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This is long. I appologize.
To understand my standpoint on allowance, I will tell you my experience with it. This is from my perspective, as a kid. At the end, I give you my advice.
When I was 4, I had an allowance. 10 cents/week. Needless to say, it wasn't useful. I learned no lessons with the 10c. I would save up for a year, then blow it on bubble gum.
When I was 10, it moved up to 50cents/week. I would save for a year, then purchase a figurine. It was a big deal to me, and I worked hard for that figurine.
Then, age 12, it was $1.00 where it remained until I was old enough to hold regular babysitting clients. Then the allowance stopped.
By the time I was 16, I had saved up enough between my pittance of an allowance, babysitting, and mowing the neighbors' lawns to purchase a CD boom box. That was $115.00. It required 3 years of INTENSE saving. During this time I never once had a weekend to go out with friends. I was babysitting, doing yard work, or studying. Constantly. That stereo seemed like an incredible sacrifice at the time. It was, but I purchased quality. I still love and use it.
I recieved the money only when I hadn't been diciplined at all through the week. My sister often received nothing, which was a sore point of contention for many years. My parents didn't understand her hyperactivity, and punished her for poor grades, speaking out, or being creative.
Basically, what my parents' policy taught me was that in order to get anything of any quality, one had to save and give up anything that a normal teenager would do. I did not know how deeply this would taint my thought processes.
I never learned to relax.
I never learned to socialize with friends.
I learned an incredibly strict work ethic.
I learned to be frugal to the point of social embarassment.
I learned how to kill myself slowly and strive for something that was completely rediculous - spent 3 years of my life for a goal, which I could have bought in a matter of a month, had my parents allowed me to hold a standard minimum-wage part-time job.
Lessons:
Have a clear purpose for an allowance. Discuss it freely with your children, in terms they are able to understand.
Request your children to use some of their allowance for entertainment (toys, video games, what not). Teach them life-balance.
If you choose to offer an allowance, please do make it a reasonable sum.
Putting money into their college savings account - rather than in their pocket - might be a fine idea until they are at an age where they understand finances better. Age 12 is not too early an age to introduce your child to managing their own savings accounts. Age 4 is. At this point they can understand that money is used to purchase both fun and every-day things. But I do not belive that they are cognitively able to process saving.
I recommend holding off on an allowance for now. I recommend having a clear purpose for allowance. Look back at the methods that both of you parents experinced while growing up. Hash out a genuine plan, based on the high points and the pitfalls of your parents' own systems.
Good luck!
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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq
"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy
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