Five Lessons From Earning Allowances
Posted: May 17, 2019
Do Your Children Earn An Allowance?
Here’s Five Lessons they can learn from it:
As a curious parent, I am always listening to different strategies to instill the very best in my children. I have had the good fortune of enjoying a front row seat to some amazing parenting strategies. One topic that has often come up is about paying your children an allowance. I was raised in a home where you were responsible for chores but there was no allowance. At first, the idea of giving an allowance seemed like a mismatch; after all, we are already providing so much for our children, why would we pay them just for helping out? Shouldn’t that be required?
The view I was taking is that I wasn’t looking at the big picture of the other long-term benefits of instituting an allowance.
The five benefits I see are:
1. Follow through: In an age-appropriate way, it instills in children that you are paid for completed tasks. If the tasks are not complete, there is no pay or at the very least a reduction of pay.
2. Responsibility: Doing chores requires time management and prioritization of responsibility. Children and teens start to learn the important lesson of balance. They learn how to juggle family responsibilities, school work and having a social life.
3. Accountability: An allowance forces a level of inspection by the parents as to whether the tasks were done and the quality and timeliness of the completed tasks. If tasks are not completed, completed late or require several reminders, then they lose a fair percentage of their pay. No
4. Giving Value: To earn more they learn they need to do more or give more value. Allowances are proportionate to work that is done. If they express to you they want more money, it provides you the opportunity to have a conversation about additional things they can do around the house to earn more money. They learn money is tied closely to the value given.
5. Money management: You help them create a structure so they save a portion, give a portion away and spend a portion if they like. As parents, we have all probably had the feeling of too much time until the next payroll without enough money left over to cover additional wants. How great is it to help them manage this money management flaw when they are children and Give it a try. The amount of money is less important. I have seen as little as $5 per week up to $30 per week. Calibrate the amount to the age and the responsibility level of the child or teen. It is simply a great opportunity we can take as parents to give our children an incredibly great life lesson at a relatively low cost, especially when compared to child or teen who grows up without learning the lessons of follow through, responsibility, accountability, giving value and money management.
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