Children and pocket money...do you "control" what they spend?

[Illbefinejustbloodyfine]

Dc have £10 pocket money a month each. They both invariably want to spend it on Robux/minecoins. It seems such a waste to me, and nit at all the point of giving them pocket money to start with. But I am also a bit of a soft touch with it.

One has just asked to use his entire £10 on robux. He got the pocket money yesterday. I just dont want him to tbh. He'll spend it on the current game if the moment which he and all his friends will move on from in a week or a few weeks.

Do I just say No?
Say he can use £5 on robux (suggested this, the thing hhe wants to spend it on is £10 worth...)
Suggest he waits few days and can have it if he still wants it?

I dont know why, I just feel really harsh saying no. Probably just need to get a grip!

I literally have never spoken about reform or immigrants. I think youre confusing me with someone else.

You've mixed me uo with someone else and youre coming off like a lunatic. Please link me to my reform posts.

Can you link me to these threads on reform and immigrants please or did you make it up?

OP, it’s great you’ve taken on board the comments to let your children have the freedom to blow the money how they wish.

I didn't give pocket money until they were 11 and DDs had their own bank accounts and debit cards to spend their money however they wanted. It usually gets spent on sweets or makeup but thats up to them.

We allow the children to spend/save what they want. 80% goes in their spend part of there bank and 20% goes in the savings pot. Dd 11 we have had an issue recently of her spending £30 in 10 days on sweets. But as we told her once it’s gone she wasn’t getting any more and for last 2 weeks she hasn’t been able to do things with her friends on the weekends.
ds8 however is saving for a bigger Lego set. Sometimes he wants to spend it on a toy he’s seen. I’ll remind him of what he was saving for and that it would take him longer to save. But ultimately the choice is down to him.

Thank you, and thank you for your support. I think sone things are best ignored! Especially when I have not been at ALL controlling, but was asking other people's opinions. Friends generally either dont give pocket money yet, or very much do say no to spending on whatever the dc want.

That just means youre in an echo chambers of people who intrusively control their children's autonomy. I'd find friends with different values.

I know it's already been discussed but I do let mine blow their money any way they wish. DS1 was into roblox and the era of blowing money was a solid 2 years long. Then he worked out for himself that he could buy giftcards for robux for the same amount as online but ALSO got a free gift item with the gift card. That triggered a period of time where he started looking into getting the best bang for his buck.

He's 15 now and is incredibly careful about how he spends his money. Before buying bigger ticket items he really researches things thoroughly. He's incredibly sensible and I think that allowing him to experiment with small amounts of money really helped.

Also- as an aside- he had a friend who once screwed him out of £20 by telling him a sob story. We let that go as well. That was an incredible lesson for him.

As I say everyone… best ignored

My spendthrift dc is a bit older, and from 12 I gave her a bigger allowance, with responsibilities. She has to buy her phone credit, travel pass and she gets a clothes allowance (I take care of uniform, shoes and sensible necessities like sports bras) on top of her pocket money which can be used for socialising, a weekly junk meal at lunch, make up or other fripperies (just not all of them). We use Revolut to set up pockets to split up the money and I leave it to her.

There are advantages and disadvantages of every approach and it’s probably best to keep an open mind and see what works well for each dc.