Allowances for Children?
"An important part of growing up is gaining experience in handling one's own money. A weekly allowance can provide this."
It's definitely important for kids to start learning how to be responsible with money.
If not, then they could grow up with bad spending habits.
We really need to equip our kids with some real world expectations.
According this Time article, the generations that are coming into adulthood will start off being buried under debt.
So for now, how do we start them off with some financial experience with chores and allowances?
Our almanac suggests starting off simple.
You need to give them tasks that will be easy for them to handle and appropriate for their age.
I kept a chore board and the tasks were things like feeding the dog, clearing the table after meals, and putting away all toys at the end of the day.
Once they began to master certain tasks I gave them new ones.
I would take away a task like clearing the table and add a new one like empty the dishwasher.
Now I still expected them to clear the table but I no longer paid them for that task. They now are paid for emptying the dishwasher.
So now I have instilled a habit for them.
As an adult we don't get paid for doing our laundry or cleaning dishes.
Kids have to expect that as they get older some things will just be expected of them and they won't get praise or money for accomplishing them.
An important detail our almanac makes note of is to not make any male-female distinctions among the chores.
There is no girls work or boys work.
Everyone will do dishes, dust, vacuum, complete laundry tasks, take out trash, etc.
"Division of labor in the workplace based on gender is no longer appropriate or right."
Right on 1970's
Along with our chore board, I marked off when the task was completed and by whom it was completed by. This was because we paid based on commission. So some weeks one kid was paid more than the other because they completed more tasks.
They started to save their money and we would go shopping with it. They would have to learn what was important to spend their money on. Sometimes it was buying their own ice cream at the grocery store and saving the rest.
My son saved up his money for some big purchases and he was really proud of himself and felt accomplished for making his own money to buy something.
Evening out the family chores also releases some burden off the adults too!
I love it when the kids help so I can focus on something else.
As parents, it's ok to ask our kids to help out.
So encourage them to do so by rewarding them now to create some good habits later.
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