Teaching Kids Dollars & Sense

For most mothers, “it’s just what they do”!

If you enjoyed the Mom Song, here’s an entertaining response by Vanessa Van Petten, an enterprising 23 year old who has already:

• written a book on parenting from a teen’s perspective (”You’re Grounded“).
• Created the On Youth and Teens Today web site, a parenting guide for parents from a teen’s perspective. She’s also recruited many teens to help contribute articles on how they’d like to see parenting.
• Been featured as the Young Parenting Expert in the Wall Street Journal, the Santa Monica Daily Press, World Journal, and Atlanta Insite Magazine.
• Appeared on the Greg Mantell Show, Playboy Radio and numerous other radio and internet podcast shows.

Phew! This creative and industrious young lady is clearly going places!

Here’s a link you may want to send to your teen: The Financial Crisis, as Explained to My Fourteen-Year-Old Sister

You’re fourteen and have no source of income. What would convince me to lend you money if I’m not sure you can pay it back?

Dan Gasteazoro is an Active Allowance member. Dan is also a Grade 4 teacher at Glacier Hills Elementary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

And wow….what a creative teacher! Not only does Dan use the site for his family — he also figured out a novel way to use Active Allowance for his grade 4 class. He tells us it really helps him engage the children and teach them a wide range of subjects in a fun way. Dan agreed to share his experience:

I started using Active Allowance in my class last April. My “Eureka moment” came when I figured out how to use your site to connect responsibility and reward in a classroom setting without actually “paying” a monetary allowance. I invented an in-class “economy” — with great success!

I created “teams” of kids. Since it was near the end of the year, the kids knew each other well enough (and I them) that I could create groups based on capabilities, temperaments, etc. In this way, I was able to have a little bit of everything (the good, the bad and the ugly!) in each group.

I wanted the use of checklists to pay dividends based on their behavior. I also wanted them to be able to track their successes (or failures) in the virtual world, so the points-to-dollars functionality of the site and the virtual “Bank” were also really useful.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a good article today in Today’s Parent magazine called Task Force: Chores. It’s a useful reminder that “doing chores” starting at a young age isn’t just about getting chores done…..it’s about developing your children’s sense of responsibility and contribution that will help them become successful adults. Well worth a brief read.

It’s so nice to unexpectedly find unsolicited praise during some aimless browsing

I just came across Dave Mauder’s blog entry where he talks about his headstrong 19 year old daughter. She was moving out that day, following a long history of financial irresponsibility and non-contribution to the family. It’s a difficult situation for any parent, but unfortunately, not at all abnormal. Dave’s article (lament?) is required reading, IMHO.

Half way through the story, much to my surprise, I discovered a huge and lengthy plug for Active Allowance!

In Dave’s words:

“I truly wish I would have known about this service back when my kids were 5 or 6 years old. What a difference it could (would) have made!”

We often do wish we could turn back the clock. Dave - my main consoling comment on the subject comes from my Dad:

“Just remember….life’s a marathon, not a sprint….there’s still a long way to go in this race!”

Dave - please be sure to give us an update on how she’s doing and any useful learning you might gain.

And if anyone reading this has kids in the 6-15 age range, check out our free trial. We can’t guarantee you’ll avoid Dave’s situation but it will sure give you a big leg up!

I wish we had done this ages ago!

We took advantage several weeks ago of a free service from our bank (TD). We created child bank accounts for each of our teens (14 and 17) and gave them debit cards to access them.

Now, when they want money from their virtual family bank account at Active Allowance:

1. they write us a check from their Active Allowance account.
2. if it’s for more than just a small amount of cash, we log in to our real bank account with TD and do a transfer to theirs.

Quick and simple!

Now, they can pay retailers using their debit cards and not worry about losing their cash or being overdrawn.

I wish we had done that years ago for our 17 year old so she wouldn’t have had to carry so much cash when she went shopping (and sometimes lose it!).

Here’s a list of some of the main benefits:

• No need for older kids to carry a lot of cash when shopping
• No ability to overdraw/borrow
• No charge to get the debit card
• No charge to use it in stores
• No charge for ATM access, if from our bank’s ATM’s
• No need for us to have cash on hand when the kids want it
• Easy to immediately transfer money online from our account to theirs
• Online transfer safely relies on the bank’s mega-million dollar investment in online security
• transfers are free

All free for child accounts (free at our bank - yours may differ)! The only limitation for our bank’s debit card vs a credit card is their debit card doesn’t enable you to buy things online (some banks’ debit cards do work online).

Despite this one infrequent limitation, we vastly prefer debit cards over credit cards for our kids. One of the principles we’re trying to teach them, while we still have some influence, is that they “shouldn’t spend it unless they have it”. And that’s sure hard to do when they have a credit card (especially when I see how undisciplined our daughter can be with her cell phone account! I wish our cell phone company enabled us to create a limit, but that’s a rant for another day).

Oh….and one more thing…..it looks like some of our Teaching Kids Dollars & Sense lessons might be sinking in…at least with our 14 year old son! He deliberately doesn’t transfer too much into his real bank account. He’s a little concerned that if it’s too easily available to him, he might just spend it!

Sometimes, we wonder what lessons might be sinking in. It’s soooooo nice to enjoy those moments when we see some do!

Oh….and did I mention it’s all free

There’s a good chance you have already seen this but I have a great laugh every time I do. It’s scary just how many times I say these very same things. Oh well….at least the Active Allowance process and our kids’ Responsibility Checklists help me cut down the number!

Here it is - The Mom Song sung by Anita Renfroe to the tune of The William Tell Overture.

Ahhhh….the never-ending debate about whether allowance should be linked to chores. Here’s a thoughtful blog entry by Dave Taylor, who publishes Attachment Parenting Blog: Raising Children with Love.

Dave raises some great points to consider for parents who feel their kids should contribute to the running of the home just because they “should” (the “I don’t get paid for doing dishes” crowd).

What do YOU think?

From our mailbag…

From time to time, we receive emails from members who tell us about their experience with Active Allowance. We received this one yesterday:

Dear Leslie and Harvey,

Our family has been using Active Allowance for 2 months now, and things are going so well that I’ve been talking about your program constantly - at work, with family, with friends…

One of my friends has a blended family with 5 kids ranging in ages from 15 to 2-1/2. Consistency and accountability is always an issue in their house because of fluctuating visitation schedules, and my friend is hoping that Active Allowance will be their answer. I spent two hours with her last night helping her with setting up the checklists and budgets - they get started tomorrow (Monday). Even the 2-1/2 year old has a checklist of his own so he can be a part of it, too!

The difference in my household is amazing - we rarely have to remind the kids of their responsibilities anymore, and they get after me every Sunday evening to get their new lists printed out for Monday morning.

I recently had a day out with my 11-year old son, and he’d taken some of his “Fun Money” with him to spend. At one point, he was debating between buying two different items - finally putting them both back on the shelf. He said, “Mom, I can’t decide, so I guess I won’t buy either one.” No pouting or disappointment, just the realization that he didn’t want either thing bad enough to spend his hard-earned money on. And this was my “spender” - money used to burn a hole in his pocket.

Before Active Allowance, I probably would have bought one or both of the things for him - so I saved, too! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Michelle

Well you made my day! It’s results like yours that make this so much fun and rewarding for all of us here at Active Allowance, and especially for Harvey and me! Thanks so much for sharing how things are going. And double thanks for passing on the good word!

Leslie