When our children were small, they did not need money. Everything changed when the first child began to go to school. From this moment we began to give him small amounts to pay for the trip, to buy food.
It's no secret that many children spend the money given for other purposes. We faced such a problem. It turned out that the child refuses lunch in the school cafeteria, and then buys what he wants. Therefore, we decided to divide the amounts: some should be spent on food, travel and other daily necessities, and others should be allowed to manage the child on our own. Later we began to issue pocket money only in the evenings on Sunday - once for the whole week. The amount changed depending on the diligence with which the child performed housework.
Through trial and error, my parents and sister and I created rules for issuing pocket money to children in our families. The main one: they don’t get money just like that, but earn with their labor. They need to be able to receive and competently spend. He does not value the amounts that the child easily gets, so he lowers it to the next useless thing.
1. Setting the minimum amount
Children in our family. Of course, they don’t always obey, get good grades at school and carefully clean their rooms. However we asked the minimum amount of money that a child can count on under any circumstances. This is something like the salary that an adult receives, even if the productivity of his work decreases.
2. Limit increase over time
When a child grows up, his expenses increase. Our first graders lacked 50-100 rubles a week excluding food and travel (this was a long time ago, but now the costs are completely different). However, a 16-year-old needs more pocket money because his needs are increasing. High school students in our family receive about 1000 rubles a week, although this amount largely depends on the current financial situation.
3. Deprivation of money - severe punishment
The punishment system is an important part of the educational process. However it is wrong to completely deprive a child of pocket money for the slightest offense. We decided to use this measure only in cases where the children commit very serious misconduct.
4. Payment for homework
When a child in our family does more housework, he gets more pocket money. However, he should know that he has a basic set of responsibilities. Therefore, we do not promise the child money for making a bed, cleaning his room, washing dishes, putting scattered clothes in a closet, and going to a bread store. Everything that is not included in this list is paid separately.So the child has an incentive to help his mother with the housework - for example, to wash the floor and wipe the dust throughout the apartment.
5. Hard work costs more
As loving parents, we try to be fair with children: the more time-consuming housework the child performs, the more money he should receive. Dusting, watering flowers, hanging washed clothes, vacuuming carpets is the easiest task, so paying for them is low. A higher "rate" we have assigned for ironing, exhausting rugs. The child receives even more money if he agrees to wash the car or all the dirty dishes left after the guests.
We discuss with children the cost of work in advance. If agreed, we keep our promise. We also have a system of fines so that the child always tries to complete the task well. If the quality of work is low, we reduce the payment for it. If everything has to be redone, the child does not receive any money.
6. Good grades are not paid
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Money is the wrong motivation for learning. For learning, the child must have a different motivation than material reward. Therefore, we rejected this idea, but introduced additional fines. In the case of poor progress or frequent complaints by teachers about the behavior of the child, we stop issuing pocket money until the situation is corrected.
7. Do not give out money ahead of schedule
At first, our children easily lowered in one day the entire amount that they received for a week, and then they came to ask for more. Then we firmly decided not to provide unscheduled material assistance to the child. Let him do without money until the next payday. This method teaches you to control your expenses.
8. Report on expenses
Of course, we forced the younger students to report on how and what they spent pocket money on. However, we decided that from the age of 13-14 years can already be given to the child freedom to manage his finances as he sees fit. The exception is if the son or daughter has been saving money for some major purchase for a long time. We discuss such decisions at the family council.
9. Encouragement of savings
Children often beg for some gadgets, trendy clothes and other things from us. In such cases, we explain that you can independently save up for a purchase if you stop spending money on unnecessary little things and start saving money. However, we always help the child “earn” the missing amount by providing extraordinary work - for example, carrying out spring cleaning.
10. Pocket money - part of the total family budget
All families have financial difficulties, ours is no exception. In such situations, you have to cut back on the amount that children receive for daily expenses, and this causes resentment and resentment. Therefore, we always intelligibly explain to the child that his pocket money is part of the family budget, and everyone will have to temporarily reduce their spending. As soon as the financial situation is corrected, we immediately restore the previous amounts of pocket money.
11. Discussion of pocket money with other parents
Whenever possible, we discuss the issue of pocket money with the parents of friends and classmates of our children. The logic is this: if the child will receive the same amount with his peers, he will not envy or ask them.
12. Expenditure Diary
When the children began to receive pocket money, we asked them to keep diaries and describe in detail how much and what was spent. In the future, this will become a good habit that will help control your expenses and be more careful about finances.
The first months we looked into such diaries. However, then we allowed the children to keep records of expenses on their own. We just needed to make sure that the records were kept neat. This later helps the child evaluate their own purchases.
We hope these simple rules will help other parents teach children how to handle money properly, plan their expenses and create savings. Such skills will certainly come in handy in adulthood.
We also read:
- Children and pocket money. How to teach a child to relate to money
- Children and money: 10 mistakes of financial education
Pocket money: why and when to give them to children?
Should parents give pocket money to their children? When to start doing this and what amounts can we talk about? These very difficult questions are answered in the program “Rosina-mother” by financial adviser Elena Eidelman:
Psychologist Tips Elena Gromova
Another mom’s personal opinion
Money began to give to the child as he went to school. I give about the same amount. I don’t encourage doing household chores with money, otherwise he will not lift a finger for free. If you need more money, the son asks and explains the reason.
My child is in third grade, and certainly gets pocket money. I give him not much, because for meals in the cafeteria we all pay for ourselves at the parent meetings, and our school is nearby, so we don’t need money to travel, my son himself shows me that he bought with the money that we give him, these are usually sweets. But we don’t practice monetary incentives for small chores, we have been instilling family values and responsibilities since childhood, because we all try for each other.
To give money for work, I think is a very bad method of education. Example: such a child will grow up, and you will suddenly need his help. And he will refuse you if you do not give him a reward, because you yourself taught him to help only for money.