DC want to spend pocket money on sweets

[WindyRainySunny]

We've been giving the DC £1 a week for a year or two now. They are 7 and 9. I know it's not much but it's enough to give them a sense of having their own money and whether to spend or save. We always said we would let them buy whatever crap they want, as that's the learning process behind pocket money.

Suddenly due to the timing of a club we are we are all going to the supermarket on Saturday morning to buy some bits for lunch. We normally get online food deliveries so they DC don't actually go to the shops very much!

DS1(9) is very food focused and has a very sweet tooth. He's suddenly noticed all the sweets, and decided to spend the entire £5 he'd saved up on sweets. I wasnt keen, but tried to stick to the rule about letting them buy anything thinking it would be a one off. Of course younger DC copied him.

But now he wants to spend all his money on sweets every week, and has a box of sweets in the kitchen that he is dipping into constantly throughout the day, I just had to stop him having some for breakfast! He was very angry saying "but they're mine! I bought them with my own money!"

I really don't want him constantly eating sweets, before mealtimes etc, should I say that pocket money is for anything except unhealthy food? Or should I let him continue and just be glad it's only £1 a week and not £5! What do others do when their DC have a sweet tooth and money in their pocket?

We always said we would let them buy whatever crap they want

It's really important that you don't renege on this because keeping promises is a critical childhood lesson that you need to model.

You can still have a house rule that "sweets are treats" for after meals, no matter who paid for them.

If the money is spent on one thing every week, they soon learn that they have no money to save up and buy something else.

Good life lesson if you ask me. Although I do agree with the 'no sweets for breakfast' rule!

I think this is unrealistic to expect a child to want to save any of it when it's only £1. That £1 per week isn't going to get them anything....a sweetie in tesco could be 90p each so that's there one sweetie a week which isn't alot.
My son is 9 and he gets £10 a week.....he does save this but the more money he has, the less be wants to spend and it sometimes takes up to 6 months before he'll buy something. I think you need to set basic rules when they are allowed sweets. It sounds like you're too strict with them.

Tell him he can spend it all on sweets so long as he also pays his own dental bills. That habit won't last long.

if he has still got chocolate left from easter and sweets left from the 5 splurge then I don't think he's actually pigging out.

They are little, £1 doesn’t get that much sweets. I’d leave them to it.

So we had a similar issue (pocket money all going on sweets) and my husband made a really good point - at £1 a week it takes them so long to save up for anything decent that they're not really motivated to do that - just a magazine is £6.
So we increased pocket money to £4 but said that £2 is his to decide what to do with, £2 is to be saved for something we've approved (we approve pretty much anything but sweets and unresearched Minecraft mods. He can get small something every week or two, or something fairly big in a month or two. He still buys sweets sometimes but is a lot more motivated to save.

Let him buy them and then when he comes across an item he really wants you can point out he would have been able to buy it but he wasted all of his money on sweets instead. That is the learning curve, he needs to make mistakes to learn.

This ^

Let him spend it on whatever he wants.

You can have rules on not eating them a certain amount of time before meals.

My niece used to save her money up and buy an entire birthday cake.

They soon start deciding to save for other things instead.

It’s a good lesson to encourage them to earn money to spend on the things they like.

I just bought DD a tube of smarties and they were £1.20! Honestly I don't think £1 is a problem the days of the penny sweet are long gone

Mine are the same sort of age. They get £2 a week, and can spend £1 on sweets. They don't get to eat them for breakfast!

As plenty of posters have commented it’s a right of passage spending pocket money on sweets, and then it passes. Better now than when they leave for university/ leave home etc.

I’ve been listening to Roald Dahl’s ‘Boy’ in the car with DS 10 recently and had forgotten all about the sweet shop chapters. Relatable examples of kids working out which sweets were the best value on which to spend their pocket money!

A £1 pack of sweets aren't going to be large, and it's fine for the weekend. To be fair what else could they spend it on? I would have thought chocolate/crisps/sweets.

You're worried about a 9 year old spending a quid a week on sweets? Mind = blown

We don't really have rules about pocket £ except that it can't be spent on sweets. DS gets things like that at other times.

You are highlighting two different issues
1)”wasting” pocket money on sweets- at £1 a week I hardly think this is an actual issue. Stick to your word and let them buy what they want.
2)eating sweets throughout the day - just because they bought the sweets does not mean that they can eat them whenever they want. Lay down rules for when they can have sweets- ie for pudding if they eat their dinner. Out of these times they can’t eat the sweets.

Dipping in and out all day is so bad for his teeth. It’s best to eat all at once abd then clean his teeth.

Phase it as health?
"It's better to eat sweet things all at once for teeth so sweets only after tea"
Don't brush teeth immediately after either

My kids get £10 a week each (7year old twins and 9 year old twins) they are allowed to spend or save every week, only thing I say is no sweets as they get sweets every now and then plus there is always chocolate bars, crisps etc in the house. I’ve had 2 of mine at different times manage to save £100 to go to a toy shop with (if they save £100 they get given £50 from us parents on top, incentive to save, plus £150 goes further than £100 in a toy shop) mostly my kids love to buy robux, vbucks, game add ons on Google play store, or they will buy something like a toy on Amazon.

if you have a low sweet food rule in your house then pocket money of £1 a week on sweets isn’t a lot in my opinion, but as their parents you are within your rights to ban pocket money being spent on sweets if you wish

It’s a pound worth of sweets….

you’re calling the woman spineless over questioning if she’s being OTT

She was complaining that her son spent £5 on sweets, not £1.

My son had issues with his teeth so we kept any sweets we had in a box (out of reach from the children) and he’d be allowed to have them one night a week. Think that’s probably better than dipping into them all of the time.

We used to do this when I was a kid, and I'm 60.

We used to get the equivalent of the price of a Mars bar on a Saturday and could spend or save as we wished. I used to buy penny chews and love hearts. 😀

I have no fillings and am a size 10, so it appears not to have done any harm.