allowances

What's a good age to start giving an allowance? What's a good system to use? How much is a good amount for a young child?

My daughter is only 4 but getting her to pick up after herself is impossible. She definately loves getting money, so I thought maybe I could start some sort of a system and give her a little every week if she does what she's supposed to.

I know she's young, but I feel that it could help. I just don't know how to go about making it educational, fair, and fun. Also, if she does some, but not all of her chores for the week, how do I come to a decision on what to give her?

make a star board and use different coloured stars for tasks done, and not quite done no star if she does nothing and give a set amount for that colour of star. I don't know say a $ for a gold star and half for a red star. 

i wouldn't go there yet.  kids have to have a sense of responsibility for themselves and their family, and not just do things for reward, because once you start down that road, the reward will have to get bigger and bigger to keep her interested.

by ten or twelve, kids actually kind-of need their own money, and they need to learn how to manage their money, but at four, there must be more appropriate things that she needs/wants.

Original Post by pgeorgian:

i wouldn't go there yet.  kids have to have a sense of responsibility for themselves and their family, and not just do things for reward, because once you start down that road, the reward will have to get bigger and bigger to keep her interested.

by ten or twelve, kids actually kind-of need their own money, and they need to learn how to manage their money, but at four, there must be more appropriate things that she needs/wants.

Then you got any suggestions on how I can get her to pick up after herself and/or help out a little? It seems I've tried everything and nothing works.

ideally, she'd want to do it just to be helpful ;)

but how about making it part of the evening routine that she gets to cuddle with you and read a book once her toys are picked up? 

and if positive rewards fail, i'd go the other way: she leaves her stuff out, she loses it.  let her go to bed and leave her toys lying around, and when she gets up in the morning--sorry, kiddo!--they're gone.  then allow her to earn them back (one at a time) by doing what you ask.

i just think that it's important to help her value other things than money.  and you don't want to get yourself into a trap in which you have a ten or twelve or fifteen year old who won't do anything unless she gets paid, you know?

I've tried taking toys away. I got rid of two garbage bags full of toys and she didn't care.

I would try to do a routine with her but it's REALLY hard to have any sort of routine around here with my husband's crazy schedule and the fact that I go to school at nights.

Also, she's been wondering about money and how its earned and why we never have any (lol) so I thought that this might teach her financial responsibility and the value of a dollar.

But I TOTALLY get what you're saying. I never got an allowance as a child.

maybe she has too much stuff? 

the problem with trying to teach her now the value of a dollar is that you'd have to give her a significant amount in order for her to learn anything.  and that's assuming that she's intellectually ready for that lesson, which is assuming a lot.

also, rather than paying her off for every little chore, when she's older you might want to give her a list of chores for the week.  if the chores get done before the end of the week, she gets her allowance; otherwise - sorry!  that way it's her problem and her responsibility, and you don't get stuck micro-managing her.

i'd stick with the taking-away plan.  tell her it's going to happen, and be consistent.  it might take a few days or longer for her to start to miss things, especially if she has a tonne of toys, but at some point she's going to want to play with something and it's not going to be there.  then she'll pitch a fit, and when she's done, you can remind her how it happened .

you have to find some way to work consistency and routine into her life, or you're setting yourself (and her) up for ongoing battles.

I think I was eleven when my parents decided to let me mow the lawn every weekend for ten dollars.  Just my experience.  :D

But I had to go to them to make the deal.  Maybe a good time to start an allowance is when the child shows an interest in earning the money and has a method in which to earn it!  

As for doing chores, that was never a problem when I was little.  It was just something we always had to do and I cannot recall what it was that they used to start us on it.

My mom used to play a game with me when I was younger to make me clean up after myself. I used to empty my toy box apparently all around me/my room and when it was bed time or she wanted me to clean up if I wasn't in there was a "race" to see who could put the most toys in. Whoever does it wins! Obviously my mom put like 2 things in and the rest was all me.

This is what she told me, I don't remember it.

Edit: I never got an allowance. >.<

I never got an allowance and I had certain `you live here, you help out`chores to do (dishes, vacuuming, keeping my room clean). If I wanted spending money I had to do something beyond routine chores - like cleaning out the garage or washing the car.

Barbara Coloroso ... in a lot of ways she seems like a very scary, tough-love-on-crack parent, but her suggestions on how to get preschoolers to clean their rooms sound pretty good http://www.amazon.ca/Kids-Are-Worth-Barbara-C oloroso/dp/014301661X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8& s=books&qid=1243302991&sr=8-1

ooh, coloroso rocks.  "say what you mean, mean what you say, and do what you say you're going to do."  i love that ****.

Yeah. I don`t actually have children, but that sounds like it would work :)

Ah, the joy of backseat parenting.

Original Post by vegetariangeek:

Yeah. I don`t actually have children...

me neither

but i do have over a decade of experience in child and youth work in school and community settings, loads of training and professional development, etc.

Original Post by vegetariangeek:

Yeah. I don`t actually have children, but that sounds like it would work :)

Ah, the joy of backseat parenting.

Yeah, before I had children I had lots of "ideas" on how to raise them. They all sounded correct and as if it would all work, but when you have them, it's not that easy. What works for some doesn't work for others.

