Owlhaven

Golden Keyboard Award #4

I enjoyed reading everyone's comments. Mama B's idea of direct-depositing her kids' allowance right into her kids' accounts is great. And Gillian's idea of using the dry eraser board for listing extra earning opportunities is one I want to try.

But I'm giving the Golden Keyboard this week to Perri of My Life in Bits & Pieces. Her mention of the 'joy of living here in paradise' made me chuckle, and her approach to kid's extra expenses made a lot of sense. So congrats to Perri!

Jeana asked what I do about kids and chores. The kids help out quite a bit around the house-- the teenagers help out on average 1-2 hours per day, and the younger ones probably work half an hour to an hour a day. We have daily jobs and weekly jobs that I explained here.

In the past we have given allowance-- sporadically. But we have quite a few kids and even a few bucks per kid can be $100 a month or more. We reluctantly concluded it just wasn't in the budget for now.

My teenagers all have outside jobs. My big girls babysit and clean someone's house a few times a month. My 14 year old son works two afternoons a week for his grandpa. So they get spending money that way.

Any kid who wants to earn money can come to me and ask for an extra job. Usually I will assign flowerbed weeding, or have them organize a cupboard or closet. For weeding, I pay by the weed, which I've found is more motivating to younger ones than paying by the hour.

A related note: at my grandpa's funeral yesterday, my mother reminisced about Gramps and chores. She said Gramps paid all his kids for pulling weeds in his farm field, and he paid the bigger kids more because they were harder workers. Sounds like a good way to motivate the younger ones to learn to be hard workers.

Thanks again for posting such great comments, and remember, go visit Perri!

posted by owlhaven @ 9:54 PM