We’ve always given our kids allowance money. I feel that teaching my kids to handle money is a crucial part of my responsibility as a parent. They can’t learn to handle money if they never have any. Some families choose to link allowances to chores around the house. I have always resisted doing this. I felt that it was better for the chores to be just a requirement of being in our family and the allowances to be a benefit for being in our family. This seemed right and fair to me. It is possible that this seemed fair because for years I got the benefit of being dependent upon Howard’s comfortable Novell income.
I’ve recently changed my opinion on allowances. In the past two years I’ve had to work hard to help the money come in. The workload has steadily increased for me as I picked up new tasks; accounting, shipping, book layout, etc. It frustrates me to see the house become a disaster while the kids don’t care enough to help. These same kids would rather wait a few extra weeks for money to arrive than do chores to earn the money. I’m doing too much and it would really help if the kids would just pick up their toys once in awhile. Howard has long been of the opinion that kids who don’t work should not get allowance, but since I was the one running the allowance system, he did not argue about the way we’ve been doing it.
So I have now shifted camps. Yesterday I announced to the kids that they’d received their last free allowance. From now on they must work if they want to get paid. They must also mark the chart to keep track of when they worked or else they won’t get paid. The kids took the news with hardly a comment. I expect there will be moaning and groaning some time in the future. Maybe this will get me more help around the house, which I desperately need. If not, then at least I’ll get to keep more of the family’s hard earned money instead of watching it get spent on candy and dollar store toys.
We are so in the same boat with our middle child. We have been trying to get her to earn the things that we kept giving her previously. She balked at the idea and sadly I must report that I undermined the effort by buying her one of the things she was really interested in before she had really earned it.
Boy did I catch crap over that, (justly deserved). However she is coming around to the idea that in order to get the things she wants, she must do work and get her check-marks on the calender.
So, best of luck and expect some push back, just be strong when the “You don’t love me anymore”s come. I’m not sure if sitting down and discussing that we are doing the things we do BECAUSE we love them sunk in, but we are still trying.
working for allowance
my childhood experience was that working for my allowance really made me appreciate its value.
turned me into a recycling fool, too – I used to scour the sides of the road walking home from the bus stop (we lived at the top of a hill just outside city limits – the bus stop was at the bottom of the hill, inside city limits) for bottles which I could take to the local grocery for the deposit. 5 soda bottles, returned, got me enough money for my own bottle of soda (almost inevitably root beer, though I did dabble with orange soda once I reached double digits.). 10 returned bottles got me enough to ride the bus to either of the local malls. if I rode my bike to the mall I’d have enough to see a matinee at the mall multiplex and still be able to take the bus home.
But yeah, chores. Washing dishes, cleaning room, feeding the livestock, cleaning up after our house pets… there was always something that needed doing, and if my sister or I didn’t do it, we didn’t get paid.
Life’s still a lot like that.
I hope this gets the results you want. Maybe they will learn that if they want to get that new toy or game everyone else has they will have to help Mommy for it.
Ona