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Part of the problem with this issue is that parents are required, by law, to support their kids. This means, at a minimum; food, clothing, shelter, education (compulsory in every state for at least 8 years), and health care. Parents can't get out of this b/c the kid didn't empty the dishwasher or clean their room.
Now, with some of these things, the devil is in the details. While I have never, even here on CD, heard of anyone who expected their kids (under 18) to contribute to paying the mortgage, utilities, or the grocery bill, clothing is another thing altogether. How much clothing? Does it have to be all new, or is used clothing from the Goodwill OK? How many pairs of shoes? Re: food, once the kids go to school-hot lunch or sack lunch? If you choose to give kids lunch money, do you give just enough to cover the school lunch, or do you give money for extras, and in high school, for them to go out to the local fast food place occasionally? My point is, you can't quite equate allowance with a job, like you can with an adult.
As someone else said, if you don't give an allowance, you have to pay for everything as it comes up. My personal opinion is that as long as you aren't at the extreme end either way, your kids will learn money management. They'll also learn how to clean house. That's not the whole purpose of having chores.
Actually, we never received an allowance. What is an allowance? Payment for nothing! What does that teach?
How to budget and save up when you really want something. We started allowance when my kids both wanted tablets. They saved their $5/week plus birthday money until they could afford to buy them. Then they had to part with all of that cash all at once.
Now when they ask me to buy them something I tell them they can spend their own money and they usually decide they don't want it that badly. They also learn how to give. They spend their own money on canned food for the Thanksgiving food drive and things like that.
My wife and I often talked about this, and we cannot completely come up with an agreement on this topic. Right now our kids are 3 and 5 years old.
I want our kids to have to do a bunch of chores at a very young age to teach them work ethics and responsibility. After all....it worked for me. I don't want them to grow up lazy like their older cousins who are over 21 years old, not going to school, and still living at home with their parents. I was instructed to clean the house as early as 5 years old, which is our daughter age. I was forced to do yard work for my parent's friends. As I got older my mom found me a job at her work and I started working there at a very young age.
Here is an article I found on the New York Times: Kid To Work
The article has good ideas for putting teens to work to teach them the same lessons. But my kids are younger. What do you guys think? How old should they start? How much responsibility should we be giving them?
One simple, age appropriate daily chore per year. Three year old can fill up the dogs water bowl every night, or put all the dinner dishes (not glasses) in the sink, stuff like that. Five year old can do more advanced things like put the recycling outside, or empty the bathroom garbage can.
As for working for money, what is the end goal you want for your children? If it is for them to be willing to work a minimum wage job, than that is a good plan, but if you want them to go college or something like that, than having them develop a work ethic academically might be a more important goal.
One simple, age appropriate daily chore per year. Three year old can fill up the dogs water bowl every night, or put all the dinner dishes (not glasses) in the sink, stuff like that. Five year old can do more advanced things like put the recycling outside, or empty the bathroom garbage can.
As for working for money, what is the end goal you want for your children? If it is for them to be willing to work a minimum wage job, than that is a good plan, but if you want them to go college or something like that, than having them develop a work ethic academically might be a more important goal.
How about both? Or do you not need a work ethic after college?
How about both? Or do you not need a work ethic after college?
Succeeding academically requires a good work ethic. Therefore if your children are taught that academics matter, the work ethic naturally follows. But if you emphasize the job, frequently academics suffer.
I have children who were not allowed to work during the school year because academics come first in our family. They had excellent grades, worked in their fields in college, and now they have careers which utilize the work ethic they learned through academics. None of them regret that they never had the opportunity to flip burgers.
Additionally, I have seen many of my students have their grades suffer for their part time jobs. These are not families where the children must work in order for the families to survive but rather families who are just unaware how much more competitive and stressful school is for many students, particularly high achieving ones. One of my students right now is in danger of losing his appointment to the USNA if he cannot get one of his grades back into the B range. He just pushed academics to the back burner when he started a job he does no even need but his parents felt would make him more "well-rounded". I am sure there exists a subset of students who can manage academics, family, sports, extracurriculars and a job. But in my experience as a teacher for over a decade, they are the minority.
