Allowances, to give or not to give, and, do we, allow our young to spend whatever it is we "paid" them regularly on what THEY wanted to own or not, that is, the QUESTION here! How this parents, let go, and allowed her own son, to learn to manage his own, finances, of course, it's only, in the smaller amounts of, allowances, acceptable to children…translated…
It's Truly, Quite Difficult, to Pass the Knowledge of Financial Planning to the Children, Using the Reasoning to Convince Them that They Can Take in……….
Last year on Father's Day, the kids received a frog piggy bank from the church. We'd started handing them the coins to feed to their, froggy banks. After several months, the kids loved hearing the coins, clinking against each other inside their froggy banks, and yet, I'd found, with displease, that from time to time, the kids would have less money than before in the froggy banks—as the kids took the money out to get them the snacks or the toys.
"How come your froggy banks are getting lighter and lighter?"
illustration from UDN.com
"Why did you guys take the money out again?" "Don't buy the candies, the toys, it's too wasteful, do you not know that!"
Once the above emotion and order took me over, I'd found, that I'd become, more and more unwilling to give them their, allowances. And yet, as I'd thumbed across the financial advice that parents can instill in children, and how the allowances can be used as a form of show of trust in our young, I'd become, willing again, to give them their, weekly allowances, I got reminded of my original belief of why I'd started, giving them the allowances—I wanted the kids to learn to manage their own money, and how to use their own allowances, that was why I'd, started, giving them the allowances. Turns out, the key here is NOT in directing them on how they're to use what we give to them, but how to train the kids to take responsibilities for their own actions, including teaching them which items they're spending on, are good for them to have, which ones, aren't, along with having the self-controls, to resist the temptations of snacks, and of the sweet drinks too.
As parents, trusting our young is something that doesn't come easily, but we need to master this. Especially when they entered school, what did they purchase? What did they buy for foods? The parents can't have any control over, we need to clearly, pass the values of financial intelligence to our young, and we must use the reasonings that the kids can't find the objections to, this is, truly, quite, difficult. While I, am still, currently, on this, path to learn the ways.
One day, my eldest told me that he'd hoped he could carry some of his allowances on him, so he could have it to use as he wanted to. Although I'd worried he might spend it all, but I'd, kept my lips shut. Another time, he saw an item at the super convenience store with his favorite Pikachu on it, a coin wallet that's close to a hundred and fifty dollars, without a second thought, he'd taken one up, stood in line; although I'd wanted to stop him, but I'd still, selected to, keep my, silence in the time, being.
PIGGY for the SLAUGHTER! Photo from online
A month later, I'd found, that every day my eldest would carry his coin purse. He'd placed some money into his banks, and place some in his wallet; he'd not worked as I suspected that he would, spent up all his allowances, nor did he blow all his allowances away on the drinks, the snacks either, instead, when he'd wanted to spend his money, he'd, let me know first.
I'm glad, that I'd, bitten my tongue from before. Had I begun in putting an end to his spending his allowances in time, not trusted him, or stopped giving him his allowances, I'm sure, I would've never seen the maturity he now showed, from his own, financial planning means, and I would've gotten stuck in that vicious cycle of that self-fulfilling prophecy of "I KNEW you would've blown al your cash away!", and, I'm certain, that that would cause this huge tall wall, to get STUCK between us that can't, get torn down again.
And so, this is on trusting ourselves, to KNOW, that we'd, raised our own young right, after all, if you'd, instilled these values of spending your money carefully every day or regularly in your actions (not just your words), your kids, I'm sure, would've had the financial senses, to KNOW how to save up the allowances you gave to them, besides, you'd given THEM their allowances, so it's THEIRS to do whatever they will with it, and if you don't let go, if you'd breathed down their necks, watched them underneath that MICROSCOPE, checked their backpacks for things that they purchased at school, etc., etc., etc., then, that would DEFEAT the WHOLE purposes of your handing them their, allowances in the first place, and so, this mother did right, by BITING her own TONGUE, when she saw her son first, squandered away the allowances, because he then, learned the values of the need to save up for what he wanted, by trial and error.
No comments:
Post a Comment