How to handle pocket money for small kids

[Bee21]

So here is my dilemma.

I have 2 very generous 5 and 7 year old kids who are not too good with numbers and still don't get the concept of money. Previously, their pocket money often dissappeared, because they simply lost it or gave it away (I gave my dollar to cooper because he said his mom doesn't have any money. Or, here is 5 dollars sis, i have 2 of them). So I abandoned my plans of giving them pocket money. Initially i wanted to give them 4-5 dollars a week, hoping that thry will learn how to save up for something, but instead of a learning opportunity this pocket money situation turned into an endless source of frustration for me. I think they might be too young for the concept of saving up.

We do school banking, and they sort of understand that they are saving 2 dollars a week there. I also give them some money at the beginning of school holidays and take them shopping. This works well as it takes the begging and demanding out of the shopping expeditions, and they learnt the concept of being able to afford something or not and also getting good at not spending their pocket money just because they can't if they don't see something  they particularly want. So all is well.

But, this week there is a mother's day stall at school. I almost complained to the principle about it as I see this p&c fundraising event as an exploitation of kids, but I calmed down. This turned out to be an other learning opportunity, i just don't know if I should make a big deal out of it or not. It all happened before i had the chance to find out about the stalls and have a 'mommy doesn't need any present, just make me a card' conversation. the 5 y old raided her sister's stash and bought me presents. Apparently they were supposed to buy it together but she went ahead and spent it all. The 7 year old was so upset that she didn't have any money left, that she was in tears. Friend offers her her own pocket money to stop her crying. Kid borrows the money, and buys me an other present.

Obviously It is very sweet of them to prepare for mothers' day like this, and I don't want to shame them but I am troubled by the financial aspect. I had a gentle chat with them about not taking money from others because it is stealing. About not spending money we don't have. Not going shopping if we don't have the money. Not borrowing money.

But these are difficult conversations. It is good that it happened at home and with close friends (i am friends with the other kids parents, so we can discuss it). How would you handle this situation?

Obviously, my husband could have given them money to buy me a present, but he knows how I feel about those school buying opportunities. They are spending most of tomorrow together ( i guess that's when he wanted to buy my flowers together), so I guess this school stall situation just complicated our lives unnecessarily. 😂

[Laura33]

I think they might be too young for the concept of saving up.

. . . .

I don't want to shame them but I am troubled by the financial aspect. I had a gentle chat with them about not taking money from others because it is stealing. About not spending money we don't have. Not going shopping if we don't have the money. Not borrowing money.

Really, what your kids are too young for is to make the connections between their own concrete actions and abstract concepts like "borrowing" and "stealing."  I think no matter how gently you say it, kids will freak out if they hear you think they are "stealing" -- they all know that is bad, and so therefore if you say they did that, that makes them a bad kid who might go to jail, etc.  [ask my how I know ;-)]

What you need to do is to translate those big, huge, amorphous, value-laden concepts down into concrete things your kids understand.  "I know you wanted mommy to be happy.  But how did that make your sister feel?  How would you feel if she took all of your XXX without asking?  We don't take things that belong to someone else without asking."  Etc. 

And "borrowing" -- well, that's another fairly advanced concept.  It doesn't bug me that much if a kid is trying to be generous; it's just really an opportunity to ask how they feel and praise them for being thoughtful but then sort of gently tell them not to worry, that it's the grownups' job to take care of their kids, and that some people have more or less money, but they all love their kids and the kids are safe, etc.   And then when they borrow from someone else, just reinforce the need to pay it back -- again, gently -- "it was very nice of XX to lend you money to buy me a present!  Now let's think about how you can earn the money to pay her back!"

I guess I'd sum it up as do some triage; limit the "teachable moments" to the things kids need to learn right now (don't take things without asking; if you borrow something, give it back), and let them figure out the other things on their own over time (e.g., if they give all their money away to someone, they won't have it when they want to buy a toy or whatever).  They are not going to get all of this right away!  And that's ok!  They will probably learn more by getting it wrong a time or two than if they nail it in one anyway. 