How to budget and save up when you really want something. We started allowance when my kids both wanted tablets. They saved their $5/week plus birthday money until they could afford to buy them. Then they had to part with all of that cash all at once.
Now when they ask me to buy them something I tell them they can spend their own money and they usually decide they don't want it that badly. They also learn how to give. They spend their own money on canned food for the Thanksgiving food drive and things like that.
The same thing could have been accomplished with chores/odd jobs, right?
At 3, children can clean up their toys, help with setting the table (good for math, btw - one to one correspondence), help to load the dishwasher, help to sort laundry (again good for math - patterns and categories).
As they get older, children's responsibilities should increase.
I don't think that chores should be paid for unless the chore is over and above the usual ones to help keep up the house. Allowances are for learning to budget and should be given to help children learn how to manage money, imo. As kids get older, their allowance can include things like their school lunches and even their clothing budget. My adult children learned very well this way. DD shopped at thrift stores and saved extra money from her clothing budget to buy music cds and art supplies. DS saved his lunch money by brown bagging and his bus fare by walking or biking and used the savings to buy baseball cards. Both of them are very good at managing their money as adults.
3 year olds are more willing to help out than older ones I think. Once they get into school, it's harder to "motivate" them. They'll think they're too tired, or they have too much homework or they want to have friends over.
By 8 years of age though they can be doing their own laundry and putting it away. Mine wanted to do their own laundry because they got obsessed with germs about that age and didn't want their laundry mixed in with anyone elses. There aren't so many toys that 8 years olds have to pick up.
Succeeding academically requires a good work ethic. Therefore if your children are taught that academics matter, the work ethic naturally follows. But if you emphasize the job, frequently academics suffer.
I have children who were not allowed to work during the school year because academics come first in our family. They had excellent grades, worked in their fields in college, and now they have careers which utilize the work ethic they learned through academics. None of them regret that they never had the opportunity to flip burgers.
Additionally, I have seen many of my students have their grades suffer for their part time jobs. These are not families where the children must work in order for the families to survive but rather families who are just unaware how much more competitive and stressful school is for many students, particularly high achieving ones. One of my students right now is in danger of losing his appointment to the USNA if he cannot get one of his grades back into the B range. He just pushed academics to the back burner when he started a job he does no even need but his parents felt would make him more "well-rounded". I am sure there exists a subset of students who can manage academics, family, sports, extracurriculars and a job. But in my experience as a teacher for over a decade, they are the minority.
And there are tons of kids who balance school and work. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, and aren't we talking about chores at home not part time jobs? Are you saying kids who are paid for doing chores will learn how to work but will suffer in school?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Auntie77
The same thing could have been accomplished with chores/odd jobs, right?
You asked what an allowance teaches. I answered. I never said my kids don't do chores, but they can learn to budget with or without the chores.
Succeeding academically requires a good work ethic. Therefore if your children are taught that academics matter, the work ethic naturally follows. But if you emphasize the job, frequently academics suffer.
I have children who were not allowed to work during the school year because academics come first in our family. They had excellent grades, worked in their fields in college, and now they have careers which utilize the work ethic they learned through academics. None of them regret that they never had the opportunity to flip burgers.
Additionally, I have seen many of my students have their grades suffer for their part time jobs. These are not families where the children must work in order for the families to survive but rather families who are just unaware how much more competitive and stressful school is for many students, particularly high achieving ones. One of my students right now is in danger of losing his appointment to the USNA if he cannot get one of his grades back into the B range. He just pushed academics to the back burner when he started a job he does no even need but his parents felt would make him more "well-rounded". I am sure there exists a subset of students who can manage academics, family, sports, extracurriculars and a job. But in my experience as a teacher for over a decade, they are the minority.
I think it's good for kids who go to college to work those "character building" jobs like waiting tables and flipping hamburgers because it teaches them how others work and maybe they won't look down their noses at people who work those kinds of jobs.
I think some of the best physicians worked in minimum wage jobs while in college and can actually relate to their patients. The very best CEO's I've ever seen also worked other kinds of jobs and understand how the front lines of a company work.
^^I believe the research says that working more than 20 hrs a week can be deleterious to one's grades in high school and college. I don't know too many people who turn their noses down at people working hard.
How many physicians and CEOs do you personally know? I'm dying to hear that!
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