The Chore Behind Financial Literacy

Combining financial literacy with responsibilities around the home for children can be tricky business.

in preparing our child for their eventual independence, we want to impart to them the necessary skills to handle the dollars and cents. Just as essential are the household chores they’ll need to do when they’re living on their own one day. But should teaching these two come together, or stay separate? The answer has been at the centre of many debates by experts and parents alike for years.

Cultivating Dollar Sense

Giving your kids an incentive is a sure-fire way to encourage them to try a task. Proponents of paying your child to do chores believe that this is a way to teach them that they will have to work to earn what they want; an early lesson that they can’t just get money when they ask for it. Adults themselves are paid to do their jobs at work, so it makes sense that we do the same for kids on a smaller scale.

Parents who are for the idea of paying the little ones for chores also argue that if you were to give children an allowance without them having to do anything to earn it, then you are not teaching them to value money. These parents choose to give their children a weekly or monthly allowance on the basis that they help out at home. Simply put, if they’re not helping out, they won’t get paid.

Paying your munchkins for helping out around the house has another advantage. It empowers your child to save up for things that they want to buy, instead of hankering after gifts all the time. Encouraging them to save the money you reward them with is a more concrete way for kids to experience the satisfaction that comes from working hard and saving to buy something they really want.