ASK A TEACHER Allowances with Nancy Downing |
| Q: My two children, ages 7 and 11, are asking for allowance. What is a good age to start this practice? A: There is no magical age to start receiving an allowance; it is more about the maturity of your child. Teaching money management skills should go hand in hand with allowance. Sit down with each child separately and discuss what that child’s allowance is going to be used for. Talk about the responsibility that is connected with money. In that discussion explain how you expect your child to save a specific amount each time the allowance is given. Set that amount. Give your child a clear jar to put the savings in. This way your child has a visual of the savings as they grow. When your child asks for a toy or game, don’t take out your debit card and pay for it. Have your child save up to buy it. Both of you sit down and with paper and pencil figure out how many allowances it will take to make that purchase. Giving your child the experience of “waiting” for something is a gift that will stick with him/her through adulthood. These simple skills that you instill into your child are good life skills. Take a moment and look around you. Listen to the news and read the newspaper. How many people are filing for bankruptcy? How many articles are written about how to manage your money? Many adults never learned the skill that you will be teaching your children at a young age. By the time your children hit adulthood a savings account, delaying a purchase and living within a budget will all be a way of life. Other suggestions: As your children get older and need to buy gas for their cars and lunches at school, put that into their allowance. Help them make a budget. One month when you are paying bills, have your child write the checks and you sign them. Share your household budget. Go to the bank and set up a savings account with both of your names on it. Before they head off to college, setting up a checking account is a must. If this can be done their senior year, you are allowing months of practice before leaving home. Copyright © by Nancy Downing. All rights reserved. |
Nancy has been an educator for 30 years and is currently a special education teacher.
She is the former Center Director of LearningRx in Little Rock, Arkansas. She has
received local, state, and national recognition for her development of Downfeld
Phonics, a multi-sensory reading program. Nancy also wrote curriculum for an
educational technology company.
Nancy is a single mother of three children: one with learning differences, one gifted,
and one who has to work for his grades. Not only does she know what it is like to teach
all these different learning styles at school, but she has the experience of dealing with
all aspects of each twenty-four seven.
She is the former Center Director of LearningRx in Little Rock, Arkansas. She has
received local, state, and national recognition for her development of Downfeld
Phonics, a multi-sensory reading program. Nancy also wrote curriculum for an
educational technology company.
Nancy is a single mother of three children: one with learning differences, one gifted,
and one who has to work for his grades. Not only does she know what it is like to teach
all these different learning styles at school, but she has the experience of dealing with
all aspects of each twenty-four seven.
| Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6) |