by JW Evans

Created on: September 26, 2009   Last Updated: September 27, 2009

Children love to be rewarded, and are eager to please.

Because we were late financial bloomers, we did not begin rewarding our boys for chores until they were about ten years old. They quickly adapted to a job board, which consisted of index cards tacked to a bulletin board, with a job assignment and monetary value attached. They were not assigned specific chores, but were allowed to randomly choose which chores they chose to do, and be paid for. However, this would be their entire allowance for the week.

Our oldest son, being motivated, would quickly and efficiently do any number of assigned tasks until he reached his goal for the week. The younger one, being less motivated, would only do enough chores to get by, depending on what he had in mind to purchase for the week.

As they got older, the value for the chores went up. As they became more responsible for their own well being, the value continued to go up. We would have family meetings to allow them input in to what they chose to be responsible for. By the time they were twelve, they were responsible for their own lunch money. We simply calculated how much we were allowing for lunches, and adjusted chore prices accordingly.

By the time they were fourteen, they were doing their own clothes shopping. The hardest part of this, is allowing them to make mistakes, and poor choices, and not bail them out.

Being older and wiser when the grandchildren came along, we quickly adapted our thinking to get the most bang for our buck. Our first experience with spending control came from taking all four of them to the butterfly exhibit, aquarium, and IMAX.

Of course we paid their admission price, but at ages four through eight, it quickly became apparent that this could cost a fortune. Spending controls were put in place on the spot by giving them each ten dollars, and explaining that they could spend it on anything they chose, but when it was gone, they were through for the day, and thus began our journey.

On weekend visits, skittles were the payment of choice, for things like putting away your clothes in the laundry hamper, brushing your teeth without being told, cleaning up your dishes, saying please and thank you. Skittles were rewarded very generously, with each one having a value of five points. When you had collected twenty skittles, you could trade it for a dollar. That was a big deal at four years old.

As the grandchildren got older, we progressed to rolls of nickels. We allowed them to list the chores they would

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