Category: Parenting

Some people feel that in order to teach children money management, they need to give them money in the form of allowance to manage.  I disagree.

I think teaching kids money management skills are very important – but I don’t pay my kids for the chores around the house.  I feel very strongly that a family is a team, and a team works together to accomplish their goals.  One of my goals is a reasonably functional home, and I expect every child to do what he’s asked to do without any complaining or negativity.  I’ve never paid them any kind of allowance, and I doubt that I ever will.

But how do my kids learn to manage money?  They earn it.  You might think that a six or seven year old can’t do much, which is true.  But then again, they don’t need very much!  And when you open your eyes, you’ll see small opportunities for them here and there.

I’ve always supported my kids ideas initiative in making money.  When my 7 year old son wanted to sell muffins in front of our house to passerbys, I helped him buy the ingredients (which he reimbursed me for after his sale).  When he was 9 and wanted to rake yards, I loaned him the money for a rake and jumbo garbage bags.  When he was 11 and wanted to mow yards, I took him to buy a used mower and loaned him money again.  This has meant time and energy on my part, but I’ve considered it well spent because it empowers a child, instead of keeping him dependent on my wallet. 

All of my kids started their own savings accounts when they were young.  They started it with cash that they received as gifts – kids savings accounts have very low initial balance requirements.  The first bank they started with required $25 (so they had to save their money for a while at home), but their current bank requires just $1 to get started.  When we went to the bank make deposit (sometimes just loose change), they counted their own money, and filled in their own deposit slips from the age of 6 or 7.  I would stand next to them at the teller window, but they would give their money to the teller and do the interaction.  The bank tellers always said how glad they were to see such young kids learning to be responsible – one told me he didn’t know how to fill out a deposit slip until he was 18!

I’ve always encouraged them to save their money, telling them that if they save now, they’ll have it later when they have a bigger and more meaningful goal that will provide them with much more satisfaction.  I don’t define what a meaningful goal is – it’s their choice later on.  When one daughter was 11, she had an opportunity to go on a 3 day dog sledding trip.  It was $600, and we told her that if she was willing to pay for half of the cost, we would pay for the other half.  She excitedly agreed, and still feels that it was worth every penny spent.  It was a once in a lifetime experience that she’ll have special memories from for the rest of her life, that she was able to have because she consistently saved her money and it was there for something she really wanted, when she wanted it.

Recently, someone gave us some toys (I posted about it) that weren’t suitable for us.  Some of those toys were somewhat haphazardly treated Barbies.  The 6, 7, and 9 year olds organized all the toys that we got, and then brushed the Barbies’ hair and dressed them.  After doing this, they looked quite nice, and I mentioned that we could offer them for sale on Craig’s List, and it would be a good deal for everyone all around – the buyer could get a bunch of dolls in good condition cheaply, my kids could make a little money on them, the original owners got them out of the way, and the landfills would be a little less crowded. 

I posted for them, about 13 or 14 Barbies with accessories for $20, and after a week and a half, someone emailed about coming to see them.  At breakfast, I asked the kids how they felt it would be fair to give out the money for the Barbies.  They agreed that we should split it 4 ways – equal amounts for the three of them and me (that was their idea, not mine, because they said I did the work of posting it :)).  And that’s what we did.  Do you think they learned something about the value of money?  Do you think they learned to see value in things that others didn’t see?  You bet. 

The next upcoming opportunity for them will be their entries in the state fair.  When you see the small dollar amounts of the premiums (prize money), you’d think that it could never add up to much, especially since you can’t win first place in everything.  But when you have a number of exhibits, it adds up.  My two older daughters each earned about $100 two years ago in the state fair, and about $50 from the county fair right before it.  I don’t think I’d encourage them to participate soley for the purpose of making money – the fun is in participating and seeing your exhibits displayed.  The prize money is a nice side bonus.  But once they have the money, I’ll again encourage them to put it in a savings account after giving ten percent to charity. 

So true to my motto of empowering my kids, I’ve registered them for the fair at their request.  I’ll help them find recipes if they want help, buy them the ingredients for the baked goods (we’ll only enter the sections for baking, food preservation, and garden – in the past my girls did much more and it was a huge amount of organizing for me to get them in the right place at the right time for the various exhibit categories).  I’ll help them out in the kitchen with baking if they want, and we’ll have a nice time together doing it.  I’ll drive them to the fair, pick up their entry tags, help them affix them to their entries – but I will not give them money.  And they will have an opportunity to manage their own money.

I could go into details to tell you how effective this approach has been, since with my older kids it’s very obvious.  They are light years ahead of their peers.  But I won’t.  I’ll just continue to stand by my way of doing things, of helping my children earn their own money and learning to manage it. 

