Few weeks back, my elder daughter Harshita came to me and asked “Mommy, I think you should give me some pocket money”. When asked why, her answer was “because my friends get pocket money from their parents”. Didn’t know what to derive out of it, it’s just an effect of PEER PRESSURE. When asked out of curiosity what she’ll do with the pocket money, her answer was “even I dunno”.
When I was a kid, I used to get pocket money, typically to enjoy the snacks outside the school gate. But my kids get snacks in their school itself, if not, mommy prepares whatever they want, if not, mommy gets whatever they want. So literally they don’t need pocket money :-).
So why should I give her pocket money? Then thought, rather than GIVING them pocket money, how about making them EARN their pocket money. So started this funda of EARNING pocket money with a piggy bank and a deal of 2 rupees if they massage my head.
Coming to head massage, it all started with my younger daughter pulling my hair when she was young. With her gentle pulls, I used to feel very relaxed and now I got into the habit of asking them to massage my head whenever I feel stressed out.
OK, let’s get back to pocket money funda. So I made a deal with my kids that for each 5 minutes of head or leg massage, I’ll give them 2 rupees. They instantly agreed and felt happy to put it to work. So far, it’s going great without them saying “No mommy…not again”. Also it’s good to see kids learning so many things implicitly. Here is the list of things I observed so far:
- Time management: As the deal is for 5 minutes, they make sure they follow the time. They learned the art of looking at time and doing things, in other words learned the value of time.
- Sharing: When I go to shop and tell my kids to buy snacks using their pocket money, I see them sharing the pocket money if the price exceeds their individual contribution and if they both like the same snack.
- Partnership: I saw them making plans together to buy things next in their wish list.
- Accounting: Rather than giving them 2 rupees each time, I give them 10 or 5 rupees. They patiently do the math and give me the correct amount. If I tell them to extend the work for 5 more minutes, they know how much I owe them.
- Auditing: From time to time, they check their piggy bank to see how much they earned and make sure no one is stealing their money ;-).
- Self confidence: When I hand over the money to them, I can see their face glowing with great confidence that they actually earned money by doing some work.
- Bonding with their mommy: More than anything, it is the bonding that makes us feel happy when we talk while they are busy doing their job. And feels great when they tell me “mommy, today you don’t need to give us pocket money, because you are also doing massage to us na..” :-).
At the end of the day, I’m happy that my kids are learning something new.
If you are interested, read more on pocket money at http://www.indiachildren.com/growing/10to15y/pocketmoney.htm
Interesting.. Few thoughts... This surely helps them in survival and "be successful" - terminology as perceived by most of us.
ReplyDeleteOther side of coin- You will start seeing everything in life transactional - as you mentioned in "Bonding with their mommy".
Fortunately we have gone thru unconditional love from people around us and also transactional ones. You still have unconditional love with your mom who gave pocket money with out any expectation.
Look from this perspective and share some more thoughts......
At macro level these are fundamental differences of various societies/cultures..
Yes. I too agree with you. We were fortunate enough to get pocket money from our parents out of unconditional love. But if you see carefully, there is an implicit expectation i.e to see their kids happy.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely don’t want to tie everything with money, then it becomes pure transactional. It depends on how you carry out your actions and the key point here is the conversation with your kid. In my example, I mentioned BONDING with kids. They don’t even know that BONDING is the by product of the work they are doing. The time they spend doing massage is used to converse with kids, and they love to share their thoughts and events happened in school.
IMHO, good learning starts at home and if they learn things from their parents, it goes a long way. I’ve seen my kids understanding the value of money when they go to shop. If they see that the snack they want is more than the money they have in hand, they come to me and say “mommy, you know what, it’ll take us two more months to earn the money to buy this snack”. Of course, you don’t want to disappoint them, just buy the item if you think it’s good, and move on by telling them to save the money for next trip. Being strict is going to spoil the lessons they are learning. Even the tone matters when you talk with your kids…part of kids psychology.
Last but not the least, don’t tie pocket money with their studies. They need to understand that it is part of their responsibility. All depends on where you draw the line and how you handle them.
Very nice , Punya! I think I want to try this concept with my older one.
ReplyDeleteSonia
Thanks Sonia!!
ReplyDeleteI hope it works out well with your kid too.
Hi Punya,
ReplyDeleteI remembered my childhood days reading your post. We used to be given pocket money when we help our parents in doing work for the house like, cleaning the garden, watering the plants, running errands to the shop, going to the bank for updating the passbook or dropping a cheque. Also, we were taught to save money by having a post office account. So every 10 rupees we save we would hand it over to the post man and would get our passbook updated. It used to give us immense pleasure to see the balance in the account. We used to be given 100 Rs if we stood 1st in the class. That was a mega bonus as our account would touch a new balance. :)
By doing so, we learnt a lot things like everybody needs to contribute to keep the house, learnt the concept of banking, we learnt to handle money also the biggest blessing was learnt to save money. There by we learnt where to spend and where not to.
With all these habits inculcated at the right age, we are able to prove ourselves as capable individuals now.
I'm happy to see that you are doing the same with your kids and I'm sure you would be a proud parent when your children grow up.
Regards,
Gul
Thanks Gul!!
ReplyDeleteI see it working great with my kids. Their expenditure in buying snacks reduced a lot... now they know the value of money :-).