Photo courtesy of Huckdavis
If you want to start a flame war on any parenting website, post a strong opinion about whether a kid's allowance should be tied to household chores. For some reason, this particular subject can get parents, experts, and passing trolls frothing at the mouth.
I've been thinking about this a little bit lately, even though LO is still too young for either end of the allowance/chore equation. You see, he's gotten to the age wherein he loves doing whatever I do. When I'm unloading the dishwasher, he hands me items to put away. When I make the bed, he pulls the covers to the side (and generally off the bed, but we're focusing on establishing the habit). When I'm folding clothes, he mashes some up and throws them in the laundry basket for me. In short, now--while he's enjoying himself with it--is a great time to start getting him used to doing some household chores.
In another year or so, I'm also going to start giving him an allowance.
I suspect that I will not connect these two things. My feeling is that we need to keep our house clean and tidy for intrinsic rather than extrinsic reasons.
But I don't know about tying cold hard cash to extra chores around the house. I'd love for him to take care of stuff like dusting (partially because I hate doing it myself), and I'd be willing to pay for the service (since I've considered paying a professional to do it anyway), but it gets back to the intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.
So I thought I'd throw it out there to the Dollar Stretcher community. How do you handle allowances? How do you handle chores? Is there any possibility that I might raise a child who thinks that clothes wash themselves?
Any insight would be appreciated!
