So should parents give their children an allowance or not? Let's dig into that today.
So should you give your kids an allowance or not?
Alright, let's take that on today. Technically speaking, strictly speaking,
children don't need money. Okay, check that out, see if that feels true to you,
why would they need it? To buy food? To buy shelter? You're already providing all
of that to them in fact, there are five freebies. Can we go there first? Five
freebies that you have to provide your children and because of those five
freebies, they don't need money strictly speaking. We'll come back to the
allowance question in just a minute, let's cover the freebies. Five freebies.
Number one, love. Your job as a parent is to love them no matter what and even if.
I hope you never lose sight of that and you can always do your job no matter
what's going on with your kids, your job is to love them no matter what
and even if. We clear on that one? Love. Cecond freebie, air. I know you're going
to food and shelter, right? That's coming, it's on the list. Air, yeah, it should go
without saying and I know you don't provide this for them but you have no
business depriving them of it either and I decided to include this on the list
because one of my clients did some time in prison after her daughter died. You
got to have air, okay. So I'm going to mention it even though you're already
handling this part, okay. Air. Water, you can go a little longer without water
than you can without air, you follow? So water is a freebie, we're not going to mess
with that. Food, freebie. See, this is why you kids don't need money, you're going to
provide that for them, right? And then finally, shelter. Those are
the five freebies and shelter means protection from the
elements, okay. So that you're giving them a place where they can be
safe. Clothing for example, is part of
shelter in our society, a place to sleep is part of shelter, okay.
It doesn't mean a private bedroom, that's a whole other conversation. Are we clear
on the freebies? You don't get to mess with those, notice the allowance isn't on
the list. You don't have to give them an allowance so let's go to the question,
should I? I'm going to modify it. Why would I? Why would I give my kids an allowance?
Now it's a question. Sometimes that sounds like a statement
disguised as a question. Why would I give them an allowance? Hear the exclamation
point? It's not a question. Put the question mark back on it, it's a
legitimate question. Why would I? Now different parents have different
philosophies about allowance and that's fine, whatever you come up with is
awesome provided that you have answered that question, why would I? Because there
are different reasons why you might. Whatever your kids learn about money
will affect their relationship with money as they get older so that's an
important question to be asked, why would I? Here's a couple of possibilities.
I might give allowance to my kids as an entitlement. Hmm, how does that feel to
you? An entitlement, they didn't do anything to qualify for it, it's simply
they're entitled to it. Now you can tell by the way I'm reacting, I'm not a big
fan of this, why? If you're giving an allowance to your kids because it's an
entitlement, you may be teaching them something that's not going to serve them
well later in life. Really? How many entitlements do you have? Is this the way
the world really works? So be careful with that one and if you can't come up
with a better reason and entitlement, you may be setting yourself up for some
problems later on, that's all I'm saying. Now let's go to some other possible
reasons. What about allowance as wages? Oh, that's an interesting concept.
Now does this mean you're going to pay your kids to do their chores?
Well maybe if you want to teach them something about the exchange of value,
that could be a great reason to give your kids an allowance but you're not
really giving it, you're providing it as a consequence for something that they
agree to do. Now you're not going to mess with the freebies, you're still going to
provide them with love and air and water and food and shelter,
those are freebies, remember? But the extras they could purchase with the
money that they've earned by working and creating value, that might be a great
reason to give an allowance. I don't know, try not see how it feels. Here's another
one, how about allowance as practice money? How are they going to learn how to
track their expenditures, budget their resources? Look, I had to learn this the
hard way. As an adult, I got to learn that it's
important to pay myself. A portion of everything that I make is mine to keep.
Read my book, I go through that story in my first chapter in Pathological
Positivity. I got to learn the hard way that it's important to track where every
dollar is going, I got to learn the hard way that it's important to give every
dollar that comes in a specific job on purpose. That's what budgeting is. How are
your kids going to learn this? What if their allowance is practice money and it's
tied to their ability to exercise some of these sound financial techniques that
will serve them well through the remainder of their life. Well could that
be a good reason to give your kids an allowance?
Sure, it could. Now could you combine some of these reasons? Yeah, I'm not here to
tell you whether you should or you should, I'm asking you to ask yourself
why would I and if you've got a really great answer to that then awesome, go for
it. If the answer is nothing but an entitlement,
it may not be creating the kind of results that you're looking
for in your kids. So why would you give your kids an allowance? You've got some
good answers to that now don't you? I trust you to come up with some good
solutions.