I think there are good and bad things about providing allowances. I think it also depends on the child. I do believe that this is a decent idea with my child. As I said, I've tried many things. Who knows, maybe she'll gain some well needed knowledge.

My son is only three and I am trying to get him to help out with little things like carrying a small bag (grocery size) of garbage out, cleaning up, carrying the laundry detergent.

I think he is too young for allowance, I think four is too young, too. I don't know that they would really grasp the concept. What works with my son is singing about how he is being such a big boy helper, and praising him for helping me get things done.

When he doesn't want to help, I tell him 'this is your chore, you need to help me, it is your responsibility' and I don't back down, even if he whines and throws a mini-fit. Heck, if it went into a tantrum (which it hasn't) he would be punished and then he would help.

I think at this age they are striving to be independent, which leads to power struggles, but they also want to make us happy and be our helpers.

My kids don't get an allowance (12, 6, 4).

As part of the family unit, I expect them to do their chores. Not to say that they have regular ones (like clearing the table, making their beds, etc), but they oldest 2 (boys that share a room) are responsible for keeping their room clean.

My experience is that the funner it is, the more likely they are to do it (like cpt was talking about).

If my kids want money, then they have to do things above and beyond the regular stuff. Fortunately for them, they live on a strawberry farm and have to pick every summer. They get the opportunity to earn money whether they want to or not! It's just a matter of are they going to work harder to earn more since they'll be out there anyways or will they sit there and pick daisies :D

As for the original query, you've got to hit her where it hurts. Make it fun, make it a game but if she still balks, be prepared to take away what's important to her. Make it for an appropriate amount of time and follow through!

My 4 y/o daughter would be devastated if I took away her paints and coloring book for the day or until her things were picked up.

I have a son who is now 11.  He has a few learning disabilities.  The stuff that other childeren learned to do easily have always been challenging for him.  Because my kid is not exactly the "norm" I don't know that my comments apply.  But I agree that an allowance for a 4 year old is maybe not as helpful as it seems that it might be.

My son did really well with star charts.  At at the end of the week, if he reached his goal of X stars, then he would get a treat.  A trip for ice cream was a favorite.  But on the issue of cleaning etc - the best thing was appealing to his sense of growing up and  praise.  For example "big boys do X.  You are doing a great job at X." 

I think you also have to be sure you are not landing too much of burden of self direction on a 4 year old.  Do you say "clean your room" and walk away?  Even if a kid has done it a 1,000 times with you, on their own they can easily be overwhelmed.  Little kids simply live in the moment and need reminders to stay on track.  

If she is interested in money - buy her a toy cash register and encourage her to play store. Let her set the prices for items in your home and use play money to buy them back. 

Every kid is interested in money at that age.  But this interest shows less ability to understand money than it does the desire to mimic adult behavior.  But playing with "money" helps to build that knowledge for the futre. 

Original Post by madamq:

Every kid is interested in money at that age. But this interest shows less ability to understand money than it does the desire to mimic adult behavior. But playing with "money" helps to build that knowledge for the futre.

 

My son had some behavior problems when he started Kindergarten last fall. We agree that if he had a good day (no notes or calls from the teacher about a temper tantrum) he would get $0.15. Not much but he was happy with it. Every day he would come home announcing first thing that he was good that day. I made a big production of it and would get out the "special piggy bank" we made specially for this money.

Where am I going with this...oh yes. He would've been happier with getting 5 nickels than one loonie- it was more important to get more pieces than one piece that has a larger value.

It's hard to know exactly what to do because every child is different and you want to be careful to avoid rewards such as affection (which should be freely given anyways) and food (which might be why there are so many people that are emotional eaters)

my sister did the star chart recommended by children's services and she started it when they were 2/3 it works a treat they get a few pennies and one gift per month (small) which they get to pick helped her a lot.

Original Post by madamq:

I think you also have to be sure you are not landing too much of burden of self direction on a 4 year old.  Do you say "clean your room" and walk away?  Even if a kid has done it a 1,000 times with you, on their own they can easily be overwhelmed.  

I think this is a very important observation.  My 8 year old has issues with staying on track, even though me and my husband have helped him many times.  However, when I stayed up in his room with him, I simply directed:  first pick up your pokemon - good.  Now, pick up your webkinz, good.  When put in the context as just a series of steps, he was more open to the idea.  Because he's a great reader and a loves making lists, we decided to put these steps on paper.  Now whenever it's "room cleaning time", he just takes it out for reference (we even laminated it so he can check the steps off with a dry erase marker).  This could even work for a 4 year old if the list was made more visual - picture based instead of text based.

As for rewards, taking away toys never made much of an impact on either of our boys either - at least yet.  When our 8 year old starts giving us problems, all we have to do is tell him that his allotted amount of TV time has dwindled down to nothing, and he has to earn it back.  Our younger son is a little more difficult, as he is autistic and we have to be a little more creative - but we're figuring it out.

I started getting an allowance at about 8.  It's good for kids to have their own money and learn that some needs to be saved and the rest spent, but I agree that 4 is probably too young.

I like the idea of the star chart and once the child works up to a certain number of stars (maybe 10 or so), they get a sticker or similar small treat.  Once the child is too old to think that stickers are fun, they're probably old enough to start on an allowance (which is, of course, contingent on them doing their chores).