Those parents are getting it wrong, if you believe a pile of parenting books going back a couple of decades that say an allowance should be for learning — not for earning, wcfcourier.com reported.
For a recent one, Ron Lieber’s ‘The Opposite of Spoiled’ argued that we shouldn’t give allowances in exchange for chores because one day our kids will decide they don’t need the money and refuse to do the work.
“So allowance ought to stand on its own, not as a wage but as a teaching tool,” Lieber wrote.
Then there’s ‘Positive Discipline A-Z’, the classic by Jane Nelsen. Nelsen, too, argues that allowances should be educational: “Chores are a separate issue and should not be connected to an allowance.”
Even the venerable ‘Dr. Spock’s Baby and Childcare’, first published in 1945, had come around by the eighth edition and proclaimed: “An allowance is a way for children to learn about handling money. . . . An allowance shouldn’t be used as payment for routine chores.”
So does this mean our kids shouldn’t do routine chores? No. It just means that they shouldn’t get paid for them.
These parenting experts argue that children should help out around the house because it’s the right thing to do, not because they make money at it.
The T. Rowe Price survey also found that 34 percent of parents don’t give their children an allowance at all, and these experts would say that’s another mistake. To learn to manage money, you need money.
So that’s the ‘why’ of allowance. But what about the when, where, how, how much and how often?
The consensus among experts is you should give your child an allowance as soon as he or she begins noticing and asking about money. Lieber gives the practical suggestion to start an allowance soon after the tooth fairy first comes, as this will certainly make your child take a sudden interest in money.
Once you start an allowance, how often do you dole it out? The majority of parents give their children this money on a weekly basis, and the experts say that’s fine for little kids. However, for teenagers, some suggest a larger, monthly allowance to give them practice making their funds stretch over time.