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"Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage."

Ambrose Bierce








 




 
Featured Allowance Articles

How a 21st Century Dad Can Make a Positive Impact on His Children
Now in the 21st century, researchers have found that a father's love for his children is just as important as a mother's love. Learn how you can make a positive impact on your child that will last a lifetime! In the 50's, the stereotypical values of ...

The Top 7 Tips On How Kids Can Save Money And Stop Wasting Their Allowance At The Candy Store
Your 10-year-old son has just come back from the candy store, the day after you gave him his allowance with his pockets full of candy. Not that there's actually anything drastically wrong with that, as long as he brushes his teeth after & still eats his ...

What You Can Do To Sell Your Home Fast
Yes, you want to sell your home and you want to sell it fast. It may be a seller's market and every other home in your neighbourhood is selling and you think it's going to be a cakewalk selling your home. You put your house up for sale, people come, a few ...




Teaching Kids the Value of Money
 

My husband and I have a 12-year-old daughter who wanted to go to a winter retreat with her church youth group last year. Price of trip – $45. I told her I'd talk to her dad about it. "HOW much is it?" he asked, "didn't she just go somewhere with the youth group?" "Yes," I replied, "and also to two friends' birthday parties. Another one is coming up this weekend." We both agreed that was a lot of money for us to spend for our daughter to have fun with her friends.

But the retreat was a church activity. So we should have forked out the money for her go, right? Well, maybe. In the past year or so our daughter had made a lot of new friends and had been asked to be involved in a lot of new social activities. Last summer was the first year we could afford to let her go to summer camp for a week. It pleased me more than anything to tell her she could go.

The more we've let our daughter go do things with her friends, the more she takes those things for granted, and expects more. She then resents doing something so menial as her household chores. So now we make sure her chores are done before she goes anywhere. "Room's not clean, laundry not started? Better hurry and do them before you go do something with your friends. Don't have time? Then I guess you're out of luck." But that was only the start. Whenever the attitude starts in she's given a warning and then privileges start being taken away, one by one.

You have to figure out what works for you. You may have to teach each child individually, because each is motivated differently. If your children cheerfully hand over their allowance every time they don't take out the garbage, you should take some other privilege away.

Resist the urge to give your children too much allowance. Don't buy them things that they can save money for themselves, like designer clothes, CD's, magazines, make up, video games, etc. Even young children can be taught to save for small things. Almost nothing makes me more sad than seeing children who take their allowances for granted and never have to work for it. Parents aren't doing their children any favors by teaching them to expect everything to be handed to them. We sacrifice, and they don't appreciate it. Why should they? They don't have anything to lose.

So did our daughter get to go on her retreat? We decided she could go if she paid $20 of the $45. She was not happy about it. She only gets $3 a week allowance, and she was saving her money for a new CD. She stewed about it for awhile, and then forked over what money she had. We worked out a payment schedule for her to come up with the rest of the money before the weekend of the retreat, and we let her do extra chores to earn a few more dollars. Are we guilty of child abuse? Our daughter thinks so, but her dad and I know better.





Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer, mom, and owner of four home and family web sites. For complete resources for the Christian home, visit her web site at http://www.Christian-Parent.com.




Allowance News


No allowance made for negotiation
Lebanon Daily News, PA - 12 hours ago
By Dan Sernoffsky Gavriel Holtzberg was 29. Born in Israel, he was a scholar and a teacher. He and his wife, Rivka, were living in Mumbai where they were ...

Pair of allowance races sub for a canceled stakes
Daily Racing Form (registration), NY - 8 hours ago
Thus, the co-features on Saturday at Aqueduct are first-level allowance races, one going six furlongs, the other a mile and 70 yards. A race from last Jan. ...

Shytoe Lafeet wins turf allowance feature at Fair Grounds
The Times-Picayune - NOLA.com, LA - 9 hours ago
He rode K Otee to a come-from-behind victory in an allowance sprint for Louisiana-bred older horses. Jockey Ramsey Zimmerman was replaced on his scheduled ...

Seattle Post Intelligencer

Big Three bail-out gathers speed in Congress
Financial Times, UK - 4 hours ago
... loans and credit lines currently sought by the carmakers. You have viewed your allowance of free articles. If you wish to view more, click the button below.
Bitter pill for Big Three's headache Financial Times
Ford does not expect liquidity crisis Financial Times
Carmakers bow to prospect of oversight board Financial Times
Financial Times - Financial Times
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Blue Cross plan means high costs for some feds; lawmaker calls for ...
Federal Times - 16 hours ago
For emergency surgery, the patient pays 30 percent of the plan allowance and up to $5000 of the difference between the plan allowance and the total bill. ...