Avivah

Yesterday we drove up to NY to visit my three kids who are in camp in the area for the month.  It was such a long, long day (over five hours of driving each way – left at 6:30 amd and got home at midnight), but so nice to see them!!  I really love our kids and it was so, so nice to spend the day with them.   And it was really nice to see how much they love us and their siblings, too. 

Two other moms came along with us to camp, and on the way home, one of the moms asked me two questions: how do you get your kids to take care of each other, and how do you get them to do what you ask without complaining?  I get asked questions like this not infrequently, but because I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to get more compliments, I don’t usually follow up with the questions I always want to ask.  Which is, what do you see specifically that makes you ask that, and is it something that’s unusual that made you comment on it?  (I once asked a close friend ‘what do you mean?’ when she commented on the kids’ character, and she said, “Oh, come on, you know your kids are special.”  It wasn’t very helpful feedback, but I realized that I needed to be more clear about what I was asking, too!)  As obvious as it is to the person asking what they’re seeing, I usually have to guess what they saw that prompted their comments. 

Since I have a lot of respect for the woman who asked me this – she’s is the mother of six, her youngest being almost the age of my oldest, and who gave a lot of time and attention to her kids when raising them – I really was interested in her thoughts.  But she asked in the van when the other mom was there, and I didn’t feel comfortable discussing it too much right then.   A little later, we all got out at the rest stop and I told her that I wasn’t looking for pats on the back, but on honest feedback and asked her my two questions. 

She said that she noticed that the kids all look out for each other and naturally do things to help each other.  As she was saying this she noticed my dd7 helping ds2 wash his hands in the bathroom, so she said, “Like that!”   Since I never sat down and planned a method to get my kids to be like that, I could only say that I communicate to my kids that we’re a team and that means working together.  They genuinely love and like each other so I guess it’s natural that they help each other whenever the opportunity comes up.  I suppose my biggest part in this is that I created an atmosphere where they all spend hours a day together and have requirements about what kind of interactions are acceptable and what aren’t. 

Then she went back to her other question, and said, “When you asked your son to feed the baby in the car when we were driving, he did it willingly.  But if I asked my children to do something like that, they would have complained and told me to ask someone else!  Don’t your kids ever refuse to do what you ask?”  The truth is, yes, sometimes they don’t want to do what I ask them to do.  I wouldn’t want anyone to think that we have a mantle of saintliness that’s spread over us all.  🙂 

I have one child in particular who is at this stage – maybe 30 – 50% of the time when I ask him to do something, his first reaction is, ‘could you ask so and so to do it?’  Every child has areas that are more challenging for him, and for this child, he really likes fun. Not work.  So this is harder for him that for some others, and it’s something that I work on with him, to help him internalize what an appropriate response is.  (I sometimes do that by replaying the scene.  Me, pleasantly: “I’m going to ask you again, and this time you’re going to respond appropriately, with a pleasant attitude and ‘yes, Mommy’, ‘sure, Mommy’, ‘I’ll be happy to’, or something else that shows me you’re happy to work together to do what needs to be done. ”  Child: says response properly and we go on with things, or says it grumpily, in which case we do it again, until child does it with the right attitude.) 

But generally they are pretty receptive to what I ask and there’s not much discussion or negotiation regarding the task at hand.  Here’s my feeling about this.  First of all, I try to be reasonable and fair about what I request of them.  Though they do a lot to help out, I don’t make my kids my slaves and give them jobs all day long.  I try to keep in mind how much I’ve asked of that child that day/week before asking for something else.  I have two categories that my requests fall into – those that I would appreciate if they could do it but they can say if it’s something they’d rather not do, and things that they have to do whether they want to or not, and tell them when it’s something they can refuse with no bad feelings. 

 Usually we work together to clean up, or cook, or whatever, so usually I’m not asking one child to do something while everyone else gets to play around.  So what they’re being asked is to do part of a project.  I don’t usually assign just one child to do a job.  If, for example, it’s time to set the table, I’ll break it up for two or three kids to do so that they share the work. 

Also, when they ask me for help, I try to help them accomplish what they want when they need my assistance. And I try to be as responsive and pleasant when they ask for my help as I expect them to be when I ask for theirs. 

The other mom summed what I said up by saying that it comes down to expectations, and I expect them to do what I ask.  And she’s right.  But I don’t expect that in a vaccuum, and I’ve shared what I’ve tried to do to create the kind of atmosphere where helping someone else or doing what a parent says is natural. 

Avivah

This morning my mom popped in before work, and my 2 year old showed her his new rocking chair (see my post from a couple of days ago) – “it’s my rocking chair from the garbage”.  It’s good my mom understands what that means, because it doesn’t sound too good, does it?!

After she left, he asked me to put his sandals on so he could go out.  I told him we weren’t going out now.  A few minutes later, someone asked where he was, and ran outside to check for him.  He had put on his sandals, opened the back door (that I thought was too heavy for him – got to keep it locked now that I know he can pull it open), and was going into the alley behind the house.  When he saw my daughter coming to get him, he told her, “I’m looking for garbage”.  LOL – it was very cute. 

