I can't remember. I think I might have blogged about starting an allowance for Blythe and Ethan. Anyway, we started a couple of weeks ago and it's been going pretty well. Making my mornings getting the kids ready way easier. Blythe has 5 chores - Make her bed, get dressed, do homework, clean her room, and say "Please" and "Thank you". Ethan has 3 chores - Get dressed, clean his room, and say "Please" and "Thank you". When Blythe turns 6 later this week, she will get 1 more chore.
Sometimes I still need to remind about Please or Thank You, but sometimes the Thank You's are a bit over-the-top. "Mom, thank you for making us breakfast" (after I just plopped down 2 pop-tarts directly out of the box). "Mom, thank you for letting Gommy and Laura come visit" (after they came to help while I was out of town). You get the idea. But excessive is better than not enough, so I'll take it.
At the end of the week after doing all chores every single day, they get $1.00. The first time, Blythe said, "That's it?" and I told her a dollar was a lot of money, so she was good with that.
I think Blythe had $1.00 to start with. They both got wallets for Christmas and I think Peep gave them each $1.00 for their wallets. I paid Blythe another dollar for helping me take down both Christmas trees, put away all the ornaments, and clean the kitchen. Then after 1 week of allowance, they each got another $1.00. So if you're good at math, you'll see that Blythe now has $4.00 and Ethan has $2.00.
Well, just before Gommy and Laura left on Saturday, Ethan was in a foul mood and decided he would break the crayons Blythe and Brynn were coloring with. Gommy caught him and told him to stop, but he kept on. When I came in and saw the damage, I told him those were my crayons and now he ruined them and would need to buy me some more. He was a little upset about this. Later I made him go get one of his dollars out of his wallet so we could go to the store. Then he was REALLY upset. "But then I only have ONE dollar left!". And I further explained that that was a shame, but he had to spend one of his dollars on new crayons.
We went to Target. Unfortunately for Ethan, they were out of the crayons on sale for $0.65 and only had ones that were $1.19 (I spotted him the extra change). Either way, I wouldn't let him get change from his transaction because then he'd think he got more money back than what he lost ("look! I gave them 1 money and they gave me back 5!"). I made him pay separately for his stuff and continued to ask him, "Next time you won't break crayons, will you?" hoping that this lesson will teach him to respect other people's things.
Since it was Saturday, just before bed both kids got paid another dollar for the week. So now Blythe has 5 dollars and Ethan has 2, which made him very upset again. Guess time will tell if this little lesson in money worked.
No comments:
Post a Comment