I think that one of our jobs as parents is to teach our kids to become successful adults. Dr. Phil used to say (and probably still does) that you aren’t raising children, you’re raising adults. So, here’s my conflict…First, I don’t think kids should get an allowance for doing chores. Nobody pays me to pick up after myself, to clean or to cook. I believe that as a member of this family, each person has responsibilities and should contribute to overall value of life for our family. While I can’t expect the 2yr old to clean the toilet, I can expect her to put her dirty clothes in the hamper.
Next I will say that it is the parent’s job to teach their children about money. People don’t do a bad job of managing their money because they are stupid, they do it because no one taught them what to do. My kids will not learn to give and to save if I never teach them. Nor, can they learn the value of a dollar, if they don’t have practice using dollars.
So here’s what we have come up with after talking to different parents about what they do. Our 5yr old has a list of behavior / tasks to do each day. Each behavior / task that he completes earn him a “star” (a sticker) At the end of each day, if he has earned all of his possible stars, he earns $1. When he earns $10, he will give $1 to the local church that we are part of, he will save $2, and he will have $7 to spend. Then, when we go to the store and asks for a toy, we can start the conversation of how many dollars he has vs. how many dollars it costs to buy the toy.
Right now, his behavior / tasks are things like: brush your teeth & comb your hair (the 1st time you are asked), do your homework (takes 5 minutes), good behavior at dinner time (he knows what this means), put shoes, jacket, & backpack away, etc. We have already begun to change his chart around so that it somewhat challenging, but still do-able. We will continue to change it to be consistent with his abilities.
Again, I don’t really believe we should PAY him for doing these things, however, money that can buy toys is incentive, and allows us to teach him how to handle his money.
I would love some feedback / opinions. What do you do? What have you tried? What works at your house?
