Your daughter begs you to buy her a sweater. What do you say?
Your son announces he’s lost another lunch bag at school. What do you do?
For parents who give their children an allowance, the answer is easy, but figuring out how to handle the allowance situation just seems to generate more questions than it answers!
From my work with parents, I can tell you the three most frequently asked questions I hear regarding allowances along with the answers to help you get on your way.
- What age should I start giving my child an allowance?
There is no right or perfect age. You can’t get it ‘wrong’ per se, but my rule of thumb is start as soon as possible. Be sure, however, to keep the allowance age appropriate. One of the very first skills children need to learn about is recognizing and naming coins. A preschooler is capable of this. If the coins are from their piggy bank, and the reason they are counting the coins is to see if they have enough to buy something, the learning is more dynamic, contextual, meaningful and empowering.
- How much should their allowance be?
You decide. Pay attention and see if there is something you routinely purchase on your child’s behalf already, like providing money to go to the movies or cash for a pizza lunch at school. Make these items the starting point for the child’s first allowance, knowing that you can tweak it along the way. In my family, I was already regularly giving my children money for the church collection basket and delving into my wallet for change to buy juice from the vending machine after their Saturday swim lessons. I made these two items the basis of their first preschool allowance. Handling these transactions independently with their own money provided small, but valuable lessons. When they wanted a bigger allowance, I asked them to present me with a budget to justify any increases. (I nixed the request for $3 for candy, but approved the $5 for Scholastic books.)
- Should allowance be tied to chores?
I say a resounding NO! Children do chores because they are required to carry their weight in the family. It’s a team—all for one and one for all. You get an allowance as a way of learning money skills and developing responsible money habits. If your children refuse to help around the house, you need to find a discipline tactic other than bribery to hold them accountable and motivate them.
*Alyson sits on BMO’s SmartSteps for Parents team of experts that created an interactive site for families to help parents teach financial literacy.
Alyson Schafer is a psychotherapist and best-selling author of
Honey, I Wrecked the Kids and
Breaking The Good Mom Myth. She is host of TV's "The Parenting Show" and an international speaker. Visit
www.alysonschafer.com for more parenting tips.
Comments
I tend to disagree with the answer to question number three. Suze Orman’s advice is to relate allowances with chores. She talks about children being required to complete the chores that they are always responsible for (ex. keep their rooms tidy, clean off the table etc.) prior to being able to “make some money” for themselves. She indicates that parents should create a list of chores that children can complete in order to make money and tie a value to those extra chores (things that are not necessarily the child’s daily responsibilities). Children should be able to complete these extra chores in order of lowest paying to highest paying (just like in the real workforce - you do not start out at the top). I think that Suze’s advice is great and will assist with employment skills. I like your advice on starting as early as possible. I would also suggest that children be taught that for every dollar they are earning, they put a dime into savings. It is just as important to teach about saving at an early age!
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