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

Valhaz

Should you be lenient? NO

Your daughter will never learn about money if you continually subsidise her. She will grow up thinking she can always come to you for money. If she is in a strop, explain to her that it is for her own good in the long run.

Nicksmum

My sons aged 14 and 16 both know that if we buy them anything and they dont have the money on them we will stick an IOU on the fridge when we get in and it stays there until we are paid back.By letting children off I dont think you are teaching them the true value of money and lets face it for most of us its hard to come by!

eleanormccloy

Yes it will teach her the real value of money

skellyele

TREAT THEM MEAN KEEP THEM KEEN was a saying my dad always used yes we had pocket money but not much and he used to say spend a little save a lot ! he used to say that children shouldnt be given much money but they should learn the value of money and the KEEP THEM KEEN meant they would always come back to you and respect you and your values. Good grounding for when they had to be independant and stand on their own two feet. To be honest the best thing you can give a child is love and affection.

rockdoll

Yeah, you should!
for a start she's only a kid and you should know what money she has anyway, so if she does say '' mom, can i have that £20 top'' and you know for a fact she only has 39p, then you can say no.

I'm 18, and i've *Always* been smart with my money. I also pay back my debts. When I got my first job ( At 16 ) when i got paid, i asked my mom if she wanted any board money off me ( She said no, bless her )

but even now, when there was a hiccup in my pay a couple of months back, and i owed my parents about £350, when my pay day came, the first thing i did was go to the bank and give them the money.



your problem happened to my friends mom a couple of years back, what she did was go into her(My friends sister) room and took all the things she had bought her recently and took them downstairs, then she got stickers and *priced* them, so a pair of skinny jeans was '' clean the bathroom and vaccum the stairs '' a DVD was ''clean the car '' ect ect.

try that

needtomaintain

Stick to your guns. i was raised spoiled and with no sense of the value of money, and this continued through uni.

However, alongside the parents spoiling i also met the banks and they conned me into huge debt which was totally unnecessary given how much my parents gave me.

Got bailed out after uni and then just ran it up again- to £40k :eek: at its worst- finally saw the light (in theory) after reading Martin's wisdom and currently debt free except the mortgage, but i learned the hard way.

My son has had an education in finance since an early age and its fantastic to hear him ask me and his friends- 'do you actually need that? is it in your budget?' when tempted by rubbish. Priceless!!

carielge

Having read many of the posts, the majority agree you should not let your daughter get away without paying you. I also agree and have always 'negotiated' with my children. There are many reasons why but among them; they now have items they would not have had if they had not agreed to pay some towards it, they have a sense of value towards their belongings and it teaches them how to budget. I got a lovely surprise the other day when both kids wanted something and without even negotiating, they both offered to put money towards it and we would pay the balance (which was the least amount). I felt pround that they had offered and they have had real enjoyment from it. To those who think it's wrong, this would have been a good time to offer to pay for all of it and feel proud to spoil them - but I didn't as I don't have the money.
Keep with it, she will thank you in the end as many posters have said.

donglefan

Since the bunny hutch situation arose due to mistakes by the parent as well as the child being manipulative, how about saying to the child, 'We are both unhappy with this situation, me because I had to pay for a more expensive item than we needed and you because you thought, based on what happened in the past, that you wouldn't have to keep your word to pay for it.'
So if you can afford it, sweeten the pill by saying that you will write off the rabbit hutch as you can see that you made a mistake in the past by letting her say one thing and do another, and it must have been confusing to think you don't have to stand by your word. This is another important lesson for a child, that adults can be wrong and admit their mistakes. It is showing respect to a child, rather than unreasoned dominance.
Say that from now on, you want to be clear that your daughter needs to take her own money on shopping trips, so that you don't fall out over this kind of thing again. If she doesn't bring along her dosh, then obviously no purchases or advances. Also, any time she might get stroppy about not being given an advance on a trip, you can remind her how generous you were over the rabbit hutch and what you talked about regarding it.

maryb

donglefan wrote: »

Since the bunny hutch situation arose due to mistakes by the parent as well as the child being manipulative, how about saying to the child, 'We are both unhappy with this situation, me because I had to pay for a more expensive item than we needed and you because you thought, based on what happened in the past, that you wouldn't have to keep your word to pay for it.'
So if you can afford it, sweeten the pill by saying that you will write off the rabbit hutch as you can see that you made a mistake in the past by letting her say one thing and do another, and it must have been confusing to think you don't have to stand by your word. This is another important lesson for a child, that adults can be wrong and admit their mistakes. It is showing respect to a child, rather than unreasoned dominance.
Say that from now on, you want to be clear that your daughter needs to take her own money on shopping trips, so that you don't fall out over this kind of thing again. If she doesn't bring along her dosh, then obviously no purchases or advances. Also, any time she might get stroppy about not being given an advance on a trip, you can remind her how generous you were over the rabbit hutch and what you talked about regarding it.

I agree with this, I think that you as the parent have the larger share of the blame for letting this situation develop - and I say this as one who has done exactly the same so please don't think I am being hypercritical.

You do have to draw a line but I think this episode is not the one to form battle lines over, it's too expensive and it is not reasonable to expect a child to be able to foresee what it will really be like to be completely without any pocket money at all for weeks on end given your past practice. To put it in context, an adult on a debt management plan would be left with enough for reasonable needs if not extravagances.

In retrospect, it would have been better to choose something smaller to start insisting on payback which could have been achieved in a shorter time frame and/or to say 'no' to the expensive item. You chose this to take a stand on because of the cost but I think it may have led to you punishing your child for your own guilt at your extravagance and justifying it by saying it is for her own good.

Draw a line and start afresh. She does need to learn about money, but she also needs to learn that grown ups do not act arbitrarily

RRatchet

You have made a rod for your own back as we all do from time to time. At long last you have decided to apply your own rules, please stick to them. You could sweeten the blow for your daughter by offering her different payment options; higher repayment shorter term or lower payment longer term, more chores etc. Stick at it, it will get easier.

I find it better not to promise/agree to anything unless you are going to follow through ie tempting as it is; don't say "I'm going to smack your bottom until it's so sore you can't sit down" because both you and the child know that you are not going to do it, so it's an empty threat (or promise/statement depending on what it is you have said). For some that will be an extreme example but the principle applies to many situations not just discipline. Mean what you say & say what you mean etc. etc.

My child does not get pocket money at the moment because they gave it up in order that I would pay for a magazine subscription. That doesn't stop them trying it on and asking for some nor does it stop me treating them when we go somewhere. I'm also very good at saying "no" and "because I say so".