Our 13 year old is a great saver, diligent about doing his chores and fulfilling his responsibilities, and even remembers to check things off on his Active Allowance checklists. As a result, he usually earns his entire allowance and often earns bonuses. And when he babysits, he asks us to put it into his big ticket item account so he wouldn’t be tempted to spend it on movies. This summer, he finally bought that big ticket item – an electric guitar.
End of story, great lesson learned, right? Well….right, but there’s more to the story…..
Our 11 year old is also pretty diligent about his chores and responsibilities. But as soon as he has some money in his Family Bank Account (note for non-members: it’s on Active Allowance), it manages to burn a hole in his pocket. And to make matters worse, he hates filling out the checklist….so he hasn’t been doing it. And therefore earns no allowance. He still does his chores – he knows there will be non-allowance consequences if he doesn’t. But he just doesn’t fill out the checklist (go figure!).
We’ve hung tough, so when he wants to buy something, our simple answer is “Do you have the money?”.
Last week, Poor Boy came downstairs with a few gift cards in his hands – he’d previously received some as gifts and some as prizes for winning squash tournaments. He asked me if I’d “buy” them from him. I smiled, told him I’d buy the one from an electronics store since we needed a new DVD player. But not the one from the music store.
So he went to 13 year old Rich Boy to see if he had a buyer. No dice. Then a brain wave. “I know you want to buy a DVD of a rock concert. I’ll sell you a $25 card for $20.”
That was brilliant! Necessity – the mother of invention. He managed to figure out on his own some basic principles of economics, use his salesmanship and demonstrate resourcefulness. I’m not quite ready to put this on his college application, but not bad!
Rich Boy said yes. And now Poor Boy has $20 cash instead of an unwanted gift card. Rich Boy learned cash is king. Poor Boy learned about market principles. Both of them won.
And we learned again that sticking with our Allowance and Responsibilities process and making it part of everyday life teaches the kids important lessons – even when it’s not initially apparent.
Mind you, now that Poor Boy has sold off his “assets, I sure hope he gets into “earning” mode real soon! Stay tuned for future episodes in the ongoing saga.
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.
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”.
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
“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:
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:
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.
Here’s an interesting post
The connection between effort and results (just like work and income) is not genetic – it’s learned at home and at school. And so is the opposite: the expectation of handouts – the dreaded “entitlement” attitude. Kids are not taught to expect handouts deliberately, but that’s the lesson they receive when there’s no connection between effort and results. These handouts masquerade as “let kids be kids”, or “enhance their self-esteem” – all well-intentioned, but so is that ol’ road to ummmm, heck.
I want my kids to be kids too. I want them to have fun, enjoy their childhood, have carefree times they’ll look back on fondly. But I also want to equip them with what they’ll need to be successful in life. I send them to school for that reason. And I teach them values I consider important – maybe even the concept of “earning”. And maybe even with some humor.
Like how funny it is that hard work usually delivers great results
No, I’m not totally off my rocker! When I think about the things our kids find fun – like their latest computer game….watching TV…..playing basketball or squash – and things they find “not fun” – like school….chores…..eating vegetables – I’d say “You’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking “Is it “good” for kids”.
Active Allowance is “good” for kids. There are parts they love! Younger kids often love to help Mom and Dad around the house and they take great pride in shouldering important responsibilities….but unfortunately, they usually grow out of that wonderful phase too quickly. Older kids love to have the empowerment of having money in their family bank and autonomy in writing checks and making spending decisions. But they would usually prefer to have the money without any responsibilities (now there’s a surprise!).
So the answer to “Is it fun?” is Yes and No. There are certainly parts they love, but also parts they don’t. Kids have fun sprucing up and personalizing their Responsibility Checklists, and parents can easily come up with fun rewards. But you don’t want the process to depend on being a fun game for kids. Kids quickly tire of most games. So if that were critically important, your process would soon be dead in its tracks.
This process helps you teach your kids about responsibility, and your values, and making choices. It’s too important to stop because the kids want to move on to their latest game-of-the-month. It needs to be integrated thoughtfully into everyday life and provide an ongoing opportunity for teaching/learning. That’s our number one goal.
So I answer “Active Allowance is like vegetables. It’s good for them. Prepare them the right way and they might even like them some of the time. And you know it will be healthy for them all the time”
Here’s an idea for Active Allowance members:
You can create a special Summer Responsibilities checklist (as Leslie’s doing right now) and then revert to the old one after the holidays. It’s really easy to do – easy as 1, 2, 3. Here are the steps:
That’s it. Have a great holiday!
