Recently, after much discussion and years of deliberating, we decided to start giving the girls an allowance. My kids are getting piggy banks for Valentine’s Day, along with a printed copy of this coloring book, and each Saturday, if their rooms are reasonably clean (floor is clear, beds are made, laundry is put away or in the dirty clothes bin, playroom is tidy), they will each earn five dollars.
I got the idea for the banks from Trent at TSD, who has blogged before about his family choices when it comes to allowances. We tried a chores-for-rewards system for awhile, and it did help my girls become more helpful and responsible for tasks like clearing their plates, setting the table, or doing their homework, but it didn’t teach them as much about money as I had hoped it would, and stocking the Chore Store got a little burdensome. Now that our girls are in second grade, more and more of their friends are getting allowances, so the discussion resurfaced. We both believe strongly in the idea of letting kids make mistakes with moneybefore they are out from under our roof, and we both believe in having our kids do chores. We don’t have a housecleaner–we don’t even have a dishwasher–and we think our kids should take an appropriate role in helping keep the household machine working smoothly.
I think most people would agree on some variation of both of these ideas, but should they be tied together? Should the allowance be premised on the completion of chores?
Like I said, we’ve gone back and forth for years. The idea of handing out money, no strings or conditions attached, has never made much sense to me. How is that comparable to real-world situations? Many experts argue that taking part in household tasks should be part of every family member’s role, not connected to money. Others say that you weaken the system by adding money, because a child can refuse to take out the trash if the money doesn’t prove to be a big enough incentive. I think we are getting around that in some ways, because if the girls don’t clean their rooms, they are the ones most affected, whereas trash or pet care are chores that affect us all. Like I said earlier, my kids already clear their plates and hang up their coats and small tasks like that, so cleaning their room is a bigger task that should be worth the money, but really only affects them.
Other benefits of the system we are going to try is that it builds in savings and charitable donations, which my partner and I build into our own budget, but the girls don’t see much evidence of that. I’m going to suggest Heifer International and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library for their first donations, because I think those are concrete enough to seize their imaginations. One potential drawback will be that we will have to establish a checklist, probably posted on the wall of their bedroom, that clearly delineates when “cleaning the room” means. I don’t want this to turn into an eternal round of negotiations and arguing about what constitutes “clean enough” for the allowance. I say “we” because I do think it’s fair to have all four of us involved in writing this checklist, so the girls feel they have a voice in the decision too.
I could have sworn I had blogged about this before, but couldn’t find anything in my archives. What about your family? How do you handle chores and allowances?
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