"Saving for the future": again, totally an abstract concept; most young kids live entirely in the present (plus it's hard to grasp the point of saving for a toy when mom and dad may buy it for you anyway).  So you need to approach this as baby steps, starting from where they are right now.  For us, that was the school cafeteria:  When DD walked into the school cafeteria and wanted the pizza or the chicken nuggest or all the other "cool" stuff she didn't get at home, that was immediate and real.  So we started an allowance that was designed to allow her to buy lunch one or two days a week, and then gave her a way to earn about another day's lunch.  That way, she learned from direct experience that if she spent the money on X, she didn't have it to spend on Y -- and she got to live with that choice, really feel it, every single day, which is of course the experience you need to figure out if your choice was the right one.  Within a few weeks she had figured out that the 50-cent chips were a better deal than the $3+ lunches, and within about a month she had stopped buying almost everything except for an occasional snack.  But it worked only because it was "real" and immediate to her, and not just some theoretical parental exercise that required long-term thinking that she was not yet capable of.

[Bee21]

Thanks, this helps.

I was struggling with too many teachable moments.

I agree that they don't understand the concept of borrowing or stealing, that is why I didn't make a big deal of it. But we'll have to teach them one day, I am just not sure when is the best time a d what is the best way.

 They can't even add up properly, that's why I hate the school putting the pressure on them to buy presents. My friend works at a special school and even they had a mother's day stall. Insane.
 

[Laura33]

Thanks, this helps.

I was struggling with too many teachable moments.

I agree that they don't understand the concept of borrowing or stealing, that is why I didn't make a big deal of it. But we'll have to teach them one day, I am just not sure when is the best time a d what is the best way.

 They can't even add up properly, that's why I hate the school putting the pressure on them to buy presents. My friend works at a special school and even they had a mother's day stall. Insane.

Yeah, it's hard.  I will say that, now that my kids are older, it is pretty clear that they were not capable of much abstract reasoning and "conceptual" stuff until they were middle school or later -- and then that basically took over their lives (a/k/a it became all about figuring out what is "right" and what is "wrong" and why the world is the way it is and what is their place in it). 

And of course I *want* them to understand everything!  I have smart kids!  They need to learn and internalize the "why" if they are going to make good decisions on their own as adults!  I don't want to shut them down with "because I said so," I want them thinking and making connections and understanding *why* they shouldn't do XYZ ,and thus why they get disciplined when they do it. 

But all that led to was lots of arguing and negotiation and many, many tears, because I was expecting them to make connections that their brains were not yet ready to make.  So in retrospect, I wish I had focused more on the immediate behavior than on the explanation.  I wish I hadn't believed that "wicked smart" meant "able to grasp abstract concepts that are totally beyond little kids."  I wish I had worked harder to find examples that they could understand, and to break down those sorts of big ideas to very simple actions/rules/behavioral expectations they could follow easily.  And I wish I had talked/explained less and discovered 1-2-3 Magic several years earlier.

Tl;dr:  You have many, many years left for the kids to learn and process all this stuff.  Focus on where they are now, and trust them to connect the dots when their brains are ready for it.  Very little of this is as consequential as it seems when you're in the middle of it.

And FWIW, don't be too hard on the schools.  I've seen with my kids that they sort of desperately want to give me something to make me happy (even though I of course don't need any of the "stuff"!).  Even my 16-yr-old perpetually-broke DD just dropped probably $25 on spices and teas for me, and visibly puffed up when she saw that I liked them.  So the school probably thinks it is helping, making it easier for the kids to find things, saving dad from having to take them shopping, etc.

[starjay]

Yeah, it's hard.  I will say that, now that my kids are older, it is pretty clear that they were not capable of much abstract reasoning and "conceptual" stuff until they were middle school or later -- and then that basically took over their lives (a/k/a it became all about figuring out what is "right" and what is "wrong" and why the world is the way it is and what is their place in it). 

I don't have a whole lot to contribute, given that my experiences with kids come from 15ish years of volunteering with teens, but. YES. You are absolutely right. Developmentally, kids start being able to move from concrete thinking to abstract thinking right around 12 or 13 (give or take a year). One of my greatest joys as a mentor was watching my high school kids work out how to communicate an abstract idea to the middle school-aged kids we were volunteering with. 8th graders usually got it. 7th and 6th graders? Hit or miss. My kids worked on it for months. It was a big lesson for all of us on how we grasp concepts as younger vs. older kids.

Bee21, what you're working on with your kids is important! And you'll likely revisit the topics more than once for the concepts to sink in. I think Laura33 has it right when she says that the little ones need immediate, concrete, and applicable experiences. The "what's in it for me (them)" tactic often worked for me when I was volunteering with the grade-school set.