Money Moral Dilemma: Should our four-year-old child pay for her own extracurricular activities?

MSE_Kelvin

This week's MoneySaver who wants advice asks...

Since she was born, our four-year-old has been given money by friends and family on birthdays etc. She now has a few grand saved up in a bank account we opened for her. Recently, we've signed her up to some extracurricular activities she wants to try - gymnastics, swimming, drama and Scouts. The cost mounts up, so would it be fair to charge them to her account, rather than our own?

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FlorayG

At four years old she has no idea what money is for so it's a meaningless question. It's effectively your money until she is old enough to understand

Brie

almost a silly question to me.  she might say "I want to do X" but you are the ones deciding that's what she can do.  So your money.  If after a several of years of Scouts she decides she wants to the jamboree in Tahiti then you can think about whether she needs to pay for that or if you do.  

njkmr

If you can't afford the activities for your child then they should not do them. This will be a life lesson your child needs to understand as you bring them up. 
The money should be kept for when the child is older and has the knowledge of its value and is able to make their own decisions.

MattMattMattUK

I cannot actually believe someone would genuinely ask this, but, NO!

dinosaur66

as an uncle who has given a lot to my neices and nephews i would be !!!!!! off with my brothers and sisters and stop giving until my neices and nephews were older and give them there money direct .

first time i can remember having money was my mum giving us 5p each and  going to saturday morning cinema paying my 3p entry which left me 2p to budget for the rest of the week / being 6 i went to the sweetshop next to the cinema and bought 1/4 sweets so it lasted a few mins.

also from memory and showing how times have changed i do not remember a single adult being present in a que that must have been 200 kids long every saturday.

saajan_12

Perhaps ask the gifters if they'd be happy to give the gift of gym class (or whatever) instead? As giving money to such a young child is sort of meaningless, given they can't really understand what it is yet. 

Also maybe in future the family members can be encouraged to give toys / pay for a class etc - things that the child would actually use or interact with in some way. Giving money at this age is really just parking cash to give the child later.. if that's what they want then why don't they just keep the money and give a lump sum later. 

Pollycat

These MMDs get more ridiculous by the week.

MSE_Kelvin

Pollycat said:

These MMDs get more ridiculous by the week.

Thanks for your encouraging words, @Pollycat

As always, we're obviously not going to reveal the identity of the person who sent in the MMD, so all I can tell you is that we received this week's last Tuesday from a regular reader who asked us to put it to MSE users.

And as usual, all I can say is that, in the seven-odd years I've been in the MMD hotseat, we've never used one that we didn't receive from a user, someone from MSE, or someone connected to someone from MSE.

If we did make 'em up, I'd like to think we could concoct something a little more juicy 

silvercar

At 4 years old, your child does the activities that you think are worthwhile and you should pay for them. Their money should be used for things that they want, but don’t really need, when they are much older.

John_Gray

Quite obviously the four-year-old should pay for all her extracurricular activities.
Similarly, she should be charged board and lodging, transport, and any other expenditure on her behalf.

[I'm with @Pollycat !  Clearly MSE cannot detect a wind-up...]