He already learned that good things come from people giving them away, but I think I’m going to have to teach him to express it a little differently, though, lest he say something like that in company that takes him literally!

Avivah

When I started thinking about the issue of threats, the final question that was rattling around in my mind was, ‘What do I do if I phrase things positively, and they still don’t do what I want them to?” 

The problem I was mentally running into is one that some of you may also have, remembering that love and strength go hand in hand.  Love isn’t weakness and doesn’t mean wimpy.  We aren’t give up our parental power just because we don’t use threats. 

What’s the purpose in changing the way we communicate with our children?  We don’t speak with love and respect just to get our kids to do what we want, as a nice way to manipulate them.  We speak to them in that way because that’s what they deserve, and it helps them grow into emotionally healthy people. 

Does that mean we’re doomed to have kids who won’t respond to what they’re told to do?  Of course not!  Wouldn’t you feel more motivated to do something when asked by someone who you knew respected you and believed in y0u?  The goal of communication is to build the relationship.  We want to build the relationship so that our kids want to do what we want.

But that’s takes time, and even if they love us to pieces doesn’t mean that they’re willing to override what’s more comfortable for them at that moment, right?  So back to the original question, what do you do when they don’t listen?

The same thing you would do otherwise.  You step in and help them do what you’re telling them.  The child is throwing something and continues, you remove the ball.  They need to clean the room, you work with them.  You tell them to stop slamming the door and they slam it again, you have them practice closing and opening it ten times nicely.  You take concrete action to show that you mean what you say and that you back your words with action.  That action isn’t punitive, it isn’t threatening.  It shouldn’t be done in an angry or frustrated way.  You are being matter of fact, firm, and friendly, and showing your child that you will take the necessary steps to teach them to do what they should.

Avivah

Okay, so I’ve addressed the lowest level of using threats in my last post. But I recently went to hear a parenting lecture (something I do very, very rarely) that challenged my thinking about this issue. 

The speaker described something so common that virtually all of us speak this way at some time as using threats.  And while I agreed with his points 100%, I still don’t fully embrace his conclusion.

Here’s a couple of examples:  “If you don’t finish your dinner, you can’t have ice cream.”  “If you don’t do your homework, you can’t play with your friends.”  Sound familiar?  It doesn’t sound so bad, does it?  And it’s not so bad.  I’ve done something similar (I’ll have to give my way later on in this post) to this plenty of times in the past and felt it was clearly defining what behavior was acceptable and what would happen if it wasn’t. 

He suggested a better way to accomplish one’s goals as a parent.  What’s wrong with speaking as the examples above show?  Firstly, you are still using negativity to get your child to do what you want – you’re stressing the negative consequence of not doing as you instruct.  And you’re still using the control model of parenting to a degree.  The opposite of the control model is when we release control and instead empower the child to do the right thing.  We want him to do the right thing eventually whether we are there or not.

I think it’s good to distinguish what is healthy guidance and what is unhealthy control.  We have a responsibility to our kids to guide them, to teach them the right way to behave, and to enforce our expectations.  I very strongly believe this is our absolute responsibility as parents, and to shirk it is not only irresponsible but cruel.  But we must approach our children (or anyone else we interact with!) from a position of respect and caring.  

The best alternative is to use our power to motivate them to want to do the right thing (this is what I referred to as empowering them) .  It means changing two things – one big and one small.  The small one – the area where I’m feeling challenged by this lecture, and unsure if his way is any any improvement over my way – is the way we phrase our expectations to our kids. 

Here’s an example of he suggested.  Instead of the ice cream example above, he suggests: “I’m so glad I’ll be able to give you ice cream when you finish your dinner.”  “You’ll enjoy playing with your friends when your homework is done.”   You’re showing your love and desire for them to enjoy good things.  They can infer that they won’t have those benefits if they don’t do those things, but it wasn’t the message that came from you.  It was something they figured out on their own. 

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you may remember that I’m not a fan of How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, because of my concern that parents get too caught up in the technique of speaking to kids.  Does this seem like more technique?  It could be if parents think that the words matter more than the tone.

The most important thing about how we speak to our kids (in my opinion) is the emotion behind the words more than the actual words themselves.  Parenting isn’t about using the right kind of phrases.  When we feel loving towards our children, they feel that.  They also sense when we are ambivalent, tired, or irritable.

We can feel loving and still use the higher level of ‘threats’ (using the speaker’s terminology – I’m not fully comfortable with this) to get our kids to do what we want them to do. 

This is where I have trouble with his ideas.  I don’t threaten my kids.  That’s not my attitude, and it’s not my tone.  So how much does it matter that I don’t phrase my comments in exactly the way he suggests?  I don’t know. 

