AskHal

Last week, Hal answered a question from Carol, a ScreamFree mom wondering what to do concerning allowance and chores. This is part II of his response. If you missed part I, you can read it by clicking here.

Like most of us, Carol wants to do what is best for her children. She wants her kids to be involved around the house, but she feels paralyzed about how to do allowance and chores the “right” way. In last week’s newsletter, I discussed the pros and cons of tying chores to money and responded by telling her that there were three basic things she needed to consider in order to make up her own mind about this issue. If you missed my response, take a moment and read it here.

Now we’re ready to talk about allowance in and of itself. In our home, we have tried a number of things and I think we’ve finally settled on something that we like – for now. We decided to concentrate on three factors to determine how much our kids would receive.

1. The expenses they would be responsible for

2. The age of the child

3. Our goals for giving allowance in the first place

Again, there is no one right amount out there. We chose an amount that was well within our budget, but would realistically cover what we expected our kids to pay for on their own (birthday presents for friends, clothing items more costly than we are willing to shell out, itunes music, etc…). Then we drew up a contract with them concerning the specifics of the agreement. We agreed to give them their allowance every Monday so that we’d have the weekend to be sure and have cash on hand.

Now it's time to discuss an even more important issue than how much you give. How you teach them to handle what you give to them. Some experts will tell you that you should divide their allowance equally into three jars: savings, giving, and spending in order to teach them how to handle their money. I disagree. First of all, that’s a pretty unrealistic way of handling money. Which one of us divides our pie that way? Secondly, I’d rather my children learn about budgeting and buyer’s remorse through experience now rather than later. Letting them decide how to handle their money now allows you to walk with them through the mistakes we’ve all made with our own resources. They’re much more likely to actually learn something this way. Of course, we want to encourage saving and giving, but we don’t mandate it. We want them to want to do those things on their own. When Hannah, on her own, volunteered to donate her own allowance to her school’s fundraiser, she was beaming. The fact that she didn’t have to made all of the difference in her attitude.

I’m no money expert, my wife will attest to that fact, but I do know a thing or two about relationships. I firmly believe that by positioning yourself beside your child, instead of propping him up or holding him back, you make yourself someone to whom he will always confide and from whom he will always seek wisdom.