I can tell you what we've done, though I don't know if it will answer your question.
I'll note that my brother and I were raised with exactly the same system (as each other) and I grew up very conscious of money and saving, and my brother was much more, er, carefree. And the same is true of my now adult stepkids (they were raised under exactly the same system of rules as one another) and my stepson grew up very good with money and my stepdaughter it took her a long time and a number of pretty big mistakes to get things right. So -- I don't know how easy this stuff is to shape.
Basically, myself and my brother, and then my stepkids, and now my own son (7) all get a weekly allowance for which we/they have to do, well, nothing. It's just spending money, and it's pretty modest -- my son right now gets $3/week, and that will go up about $1 every 2 years, I think. As kids we did have to buy our friends' birthday presents, if we went to a party or whatever (and my son does this now), and also to cover some other expenses (I had to pay 1/2 of athletic competitions I wanted to participate in), though my sense is this was more case-by-case, i.e. I doubt very much my parents would actually have not supported my participating in sports, but they knew I very much wanted to do them so it was easy to use them as a tool to get me to save and plan. We also had opportunities to earn (additional) money, though not so many at an early age, of course. We were allowed to spend (or save) our money pretty much however we wanted with no rules about how we did it, though when we opted to save longer-term, we got praised for that (e.g. I got a paper route at 11 and put $10 of my roughly $30 income each month into a savings account and knew that my parents thought that was a good thing to do).
My son isn't great about working, but he is great about saving and rarely wants to spend his money on anything (in contrast my nieces, who, again, are being raised by the same rules as each other, one is a total "saver" and the other is a total "spender."). Part of the problem may be that I'm not willing to overpay my son by much for the work he does, and he just cannot do that much right now. But also, I want him to understand that by far the best and most important thing in his life for now and the foreseeable future is his schoolwork and that if he is putting effort into that, his dad and I will take care of the rest. Obviously this does not include Disney vacations (but it does include European vacations, as we have family there), and I don't run around buying him much in the way of toys, but he spends way less than he has available and is already conscious (for no obvious reason) that he wants to keep money in the bank, i.e. not to spend his account down too low.
I have to agree that college is a way too distant goal for a kid to appreciate. I think if I were going to insist on saving for a longer term goal it might be to have money to spend while on a vacation (if your family takes them), or for a bigger (but current) goal such as an expensive toy. Though honestly this isn't the approach we take, i.e. we certainly talk with our son about the pros & cons of spending versus saving but he is allowed to do what he chooses.
Sorry, this has been a rambly answer, but I'll go ahead and post it in case there is something useful somewhere in here.