Six-year-old wants to work because we cannot afford treats

[Ontodaysepisode]

today my 6 year old came and asked “why can’t 6 year olds go to work?” I said because she’s too young and she needs to spend her childhood having fun and doing nice things before going to work every day. I asked her why she asked.. and she said “because you and daddy can never buy us (her and her brother) the magazine with toys in it anymore because you say you have no money, well if I go to work like you I can help you have money”

I don’t know whether to feel like I’m failing her or raising her right. My heart breaks for her. I was the ‘we don’t have enough money’ kid and I promised myself I wouldn’t put my kids through that (within reason obviously!) but the cost of living has wiped us out and I'm exactly where I don’t want to be right now and I’m holding out for a miracle that it’s not going to get worse.

I hate the fact she can’t have simple things every so often because we just can’t afford to spare the change right now. But I also don’t want her to worry about it.

anyone else sincerely fed up of being poor?😒

We have money to indulge our child often. We still say no the vast majority of the time. It’s not healthy to give in to every whim. If we are letting her get something, we make her choose and set limits. Children need to learn to budget. They need to learn the value of money.

You sound like a thoughtful parent. I imagine you do make sure your daughter has small treats now and then. There is a difference between buying crap that is soon discarded and spending your money or time wisely. Even homemade snacks and a free movie night on the sofa count as a childhood memory.

I don’t ever buy those magazines as I think they are shit value

But I do allow my Ds to spend money sometimes. He had birthday money recently of €20, and I let him go wild in toys shop with it for once., or I direct towards charity shop to donate stuff and let him choose something like books or small toys, explaining it’s better environmentally also to reuse.
I say yes to small non material things like ice creams out or game of mini golf where possible

Could you introduce pocket money? You could just give add hoc for now when you have, so it’s not such a commitment. But maybe aim for £10 ish a month? If you can afford to. But then if they want to get something that isn’t essential you can remind them to look in money box ( I tend to give mine €1 or €2 coins if I have spare, with occasional note. Coins are good at this age as they can see how much easier

I said because she’s too young and she needs to spend her childhood having fun and doing nice things....

And going to school so she can learn things that will help her to get a job when she's old enough.

To be fair I was shocked at the price of the magazines with toys! My son buys them sometimes with his pound a week.
I guess somewhere deep in your mind you show a little bit of your love by buying them the odd treat like the magazines. Now that's been taken away you feel it's harder to show that? Maybe I'm missing the mark.i think it's one of the love languages.
But you could perhaps pivot a bit more towards another one I think there's quality time, you could try reframing things towards those. Easier said than done, hope you're ok.
Luckily for me, my love language is "saying no", so my kids get all the love in the world! Not sure if they see it that way though😒

I was going to say the same @Ponderingwindow. It's not about money it's about raising someone to be money conscious and not entitled. It's hard too when you can afford it because there's still a guilt. It would be so easy to make your child temporarily happy and make your life easier but its just not right. Its worse when they are teens and they understand money and when they hear 'no' you are told you are just being tight.

Tell her the magazine toys are built by evil elves and that’s why you don’t get them really 😂

Meow! Saucer of milk for @MiaKulper

£1 a week?! Crikey I got more than that as a 5yr old in he 80s!

I don’t think it’s wrong to say no and I think you’re doing a great job. My son was a little older when he asked if he could get a job. I used to pay him to do little things. Small amounts so it added up. I had a friend who had a chart on the wall with amounts paid per job. So say 20p for unloading the dishwasher, 15p for sweeping or wiping the sides down, so on and so forth. My son now gets a small allowance a week but only a tenner and he’s 15. He also washes my car and cleans it inside and sometimes cuts the grass for extra. Could you afford a magazine say once a month or make it a payday treat? I know it’s hard, I’m a lone parent and my son doesn’t have half the things his peers do from double income families. I hope things ease up for you.

@Ontodaysepisode
Teach your daughter that it’s all about making conscious decisions about how to part with your money, based on your own personal priorities.
I don’t want this to sound in any way condescending, but if you have grown up in a family which is truly struggling to get by, and therefore couldn’t manage to waste money on such things, it’s more difficult to say no to your own children. Whereas if you grew up in a family where it wasn’t the case of not having the money, it was a case of deliberately choosing to use money on other things, then as adults you don’t feel guilty when making similar decisions for your own kids.

Don say you don’t have the money full stop, say you don’t have the money “for this type of thing”.
Even if I were a millionaire I still wouldn’t have bought random plastic stuff for no reason for my kids.
It may sound harsh, but they grow up understanding that you can’t have everything in life.

I don’t often buy the magazines because the toys are absolutely rubbish, but they ask for them everytime we go to the shops, I very occasionally get one as a treat if they’ve had really good week school/chores wise. I buy other treats too but I think the most recent must have been a magazine each and that’s why she chose to use that as her example.

thanks all, I feel a bit better being reminded she is a sweetheart and I think she’s understand money as much as she can.

