When I was a little girl I got an allowance. I had to do chores to get this allowance. When I was really little, I would gather up all the bedroom trash cans and empty them in the big can on the service porch. When I was bigger, I had to load and unload the dishwasher. I don’t think I often got an allowance without something tied to it. In junior high school my parents tried to monetarily break me of my underachieving ways. I underachieved with amassing cash stores too.
I was reading a piece by Suze Orman and she mentioned allowance and children. She is firmly in the camp that allowance needs to be earned instead of just giving. Her reasoning makes perfect sense: money isn’t free. We do our children a disservice by given them something for nothing. This way of thinking does not apply to the dollar that Grandma sends in cards to the children. Jessie is so excited to get a dollar and has saved up almost enough to buy herself a new chair.
That brings me to another point Suze brought up about children and money. Teaching children to save for the things they want is definitely the right direction to point them. They shouldn’t rely on credit, which is Mom and Dad in this case, for the things they need. However, children need to also be taught saving for saving’s sake. Having a hefty bank balance is a nice accomplishment.
Suze’s last point was to have children help with the family finances. By not keeping children in the dark about how a household runs, they will be better prepared to run their own. Children need to understand that Mom and Dad can’t buy everything either.
Children don’t need to be shielded from finances. Let them see it all.