I know a lot of people dont’ agree with this but I really have a strong feeling that completing household chores is a part of living in a family and so I’ve been putting a lot of thought recently into whether or not we would be offering an allowance to our children for doing chores around the house. Obviously, I’m not prepared at this point to make a decision but what I am feeling right now is that each child will be responsible for maintaining their bedroom in good order, making their bed and other helpful stuff around the house like setting the table, or helping dry dishes (when they are older), etc. There will be other chores that would be provided as extra pay chores which would be more in depth things that need to get done around the house so that the kids do have an oppotunity to learn the value of earning money. The important part of this idea is that the children will need to save a certain percentage of the money they earn and then keep a portion for themselves to spend on whatever they want. I really have a good feeling about this and feel it will teach them how to save money and plan for purchasing the things they really want….even if its just a chocolate bar at the corner store or something of that sort. I think it’s a fair deal for kids to learn budgeting and saving so I’m really leaning towards this idea but obviously we have a lot more time to think about it and if anyone has any ideas about things that have worked for their family please share! I really feel that its important that the kids have no expectations (except saving the certain percentage) for what they need to spend the money on and that we would provide money for things they NEED at our discretion.
Recently we’ve really been inviting Jacob to get involved in helping out around the house and he’s really taken to this idea! He loves loves loves to set the table and help clear his place afterwards (thanks lizzy for the idea!) and I’m really going to go with this and invite him to help us at dinner every day! We’ve always made him responsible (with parent help at this age) for tidying up his room! It’s fun to help him learn new tasks and really exciting to see how much he actually enjoys it!
