Vicki, I've got a question for you. -Yeah. -Should I give my child in an allowance?
-Hmm. Let's talk about it. -Wait, wait. Vicki, I
get to start this one. -Okay. -Because my favorite answer to "Should I give my
child an allowance?" It depends. Don't you love that?
Psychologists are always using that one. And I'm a psychologist. So there you go.
-There you go. -But it's true. It depends on a lot of different things. And you'll
hear opinions both ways. If you heard of people... -Oh, yeah. I have. And I've even
thought about at different ways. I've gone both ways. -Right. We've experimented
a little bit. Now, our kids are all grown now.
But here's probably the main distinction for me. -All right.
Let's hear it. -And you can choose to do it or not do it. There's not a right or a
wrong answer. But what are we doing it for? And what are we teaching our
children? What if you knew that by giving it allowance, you're either teaching them
responsibility or entitlement. That word entitlement. -That's a hot topic word,
right? -Yes. Like the world owes them something. Like they get to have it for
free. Or are we teaching them responsibility? So, if we know that we're
either going to entitlement or responsibility, which one do you want to
teach your kids? Right? -Definitely want to teach that responsibility one. -Let's get
creative about some ways that we might use allowance as a learning tool to help
our kids learn responsibility. One of my favorites Vicki gives us more leverage
in the discipline area of our parenting. And I call it response cost. -Okay. So,
describe how we're going to use that to teach responsibility with chores. -All
right. -Or allowance, I guess. -So, allowance. If
you're giving your child an allowance, they now have an asset that can be used
to motivate them. Let's make a couple of distinctions first. I'm not a big fan of
paying kids for chores although I've used that creatively before too. But if we
pay them for chores then they pay for our services. And they can't afford
that very long. So, instead of doing that, it's simply an allowance. Think of it as
practice money, okay? -Okay. -They have this allowance but it's held contingent on
certain behaviors. Now, response cost means there's a cost for my response.
Like if I park where I'm not supposed to, the police will give me a little note on
my window and they separate me from some of my money, right? -Right. _Because and
that's the cost for the response of parking where I wasn't supposed to park.
So, just think about it kind of like the parking ticket. Now, we set it up so that
there are expectations. The kids are supposed to help out.
-One of the arguments a lot of people are saying is, "I don't want my child... You
know, I want my child to know that there are certain things they have to do as a
member of this family. Because... It's just because we'll we belong in the social
Society of a family." Right? And so, we're saying, "Yeah. Go for it. You've got certain
choice. Your child that's supposed to make us bad." Do your training room...
Yeah, okay. Maybe they have a given allowance but it's held in
response. And if for some reason they don't do their chore in the allotted
time or the manner in which you'd like it to do, they then get to purchase your
services of fixing it. And that comes from their allowance. So, instead of
getting X number of dollars they get that they get whatever is left. Right.
Right. And so that's what we're talking about a cost response. -Response cost is
simply the cost for their response. So, if they choose not to do their chore, that's
going to cost them. What's it going to cost them? The allowance that you decided
to give them. That way you can creatively use that to teach them some
responsibility. We've kind of danced around this. Well do you pay them for the
chores? Response cost is one way around that. But what if you just decided to pay
now for the chores? -We're not saying it's right or wrong to do it. -Right. Well, okay.
So, keep thinking of this as a learning opportunity. So, what if I go to work and
I get paid for it, right? So, I'm sending my child to work in
the yard or doing the dishes and they get paid
for it. This could still be effective even though they're expected to do
chores there in the home. You pay them for the chore but then they pay for
certain things. -Right. -I'd say anything that's not on the
freebie list is fair game. -Right. -Do you remember the freebie list? -Yeah. Love. -Love.
-Air. -Air -Water. -Food. -Shelter/clothing. -Which
includes appropriate clothing. So, you're going to provide all of those things. But
anything else is fair game. -Right. There's a whole lot of other stuff
they want. So, what if they want to go to the pool? What if they want a candy bar?
What if anything, right? A video game? All right. Well, there's a cost attached to
that. This is just happening for free? No, they get a buy it with the money that
they have from the allowance. as long as we don't think about this as
free money because it's not. You didn't get it for free. So, you don't give it to them
for free. It's entrusted to them while they learn something about how the world
works. And remember, we... You know, refer to some of our other videos about money.
It's not... It doesn't have to be the exact same... To me, it might be worth the same
amount as an hour of work at my job. Might be worth that am I'm teaching my
child responsibilities. So, remember: You've got to remember what it is we're
trying to do with this allowance. And for me, as teaching responsibility.
-Exactly. So, they get to learn a real-world principle in an environment
where they are loved and supported. I mentioned earlier the idea of practice
money. Okay? Because they're not going out to get a job when they're 8,
right? -Right. But you're giving them a practice opportunity to learn about
economy and how it works. Here's another creative way to use the
allowance as a learning experience. What if you were to give them the practice
money along with a budget? You know what's a budget, Vicki? Can you define
that for me? -That's just a way that we are going to
assign every dollar that comes in a job to do. -Right. It's not a restriction. It's
marching orders. -Right. -So, kids don't know about budgeting. How they going to learn it?
This is how they're going to learn it. -Yeah. -So, with the money, you give them a budget.
Now, are you planning on giving them an allowance again next week? Probably. But
what's it tied to? It's tied to them accounting for every cent that they
received of the week previously in their budget. Do you see how this could be
beneficial? What if they don't reconcile? It's going to cost them something.
-So, really to sum it up is, do you pay your child an allowance? -It depends. Isn't
it crazy how we learn stuff for ourselves when we get into these videos?
I hope you found this helpful. Vicki and I put together a Parenting
Power-Up course. There's group coaching, there's individual coaching,
there's digital programs and downloads. All for the purpose of helping you become more confident parent. -Go
parentingpowerup.com. -We'll see you there.