Practical Parenting With A Twist

So the topic of allowances has once again come up in our home.  The funniest part is that our older children will take over the conversation and merely answer for us.  You see, we don’t give our children an allowance.  They proceed to tell the younger ones that the reason that we don’t merely ‘give’ them money is because we are preparing them for the ‘real world’.

Wow! I was very impressed with that comment so I allowed them to continue.  So, I asked them, what exactly does that mean?  They proceeded with the explanation that money is something that should be ‘earned’.  They continued with the following: ‘Mom and Dad provide us with food and shelter and clothing and more.  If we ‘want’ something more, than we must earn it.’ Can I just say that hearing that was music to my ears.

It is true that we provide all the necessities for our family and yes, we also provide them with ‘fun and entertaining’ items, but for the most part they have the opportunity to earn money to purchase items they want or desire.  For instance, our children have responsibilities in the household such as cleaning their rooms, helping with the dishes, laundry, and up keep of the home.  However, for extra activities such as cleaning our office, filing, washing the car, or pressure washing the fence they actually will earn money.  The money that is earned is then divided.  They have a savings jar, tithing jar and spending jar.  They make the choices of what to place in each jar.  This teaches them the act of saving and tithing as well.

So, are allowances good or bad? It truly depends on how you determine that in your home.  I am not here to give you the answer to that question.  However, I am here to remind you that our roles as parents is to love, nurture, and teach our children  but also to ultimately prepare them for adulthood.  Our goal in our family is to raise independent thinking children and ones that will learn how to manage their hard earned money.  So far it’s working.  A great example is the following.  My oldest son was ‘given’ a laptop for Christmas one year, because we thought he would need it for his schooling.  Indeed it came in very handy but we also noticed that he was not taking care of it as he should.  Ultimately his computer was hacked and contained numerous viruses to the point of no repair, not to mention that it looked like it had gone through the ringer.  His laptop was literally unrecognizable.  The choice now was to either purchase another laptop for him or have him use his ‘earned’ money to purchase one.  Can you guess what we chose?

Yes, he purchased his own laptop. Amazingly enough, he takes very good care of this laptop unlike the one that was simply given to him.  This example showed us in more ways than one that our children will take care of items more when they purchase them than when they are merely given to them.  Now, don’t misunderstand; we still give our children plenty of things, but costly ones they must earn if not completely at least partly.

So, what do you think? Is allowance good or bad?  Should they earn their money or simply be given it for things that they normally should be responsible for?  Would love your feedback.

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