| |
|
|
|
|
It's a New Year. Try a New
Strategy
Teaching Allowance to Young Children
By Dion Woods
Children don’t arrive in this world with instructions
attached. However, after a few days, parents quickly find
that children do come with price tags and that price is
never the same for any two children. The length of time
we’ll be paying for their needs is often tied to how we
train them to be financially independent.
The longer we delay the process of teaching financial
stewardship, the longer we’ll pay for our procrastination. A
study conducted by Ameriprise Financial found that between
2000 and 2004, the number of US households with children age
18 and above still living with their parents had skyrocketed
almost 70 percent.
It appears that these ‘children’ didn’t have the financial
means, the drive or the knowledge to separate from the
comforts of free room and board. It’s a circumstance that’s
not only draining on parental resources and confining to
parental lifestyle, but also permits the ‘children’ to get
stuck in an unhealthy dependency.
Begin early with teaching children how to value and use
money. More specifically, their money-- an incredibly
important distinction. As parents spending endlessly on our
offspring’s needs, we often think of that money flying away,
or slipping through our fingers. The critical thing is to
determine whose money is vanishing! Young children have an
instinctive impulse -- to spend our money and save theirs --
so it’s important to start the process of changing this
behavior as soon as is practical. This is one of the
essential roles an allowance system should play -- to let
children practice using their money while encouraging them
to relinquish use of ours.
Our home’s experience is somewhat unique because the
3Piggies® Savings System began there and our children are
being taught about money through the fundamental principles
of building, giving and spending. The day we instituted the
3Piggies® Savings System with our children, then ages five
and seven, we started giving them an allowance and told them
that we had some good news and some bad news for them. The
good news was that they could buy anything they wanted as
long as it satisfied our value system. They were elated. The
bad news -- we would no longer pay for the things they
wanted; they would have to purchase them with their own
money.
Of course, there are times when we just want to give our
children what they desire. But instead of feeling pressured
to give in to their demands, in most instances, we
encouraged them to save their own money for their desires
(e.g. video cartridges, toys, etc.) Obviously, they were
less than excited with this news. But the moment we
implemented the system, we realized that we no longer had to
say “no” to their endless requests for items in the store.
The answer to all of their “Mommy can I have this” and
“Daddy can I have that” questions was ‘Yes!’ Anything was
possible. All they needed was enough of their own money to
buy what they wanted. Eventually, their requests stopped
flooding in. Now their response to cool items was “I’m going
to buy that” instead of “Can you buy me that?”
On a recent trip to Disney, each of our children brought $60
from the money they had saved. When we went into the stores
at the Park, it was wonderful. We didn’t get a single
request. They knew the rules, or should I say they knew the
possibilities. Instead of whining for the stuffed action
figures near the register, our kids carefully read price
tags and assessed if what they wanted was really worth the
cost. Couldn’t we all stand to improve our skills in this
area? In the end, our children decided to skip the expensive
novelties and save for something better.
So the strategy is to ‘cut off’ your wallet, or at least
restrict your children’s access to it. Once you implement an
allowance system, tell your child that they can get anything
they want (within your family’s value system) as long as
they use their money. When you go to the grocery store,
you’ll find liberty in saying yes to almost all their
requests. They just have to pay for it. Not only will you
take yourself off the hook for being the heavy, but you put
the responsibility for the purchase back were it
belongs—with the child.
An additional benefit of this strategy is that your child
will learn the value of delayed gratification. Since people
who shop on impulse typically spend 20-30% more for their
purchases, your child will be light years ahead of most
adults when they’ve learned to plan for what they purchase.
The funny thing is, we never intended for our allowance
system to focus on delayed gratification. Yet, as our
children evaluated their wants against their resources, they
came to the logical conclusion that more time was needed to
get what they really wanted. Somehow, they seemed to accept
that outcome. And as long as no one signs them up for a
credit card before the age of twelve, we’ll be fine.
For more information about the 3Piggie$® Savings System,
visit our web site at www.3piggies.com.
Notice: This article is the intellectual property of Next
Level Concepts, Ltd. and no use in part or whole in any
media is permitted without the express written agreement of
the author.
All Rights Reserved: Dion Woods 2006.
|
|
