Pocket money aka lets bribe the children

I have mixed feelings about pocket money. Some of these come from longstanding issues with my own childhood, and others from a reflection of what pocket money should be a reflection of in a child's life.  I was never given regular pocket money, and continued to resent this into adulthood. I really felt like I had missed out.  On the other hand, I am concerned (and rightly so) that linking pocket money to behaviour is a slipperly slope of bribing children into the behaviour we'd like to see, rather than taking more time to help them understand responsibility and respect.  Nor do I personally like the idea of pocket money for no effort whatsoever.

In our house we have tried various pocket money / behaviour systems including star charts links to positive outcomes when reaching a goal; star charts linked directly to dollar amounts (e.g. 1 star = 1 dollar); pocket money for jobs completed and a set roster of jobs for a set amount of money.  None of these have worked for us in the long term.

The reasons for their failure are varied but probably fall into the following two issues:

• we were not consistent either in our approach or in handing out money earned at the right time, or in suggesting jobs so that pocket money came regularly
• bargaining got out of hand - with poor boundaries we ended up using stars as the go-to for all discipline. This is an ongoing problem in our household, as hubby tends to escalate any situation!

Another one of the amazing things that happened to our family during the Springsteen Melbourne trip was visiting my friend at home after the concerts.  In her house, I noticed a blackboard with pocket money, as well as ticks and crosses on the board.

Curious, I asked her how the system worked for her and if she could explain it.  Fascinated I learnt the following:

• Each child has a set amount of weekly money allotted to them, say $5.
• This amount requires them to do some jobs around the house (we didn't go into the details)
• The ticks were for when the child did something without being asked, or something extra special.
• Crosses happened if the child dragged their feet at doing tasks expected of them or particularly poor behaviour.
• For each tick an extra dollar was given out, and for crosses, a dollar taken away.

Something about this system just clicked with me, and I started it the day we arrived home from holidays. So far it has been going exceptionally well.

I think the reasons for its success are the boundaries and certainties inherent in the system, for both children and parents.  For example, our son who is 5, currently gets $3 a week as his starting money.  As parents, we don't want to give him nothing each week, so we are very circumspect about giving out crosses to him, and very conscious that because he can have outbursts of 5 year old behaviour, we need to encourage him with earning extra ticks (to counter any potential crosses he might build up!)   As parents we don't want to allow our children to build up an extreme amount of ticks in one week, so we are tweaking the 'expected jobs for basic money' to fit in with a fair amount of responsibility.  In our house that isn't very much, it is little things like getting dressed and waiting at the front door for school the first time we ask in the morning instead of the 50th!

Our big children are excited and happy to be saving their money up for treats, and so far we have been regular with pocket money on a Saturday morning because it is an easy day to duck out and get whatever change is needed, plus we always have Sunday up our sleeve if we stuff up on Saturday!!!

I am not as neat and organised as my friend with the pretty blackboard - here is our chart!

This week has been not as easy on our eldest, but looking at the chart, as parents, we know we can encourage some behaviours to get those ticks back there, and be aware to be less 'reactive' as parents and not give out any more crosses - helps keep our boundaries and prevents us from going overboard using the pocket money as a significant discipline / bribery technique.  I'm cautiously happy having pocket money bribery in the parenting toolbox so to speak, but not so keen on it being our primary parenting tool!

Before writing this post, I did a quick scan of the information in cyberspace about pocket money.  The gist of the information 'out there' is that everyone agrees money handling skills such as budgeting, saving, goal achievement, responsibility and more.  Questions of whether work should be done to earn pocket money, and what children are expected to pay for are tactfully left as an individual family decision :)  For me, I am hoping we have found the balance in our household and this system will continue to work in a balanced way.

Interestingly I also found this page with links to pocket money apps. I've never used an app for pocket money, can't imagine doing so now, but you might like to check it out - 5 Free Allowance Apps.

I also particularly like this article, discussing how our children have a tendency to expect things for free!  My middle child is in danger of this, owing to some compensating issues the hubby doesn't seem ready to shake.  I am hoping this pocket money system will at least provide some counterpoint to the issue of it 'raining free toys' as sometimes happens here :(