Moms Talk: Do You Give Your Children Allowance?

Each week in Moms Talk, our Moms Council of experts and smart moms take your questions, give advice and share solutions.

West Bloomfield Patch invites you and your circle of friends to help build a community of support for mothers and their families in West Bloomfield. We want to know the urgent topics at hand — never mind gossip — so that we can better our parenting community.

This week, we noticed a link between three different variables: children, money and teaching. Gov. Rick Snyder’s $45 billion budget plan released Feb. 17 includes $1.2 billion in permanent spending cuts that would cut spending for public schools. Meanwhile, contract negotiations between the West Bloomfield School district and its teachers union reached  last week.

With that in mind, we asked local parents how they teach their children about money. For many, this means to divulge their philosophy of allowance. Mothers were eager to do so, including Jodi Wynblatt, who has middle school-aged children in the Bloomfield Hills School District. She said she offers a “minimal” allowance: “$1.50/week … It gives them the opportunity to make bad spending decisions now, when the consequences are minimal, so they can learn from these mistakes.”

Wynblatt said it helps her children feel financially independent. “We consider this a sort of ‘walking around money.’ It gives them some independence regarding spending, and lets them learn to plan, save and budget when there is something they would like to buy.”

Christy Forhan, a mother with high school-aged children in the West Bloomfield School District, said she uses allowance to teach her kids about “odd” math. “We give our kids a weekly allowance based on a unique calculation: age to the third power, divided by 1,000, rounded up.  I don't remember how we came up with such an odd calc, but it works for us.”

Both parents mentioned allowance teaching the value of work in some capacity. Forhan said she offers an extra incentive to her older children for difficult tasks. “We don't tie it tightly to chores, but we do pay $15 for mowing the lawn. We don't pay for grades.”

Wynblatt said her children’s allowance is not tied to chores per se. “We feel that the kids are expected to help around the house because we are a family and everyone pitches to help each other. We don't help each other because we get paid for it. We help each other because that is the right thing to do.”

What about you?