Teaching Kids Dollars & Sense

Here are are a few more ideas, following up on last week’s article, to help you implement a chores/allowance system with your teen.

1. Petty Cash = more autonomy

   If you’re using a system like Active Allowance, with a virtual Family Bank instead of a piggy bank, be sure to let them know they can write a check for “spending money” any time they want so they can have cash in their wallet……and they don’t have to tell you each thing they buy.

   In our case, I mistakenly thought our 14 year old understood this but I never explained it explicitly. It was the source of a great amount of unstated frustration for her which festered over several months and created unnecessary animosity towards the system. It took a while to get back on track.

2. Add longer term goals

   Older kids are able to work towards longer term goals. Next week, I’ll write about an idea we used successfully with our 13 year old this past year - the “big-ticket item”.

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A couple more thoughts, mostly specific to Active Allowance members:

3. Make each point significant

   There’s a danger with teens that, if a point’s not worth much, they can too easily shrug it off (“I don’t need to do that thing today”). The type of checklist where there are many responsibility items all in one category, and the total points add up to a small number, usually works best.

   By doing this, you’d be telling your teen “I’ve kept the list small, to relatively few important things, but if you don’t do them, it has a significant impact on your allowance. It’s important to us that you do them”.

4. Consider not including Homework on the list

   If your kids haven’t developed the homework habit by the time they’re teens, connecting it to allowance will not likely make much of a difference.

   While all family philosophies are different, we don’t include homework on the list for any of our children. However, for the younger ones, we do include “homework finished by 6:00 pm” as a bonus item to earn an extra point. And for all our kids, we also give bonus points for finishing major projects (yikes!) early. And it works! Each of our kids accomplished this herculean task twice this year. And they’ve lived to tell the tale

Here’s a question we often get at Active Allowance:

“Any idea how we can inspire our 13-yr old to actually cooperate with our new allowance & chores system?”

There’s no doubt it’s tougher to get teens started on a new system if they never had chores or responsibilities when they were younger. Nevertheless, we do have members who tell us they’ve had good success. Before I elaborate, here’s a brain teaser: Try to distinguish between teenagers’ “Yecch’s” and the “Yay’s” for the following words:

• autonomy
• chores
• responsibilities
• money
• freedom
• micromanagement

Hmmmm, I think I probably have the same “Yecch’s” and “Yay’s”. We all do some things not because we love them, but because we know we they need to be done. That’s pretty mature and rational.

I know it sounds unlikely to some parents, but teenagers CAN often be mature and rational too……but you may need to connect the dots for them. The key is to accentuate the positives - more freedom to decide what they buy, more opportunities to earn extra, more clarity and consistency from Mom and Dad, as just a few examples.

There are no hard and fast rules as to what will work for your kids and your family since a) all kids are different and b) there are so many different family philosophies on this subject. Nevertheless, here are a few things to consider:

1. Try hard to achieve “buy-in” up front

   This is best accomplished by Involving your teen in its creation.

   For the allowance, create a mini-budget, making it clear how much spending power you’re shifting into his hands and in what areas. Also make it clear what he needs to do to earn extra. This is usually pretty exciting and empowering. For a teen, it’s called “freedom”!

   And - especially important - collaborate on creating the chores/responsibilities list too - don’t just hand her a finished version of what you’d like to see. Seek her input and ideas. You can use it as an opportunity to teach her the importance of sharing the family effort as well as help her connect the dots.

   Out of the box tip: Sometimes teens suggest a tough task (I’ll wash the floor EVERY DAY!). Resist the urge to rub your hands with glee, or murmur mwah-ha-ha. Consider rejecting it or making it easier, at least temporarily. You might say “Let’s agree to add that one next month” or even reject it altogether. You will be modeling reasonableness which, in turn, encourages buy-in.

2. Avoid Micromanagement

   With younger kids, a Chores list is more about getting them into good daily habits so it may need to be long and detailed. But once they’re teenagers, they typically rebel against being micromanaged. I would keep your chores/responsibilities checklist short and focused on those areas you really want to see improved (eg. for our ultra-busy, always-late 14 yr old daughter, we included “eating a healthy breakfast”).

3. Reinforce why and how this system is working for them

   For example, when they buy something you normally wouldn’t have agreed to (eg an extra-expensive pair of shoes), remind them they would not have been able to do this without the chores and allowance system in place. By the way, this goes for the younger kids too but it’s especially important to reinforce it with the older kids.

4. Review and adjust

   Be sure to have an open conversation with your teen about his likes and dislikes about the system, especially after the first month or two (and perhaps check in quarterly afterwards). To be sure, many kids want a totally free ride - get an allowance with no responsibilities. However, assuming that’s not on the table, you may have a useful conversation about how you can mutually tweak the system to work better for your situation.

…..to be continued next week –>