Today I thought I would write about a topic near and dear to all kid's hearts...allowance.
I don't know many parents that don't struggle with the how, what, when, and whys of this challenging topic.
And to be honest when our first child got to be of allowance age, we struggled too.
How much do you give a child?
At what age should you start?
Should it be based on performance or is it just our responsibility, as parentals, to provide an allowance?
How can we use it to teach them the importance of money?
All these questions and more were going through our heads when it came time to start considering allowance.
The first technique I heard about was to give them half their age in allowance each week. It could be dependent on simple chores, but didn't have to be.
That seemed simple enough. We had a five year old at the time. I thought we could handle 2.50 a week.
After several weeks of this we found that it didn't seem to be working out. There was no motivation behind earning the 2.50. She didn't really care about it and wouldn't do the chores we thought she should do to get it. We felt like we were just paying out with no lesson being learned. This felt like we were teaching monetary irresponsibility.
Then one day, I was watching Oprah, and she had a financial guy on her show. To be honest I can't remember who the guy was. I wish I could remember who he was, I would love to thank him. He gave us the allowance system that we use to this day. It has been effective in motivating our kids to do chores, use their money responsibly, tithe regularly (above and beyond what we are called to tithe), and has taught them how to use their money (outside allowance money) in an outstanding fashion.
What is this system? How does it work? Why does it work?
More tomorrow...
Kristen
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4 comments:
I love the way you write!
I'm on the edge of my seat in anticipation! this has been a thorn in our side for much too long and I remember liking the system you guys use, I just can't remember how it all works. I sent you a message a few weeks ago asking you about it, but I think it got lost in space. So glad you are blogging about it ;)
I am SOOOOO excited you are sharing this! You have been my inspiration in this area for years (and so many other areas too!) and I share it with every parent I can...now they can read and actually get the details straight from the source: ) I am posting to my facebook page for all my friends to follow as you elaborate!
Chris!! You are one of the inspirations to writing this post! I am ashamed to admit that I did get your email, but have been over whelmed the last few weeks, and haven't got a lot of things done I should :) Anyways, hopefully this will give you the info you need and if not, send me a message and I will promise to be better about responding :)
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