Should you be paying your kids an allowance

I never received an allowance and neither should my kids. My logic sounds silly right?

But have you considered how an unconditional allowance is causing damage to your children’s ability to handle money?

Unconditional Allowance

Let’s define unconditional allowance. This is defined as an allowance given to the child without them having done any task or chore to receive it.

I didn’t received an allowance for the chores I should be able to to. This was my contribution to my parent’s house. My spending money came during the summers when I would hoe cotton fields in West Texas. Character-building they called it.

When my kids were younger I struggled on whether they should receive an allowance. Our goal as parents should be to have our children be financially savvy and come to appreciate the work that needs to happen to earn a dollar.

Allowances and Entitlement Attitude

I believe that kids that receive an allowance without having “earned” it have an entitlement attitude. I recall some of my childhood friends who received an allowance and as young adults they struggled mightily in developing a health work ethic and meeting their obligations.

Curious if your poor performers where recipients of an unconditional allowance? They believe just showing up is enough to receive their paycheck. Unfortunately I don’t have the research to draw that comparison but it would make sense.

I still don’t provide a my kids an allowance for doing chores. They both know they can come to me and ask for spending money. I won’t always say yes but will encourage them to find ways to generate that money.

Either the yard needs to be mowed or my blog needs proofreading. The 11 year does a good job of that. The younger one will realize she needs to go above and beyond her chores to earn that money. To my surprise she’ll do just that by doing that extra, like vacuuming, without us having told her.

Why so strict?

Kids are resilient. They will find a means to generate spending money. I am teaching my children to find an opportunity/ need and meet that need. Recently, my 11 year old was making wooden signs and successfully sold all of them!

This proved to be a wonderful learning experience for her. She learned break-even point, revenues, margins, and tools that will benefit her throughout her life.

My learnings

I grew in a household where money was scarse. This limited my world-view and believed many of the myths associated with wealth people. I have taken the initiative to teach my girls an abundance mindset.

An abundance mindset that says that what flows out their hands will come back. A mindset that teaches them to see every transaction as a learning opportunity.