Money Moral Dilemma: Should I make my daughter pay for it?

Former_MSE_Lee

This is a real life MMD so please bear in mind the MoneySaver in question will read your responses:

Please give this MoneySaver the benefit of your advice...

Should I make my daughter pay for it?

My daughter never takes money out with her, so I end up buying her something, and insisting she repay. Yet once home I forget, she doesn't remind me it gets out of hand. We just bought a new hutch for the rabbit, the one she really liked was quite a lot but she insisted she would pay half, now she's in a strop due to me saying she is not having pocket money for weeks due to paying it off. Should I be lenient?

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Techno

Absolutely not. Obviously as a parent you pay for a huge amount of things anyway but if you have come to an agreement that your daughter will contribute to something and then let her away with it then you are not teaching her the value of money. Does she work for her pocket money (real meanie here - I never got something for nothing always had to work to earn it so it's what I expect!!!) How about extra chores to pay back her 'debts'?

emidee

Definately not....you don't say how old she is but to be honest that doesn't matter - if you wish your daughter to grow up with a responsible attitude to money then you should stick to the terms of the original agreement, otherwise she may always think that someone else will 'bail her out' - and in the long term that will do her no favours!

we_gone_bananas_2

Of course your child/young person should pay you back as agreed. Later in life she will thank you for being able to reach much further than all those other kids at school who are all supposedly allowed to watch 18 rated films at the age of 12, stay up and get drunk from the age of 12 and get pregnant so as to get their grubby hands on a council house.
You start to teach them the value of money early on and they will take that with them for the rest of forever; you never know she might learn to appreciate the fact she has worked and been rewarded too!! Imagine entering life with all those lessons firmly learnt. She'll be way ahead of the majority!:T

flossy_splodge

No no no no no!
It doesn't get any better if you are 'lenient'.
My personal experience with 2 DD's is that you are just taken for granted and they don't develop a sense of the requirement to be able to pay for what thewy want/choose if you help them out all the time.
Don't do it.
I did and am now reaping the rewards of neither feeling any obligation to repay what they owe.

hullight

Teach her money lessons now or she will never know how to manage her finances.

Besides I never got pocket money as a kid and I managed fine.

meher

'course you should be lenient

haven't you heard children learn what they live - if children live with fairness, they learn justice

WhyIsSavingSoHard

I'm with everyone else on this. I've seen these situations with my sister and her children. She has a habit of backing down and this means that her children think she's a 'soft touch'. It doesn't do them any good as her daughter now thinks that she can get whatever she wants and not pay for it and her son just laughs at her when she threatens to stop his pocket money knowing it'll last all of a week (if it lasts that long).

bluehase

I think it's very important that she pays up or finds another way to pay through doing extra chores or maybe getting a paper round. My parents never allowed me to get away with that kind of behaviour growing up - their attitude was - if you don't have the cash, you don't get the goodies... It makes you more responsible and puts more value on things. Giving in and being lenient will not only hurt your purse-strings but it will hurt her ability to cope with her own finances later in life. If she thinks she can rack up debt and not pay it back she'll be in for a sharp shock in the real world when she has to take responsibility for herself. Better to learn now than in 6 years time with thousands of pounds rather than tens of pounds to worry about paying back... Also I think there's a morality issue here too - if she's been promising to pay things back and then going back on that it doesn't say much for her character. Being firm will hopefully make this less of an issue and her more responsible and taking responsibility for her actions and words.

jc2711

I am with everyone else on here - stick with it; otherwise there is no value to anything. J

Trinitrotoluene

I'd go one step further and add interest to what she owes if she refuses to pay it