The reason I’m having trouble with this is that I don’t phrase my requests of my kids as the example above shows.  To me it sounds like bribery.  I don’t pull benefits away from them if they don’t do what I want, and I don’t offer benefits for doing what I say.  So while I’ll say, “No ice cream until dinner is finished”, I don’t use it as a threat.  I don’t have much emotional investment in it, I’m not waving the ice cream in front of them to convince them to listen to me.  I’m matter of fact about it – we eat dessert after we eat the meal.  I generally expect that they’ll do what I ask, because I’m reasonable in my expectations of them, and try my best to be respectful of them. 

This brings us to the second of the two points I said was crucial in motivating our kids in a positive way.  The first was the words we use, and the second is the spirit in which we speak them.  This is super important!!  I can’t stress this as the most important underpinning of all enough.  We need to really believe our positive message inside ourselves when we speak.  You can’t say the words and expect it to ‘work’ when your body language is telling your child something else entirely.  So the number one area to work on is our thoughts about our children, to see them for the precious people they are. 

As adults, we want to be treated with respect, and for others to acknowledge that we want to do the right thing, just we sometimes appreciate a pointer in the right direction.  Our kids aren’t any different.  When we talk to them, let’s try to give them the message that we know they are good, they want to do the right thing, and we believe in them.

Avivah 

I hear a lot of parents using threats when they deal with their children, and because it’s so common, I’ve decided to address this today.  First of all, I’ll clarify the two levels of what I’m referring to as threats.

The first is when the parent tells the child something extreme and scary will happen to them.  I don’t even like to give examples of this kind of threat, since I find it so disturbing to even think of speaking to our children like this.  But here’s something like what I mean, just so you know what I’m talking about.  I once read of a mother who knew her child was afraid of dogs, so she told her very young daughter she would bring a dog into the house if the girl didn’t comply with whatever the mother was requesting.  Of course the daughter was so terrified that she complied.  Or something much more common but equally troubling, “If you don’t come right now, I’m going to leave you here in the store.”  Why would we frighten them with threats of abandonment just to get them to do what we want?

I’ve heard parents justify this by saying that some kids are motivated by rewards and some kids are motivated by fear.  I don’t like the idea of using rewards or fear to get kids to do what we want, both are very problematic.  But I’m just addressing the fear based approach here; the problem with rewards is another topic altogether. 

Our children look to us to protect them and take care of them.  They are helpless and trust us to keep their world safe.  It’s damaging and harmful to the short and long term emotional well-being of a child to undermine this belief. Kids need to trust their parents and that kind of communication breaks that trust. 

Trust is at the heart of the parent-child relationship.  When you break the trust of a young child, you’re creating large problems in the future with that child as an adolescent or teen.  Parents make the mistake of thinking, ‘Well, it gets them to do what I say and nothing else works.’  Parenting isn’t about forcing compliance from those in a dependent position.  When we speak in this way, we’re speaking out of our own desire to control and that is usually fear based.

So how can we verbally motivate our kids?  More to come…. 🙂

Avivah

It’s an important thing to keep the lines of communication wide open with our kids, because as they get older, they’re going to encounter things that are bigger than their life experience to that point has prepared them for.  Knowing there is a loving adult that they can share their concerns with is very, very important.

Today my 9th grade son came home and shared something that he witnessed while in class.  Another student who was sitting close to him, opened up a paperclip  behind his desk.  The boy then ran the sharp end down his arm, repeating this action until he had cut open his arm and the blood was running down his arm.  My son found it particularly eery how the boy started smiling broadly once the blood was flowing.

 My son obviously knew something was unusual, to say the least, about this behavior.  He found it so disturbing that he spoke to me about it as soon as he got home.  He didn’t understand the significance of what he was seeing.  But I did.  (That’s one helpful aspect about reading so much about so many issues – lots of info is sitting there in my brain waiting to be used. :))  Self cutting, or self mutilation, is usually a sign of depression and a tool that kids in a lot of emotional pain use to relieve the overwhelming their pain.  My immediate concern was to find out if there was an involved adult in this child’s life who could help him get the help he needed.

But my son said he lives quite far away, and is dorming locally.  I think I’ve written about this here before, when parents have problems with a child and then think they’re dealing with the problem by shunting the kid off to somewhere out of sight like a boarding school.  But of course the issues are still there, just the parents can tell themselves that they’ve dealt with it. 

So I decided to call their teacher about it, who I know to be a very compassionate person who the kids trust because they know he cares.  I described to him what I heard, and though I purposely didn’t ask the boy’s name, gave him details I felt would be obvious to identify him.  He said he will take care of it from here. 

So this leaves me hopeful that somehow this kid will get some help, but just as much, leaves me thinking once again about how our kids need us.  They don’t stop needing us because their bodies get bigger. 

Avivah