How to allow your kids to get and use their allowance
Ever since James and I decided that we would raise our blended family together, James has embraced a lot of my rules for my children and applied them to his kids. One of the main differences in our children was, and often still is although it is becoming negligibly infrequent these days, how they dealt with STUFF and how they dealt with not receiving STUFF.
When my firstborn was a toddler, I often bought her a matchbox car at Walmart or Target whenever she “was really good” during a shopping trip. Oh, how I despise that expression! Kids are all born “good”; they just sometimes behave badly! So I refuse to use that expression! I might say to our children, “I really liked how you behaved there; it was great to see you display such good manners.” But that’s as far as the word “good” goes with me. Because children who are not labeled as “good children”, i.e. “you’re being so good”, are essentially led to believe that they are “bad children”. And children internalize this, since they do not possess a well-developed prefrontal cortex and can comprehend the nuances between “being good and behaving well”.
Anyway, by the time my daughter was 3 and my son came along, she had developed quite the impressive collection of $1-matchbox cars, most of which she amassed during Target runs when she behaved well. Add to that the millions (yes, I might be prone to exaggerating lol) of birthday and Christmas/Chanukah presents and my child was no longer behaving WELL; she was WELL on her way to becoming the most spoiled brat on the planet. So it was time to put an end to that. My Ex-husband and I decided to start giving her an allowance for wanted-but-not-needed-items. This allowed me to make a Target run with toddler and baby in tow and neither give into the toddler’s every whim, nor deal with any of the (in)famous American toddler tantrums inside a store. You know the ones I’m talking about… “Mommy, can I have xyz, no you can’t, but I want to, whaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!”
We’ve all seen them and it’s embarrassing. For the parent and any on-lookers. By age 4, our daughter received an allowance of 50 cents/week. She could choose to save up for two weeks and buy herself a new matchbox car, or save up for three months and buy something bigger and better. I was adamant that our children receive allowance because they are our children, and not tie the allowance to any chores, like most Americans do. They are expected to clean up after themselves and generally try not to make my life any more difficult than it already is, but at this tender age, they surely need not work for money.
James embraces my philosophy on this and it was relatively painless to get all four of our children on one common denominator. These days, when we go to a store and one of them asks to buy something, all we have to ask is, “Did you bring your allowance?” If the answer is yes, we have no recource. They can have buyer’s remorse later, but it’s better to learn about buyer’s remorse on a $20-item now, than on a $200,000-item in their 40s… If the answer is no… well, then the learning effect is that 72-hours later, when we get to that store again, they may not want that particular item anymore and will be happy they didn’t talk us into fronting them the money 😉
Ashley@Shakenstirredandblended
Hi, I'm Ashley and I am a freelance writer and editor for one local and one national publication. In my spare time, I teach foreign languages and manage two households. Oh, and raise four children. It's a crazy life that I chose and I love every second of it :o)
