, confidence, and practical strategies they need to guide their children’s financial development in the digital age.
The emphasis on collaborative learning rather than one-way instruction appears particularly well-suited to the current moment, where the financial landscape is evolving so rapidly that no one—regardless of age or experience—can claim complete expertise. By approaching financial education as a shared learning journey where all family members contribute insights and learn together, Canadian families can build stronger financial literacy while also strengthening family bonds through open, honest conversations about money, values, and decision-making in an increasingly complex digital world.
Acknowledgment: This article was written with the help of AI, which also assisted in research, drafting, editing, and formatting this current version