I'm sure you did, personally I think the consistency is more important then that actual amount (within reason)

The point is he can decide what to buy with his money, it's not something at my discretion so I don't feel bad if he or I can't afford it.

Although on the point of amounts I wouldn't give him enough to get a magazine plus ice cream plus everything else he wants as part of the point is getting him used to budgeting and saving.

If he gets an expensive hobby like Lego or something where he wants to spend more I'd increase it, but within reasonable amounts. I have heard talk of a pound a month for every year of their age so maybe I should be on more like 1.50 (or 2 with inflation)

I can afford to buy magazines but I still don’t because they’re such a waste of money. I bought a few in the preschool years and invariably my child would play with the plastic tat on the front for 10 minutes then that was it. Little interest in the actual magazine, and the toys are always crap.

I now give pocket money (£2 a week) and she can save to buy magazines if she likes. In almost 2 years of doing this she has never saved up for a magazine because she can see they just aren’t worth 4 weeks of money. She’d rather have sweets every week!

can you give a small amount of pocket money so she feels she has some control over what she gets?

@Ontodaysepisode I cannot say my dc ever asked for these magazines. If they wanted a read, we went to the library and chose books. There’s things she could save up for with pocket money and I’d spin a more positive outlook on money with her. As a child, I was acutely aware we had no money snd this drove me on to get a good job. I know that’s in the future for a 6 year old, but it’s the only way out of the loop.

You could also focus on the negative environmental impact of those magazines (what a waste of plastic) and find ways to borrow magazines and books from the library, perhaps getting cheaper craft kits from charity shops?

as she’s so young I’m not sure I’d always say as i can’t afford it. On one hand some are very supportive of very young children knowing the harsh realities of their parents finances, on the other, she’s only 6. There are other ways to say no. And you can just say no, although I also prefer to explain, something like no not today but later we can go to the park. Would you like that. Swap it for something free.

The other thing I did when I found myself a lone parent and on a very limited income, was make the charity shops a real adventure. My son is autistic and has a special interest in vehicles and trains. I used to make a big fuss of going to the “treasures shop” and managed to buy lots of little things for very little money and he was absolutely delighted. He didn’t know what the shops were, just that they had treasures. We always found “something”.

Even now he’s a teen, he absolutely loves a charity shop rummage and will often ask if we can pop to our large Cancer Research shop at the weekend. I really enjoy doing that with him and I’m glad I made that a “thing”’when he was little. It also taught him a sense of “giving back” and he’s more than happy to donate things he’s grown out of or if he’s clearing space in his collections. It’s a worthy lesson I think!

To add, the only time I did spend money on magazines with gifts was when my daughter was massively into “Zoey 101” years back (she’s 27 now!). I bought a subscription for her birthday and while it was a largish outlay at the start, she did religiously collect all the little bits and ended up with a lovely box full of jewellery, stationery, stickers and make up. It was a gift that lasted a whole year and the anticipation of the delivery every month was lovely! She’s left home now and guess who has the whole lot in her loft? 😆

Sounds like 90% of the parents I know.

If you have the time, this is definitely a good thing to encourage. I'm working towards getting my 6 year old to make some things and have a stall outside the house to sell them. It's good that they understand the value of things, those magazines are expensive! We have a star chart that they have to fill up to have a treat like a magazine, which works out at about once per month. It's easier to buy it at the time and put it on top of the fridge until they have a full star chart, and they're more motivated. On top of this, we pay our kids £1 if they do something we might otherwise pay for, such as cleaning the car or something you would pay a cleaner to do. She broke her camera and had to save up £10 to buy a new (second hand) one, took her about 6 months. We recently joined the local toy bank, which has helped too. I get that you're feeling guilty about this, but the value of money is an important life lesson which unfortunately many kids don't receive.

What a brilliant idea.

I've asked for charity shop Christmas gifts from DC for Christmas and that worked quite well. Puzzles, games, books, CDs for my car, plenty of options at pocket money prices that they can pick out IRL.

I am a great believer ingiving kids a set amount of pocket money and doing jobs in the house in exchange. This is what my mother did. There was a list of tasks on the cupboard door with a set price for each. If I missed one out i had less money that week. It was excellent preparation for the world of work where a wage has to be earned and is not put into your hand just for being there. It also teaches children to save and budget which are essential skills. Once I was old enough to earn my allowance I would not have dared to ask for more because I would have been given extra jobs.

Bless her. She sounds lovely.

ETA No child was ever traumatised by not being given a magazine with plastic tat on the front. As long as she is red, clothed, housed and loved, she will be just fine.

I was an anxious kid and I would have worried that my parents didn’t have enough money and that would snowball into thinking they would lose the house etc.

However it sounds like she was just being matter of fact, then kudos for raising a practical child who doesn’t just ask for stuff! She will go far 😊

I agree with this. A loving family is also priceless.