Cost of Raising a Child

Lesson: Cost of Raising a Child

Unit: Human Growth and Development

Age: High School

Learning Targets: The students will collect information regarding the annual cost of an infant. The students will discuss the impact that having a child at a young age could have on their future.

Prep: Cost of Raising a Child worksheet, speakers, sound track of infant crying, computer lab, laptop or Chromebook access, permission from teachers in adjacent rooms to play the sound track loudly.

How I teach the lesson:

After my students are done with their beginning of class routine I will take them to the computer lab where they will work on filling out the Cost of Raising a Child worksheet. For this worksheet they must research and record a rough estimate of how much it would cost to raise an infant during its first year of life. I let them do this individually or with a partner, and I give them all but the last 10-15 minutes of class time to work. Once instructions have been given and they’ve started to work I start to play a soundtrack of an infant crying which usually gets all of the students’ attention. Despite their complaining I will play the crying soundtrack for 5-10 minutes and then turn it off. Once our time in the lab is done we will go back to the classroom where we will compare prices and figure out the average cost of raising a child for a year. After we find an average we will then have a discussion for the remainder of class. For this we will discuss not only the financial impact having a child at a young age could bring, but also what other non-financial costs there would be (friends, sports, school, etc.). Finally, if time allows we will explore the baby-calculator link so students can see roughly how much it costs to raise a child until the age of 18.

I love this activity as most of my students typically have no idea just expensive it is to raise a child, and this always leads to great discussions. It is also very entertaining for me to watch them get frustrated with the sound of a baby screaming as they are trying to focus on their work, and it really opens their eyes to how difficult it is to get things accomplished when raising a newborn.