Okay, so probably not. Unless you ask my three year old.
My Wednesday night guilty pleasure is watching Wife Swap and I'm always quite surprised at how often there's someone on there who thinks that having their children do chores is evil and wrong. Because of course the child will just wake up one morning as an adult and have a wonderful work ethic. Right. So tonight I was watching and thinking how ridiculous this one family was when I realized that I need to get on the ball with getting Bug to do more chores around the house. All too often it is just easier for me to do it. And not to mention quicker. But he is quickly approaching the ripe old age of four and there are things, like keeping his room clean, that he needs to be responsible for.
Enter the allowance.
Only I don't think he's ready for his own money. He thinks of money as something to play with and doesn't completely associate it with purchasing things. I don't think it would motivate him at all. He's a tricky one, he often prefers the punishment over doing what I ask him to do, so finding something to motivate him is hard.
Enter the children's museum.
He loves that place. I'm sure he'd do some chores and keep his room clean if going there was the reward. After mulling this over a bit, I've come up with a plan. He knows the reason we don't go to the museum every time he asks is because it costs money. In fact, he once said that if he had a million dollars (while listening to the Barenaked Ladies song with a similar title) he'd go to this museum.
So my plan is that if he keeps his room clean, I'll throw a coin in a jar (because you know we have plenty of those lying around). I have some other things in my mind that will earn coins in the jar, mostly behavior related stuff. Once the jar is full (it'll be a small one mind you) we'll "have enough money" and we can go to the museum. This is all very funny to me because I didn't want to really tie chores directly to allowance. But I think tying it to going to the museum will motivate him and since he already knows about the money and visiting the museum connection, I think it's a good way to teach him the value of a dollar. So that's what I think I'll do, I'll talk it over with The Tall One and see what he thinks.
I've written some other posts on teaching my children the value of money. We'll call this post part three, you can read part one here and part two here.
photo by chefranden
5 comments:
Sometimes when I get behind in my homemaking life, I write a list of everything I need cleaned in the house (baseboards, small trash cans emptied out, and all the other small jobs that take zero time, that pile up) and I tell each kid that they can earn 5 cents/25cents/ or 50cents per job (depending on how much I hate to do that job). So basicly I like your idea of a jar filled with money. My kids get 1.00 a week if their chores are done. And if they are not done that day they do not get money and they don't get to do any activities that day (computer, Girl scouts, judo, tv, etc).
YOU GO GIRL!
I like the jar filled with money idea that they can use toward something. I am going to start my daughter when she turns 4 on some sort of allowance system. Between you and paidtwice today, you're motivating me to figure out what my system is going to be.
I like how dave ramsey talks about it - calling it a commission instead of an allowance.
If you call it an allowance it sounds like you should be getting it no matter what, they're making an allowance for you.
Calling it a commission enforces that you have to work to get it. Once you do the work - you get the commission.
@ Peter - I'm not 100% certain that I want the money my children get to be completely tied to chores. I think that they should be expected to do things like keep their rooms clean and generally pick up after themselves. I want them to learn how to manage money, but I also want them to know that there are things you do just because you need to do them. I'm sure extras will come along - household things they aren't necessarily expected to do - that they will be paid for.
That said, I know my latest chore/allowance program revolves around connecting money to a reward, I'm still formulating my thoughts on what would work best for our family. Ultimately, it's not a system I want to use, but I feel like it is what will work right now. Who knows, I may totally love it, it might work wonders and I might change my tune. I imagine I will use different systems based on the age of my children. I won't use the same allowance system for a 3 year old that I would for a 13 year old.
I have a system that works with my 5-6-7 yr old daughter. She has a list of things she is expected to do as part of the family
get dressed,
keep room tidy-ish,
take her dirty clothes to the laundry room and sort them in the right bins,
Clean up after her playtime/messes
Put her own dishes in the dishwasher after meals,
and do ONE CHORE (appx 15 min)
Once all of this is accomplished satisfactorily, she has the ABILITY to now do EXTRAS, which results in her EARNING EXTRA STUFF, whether it's money, or museum trips. When in the store and she asks for something EXTRA, I take the opportunity to discuss cost, and help her decide how important it is and come up with a way to help her earn it.
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