With the economy striving to rebound as relief fails to trickle down from the government, financial literacy has become even more important for Black communities.
One Black father is setting a good example on his Instagram page, teaching his son financial lessons and going viral because of it.
Kyren Gibson and his 8-year-old son Kyng have garnered thousands of views and likes on Instagram thanks to the fun videos they share about learning financial terms and concepts.
The videos have racked up more than 90,000 views and feature Kyng easily laying out the basics for the audience, with the two discussing everything from mortgages to auctions, equity and assets.
In an interview with the Atlanta Black Star, 28-year-old Gibson explained that he wants to give his son the kind of financial education he never got as a child.
"I never like feeling dumb. Usually, anything else I can talk to you about and level with you. You’ll be like, ‘Damn how you know that?’ but on this level I was illiterate, so I went and did my studies, did my research," Gibson said.
He works as a personal trainer in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Kyng lives with his mother in Raleigh, but the two share a close bond despite the distance.
Gibson said he was inspired to learn about finance more by his grandfather who owned a funeral home. Families would often come to the funeral home concerned about how they would pay for services, something Gibson never wanted for himself or his family.
“At the same time, I was like, 'I don’t want my son to be like this neither.' So I made him learn…after I learned so he could understand the talk. How I raise him and teach him is off of my mistakes. I’m hellbent on making sure that he is a better man than me. That’s what a parent’s supposed to do. It’s not ‘here are some video games, go sit in a room.’ That’s lazy. I’m not going to be that parent,” Gibson told the Black Star.
His son now dazzles Instagram with his advanced knowledge of financial terms thanks to his dad's hard work. Gibson said he goes over the terms with Kyng repeatedly so he remembers them and makes sure to make it a fun activity they can do together.
“I just go off of repetition. The thing to know, honestly, is it’s about knowing your child. With any kid, if they like it, if you make it fun they’ll want to do it. … I dumb it down in kid form, the examples and the definitions, then I tell him in real-world form, adult form, and we just do it over and over again until he knows it backwards and forwards," Gibson said, adding that the Black community has had to work harder to make sure they break the cycle of financial mismanagement.
“We’ve got to break it, or it’s just going to keep trickling down. Owning is not hard. That’s why they don’t teach us this in schools. They don’t want us to catch on to that," he said.
