Stopping spending money?

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Ds is 14, he gets £20 per week spending money, he has to manage the dishwasher at the weekends, put his clean clothes away, keep his bedroom tidy.
It’s a fight every time I ask him to do the above, so stressful. I’ve just told him he has to keep his bedroom tidy and forget the rest, but he won’t get any spending money.

crazy amount! DD is 16 and got £5 a week until recently when she opened her first bank account. Now it's £10 a week but she washes up, helps with dinner, is responsible for her own room, puts her clothes in the wash and helps look after her younger sisters (and whatever else I might add eg empty recycling bin, lay table etc) this is all on a daily basis...

I don’t expect or want my teenagers doing any chores. They are not domestic slaves or employees.

So they see you as their slave to pander to all their needs?

Great example.

How can you live like that?

My 13 year old empties the dishwasher everyday, 3 times a day at the weekend. She has to sort dirty washing into piles when asked and bring in washing and dirt into piles when asked. She has to collect washing up when asked and tidy the longer when asked. She has an extra chore everyday. Things like hoovering stairs and landing, Hoovering her bedroom, changing her bed, dusting picture frames and window sills, cleaning 2 toilets and sinks.

At the moment we're skint so she gets no money (nowhere to spend it anyway!) previously she had £15 a month but it wasn't dependent on chores. She has to do chores as she's part of the family and lives in the house. Obviously she whinges and tries to do bare minimum!

My 11 year old has similar jobs.

DS is 16, he gets £20 a week but that is for some school lunches, going out and occasionally, transport.

I reduced it to £10 during lockdown as he is not paying for lunches. I don’t pay him to do jobs, but I reduce the next allowance by £1 for each time he doesn’t make his bed/tidy the room/misses emptying or filling the dishwasher.

Just to add if she goes out with her friends I would give her money for food. It's up to her if she spends her own money or saves it for something she wants.

You must be very well off if you throw money at him like that.
DD gets £5 a week. As she's at home and I'm working she's doing most of the housework (but we're not perfectionists). She's a vegetarian and does most of her own meals. She helps on the allotment once a week.

10 and 12 year olds here.
They each get £5 a month for saving alongside birthday /Christmas money, they can buy what they want with it if they have enough.
10 yr old gets bought stuff as and when we can afford it, lego, xbox stuff etc.
12 year old gets given cash around once a month to go out with friends to the cinema /lunch (pre lockdown)
Jobs - specific to them put away clean clothes, change their bedding when asked, keep their rooms reasonably tidy. Then generally if we're tidying up they'll get allocated something like collecting up dirty pots and putting in kitchen, put rubbish out, generally make sure a room we're tidying is litter free. Teamwork.

"Unpopular view on MN but I don’t expect or want my teenagers doing any chores. They are not domestic slaves or employees. They are expected to do their best at school/college and to not be dicks. They manage to do this without financial incentive."

no wonder you're weary. Although you do seem to have them on a very high pedestal. Are you a MIL yet?

I was brought up without chores (but to help when asked) and I object to the idea that I therefore went to university unable to clean up after myself. Of course I could but my ‘job’ was to study and then to be be helpful when asked. It works fine with plenty of teens that I knew. Only exception was my pet, that I had to deal with because that was the deal when I asked for it.

£20 a week?? Holy shit, that’s a lot!

@Wearywithteens my mum was like you. When I moved out at 19 I didn’t know how to use a wash machine, how to do a food shop, how to cook, how to clean a bathroom etc.

Op, time to stop raising a big old baby!! My youngest kid does more than that! My lot have morning chores, lunch chores, look after their own rooms (as best they can), strip their beds, put away their washing.

We all look after the house and contribute as we all live here. Yes I do most of it with DH, but i believe kids should be raised to contribute (age appropriately!) and learn essential life skills like cooking and cleaning and then extras like gardening, diy, etc.

I would be stopping all of his pocket money. He needs to do basic things. If he fails to step up I would stop doing his washing if he doesn’t even have the decency to put it away!

Unpopular view on MN but I don’t expect or want my teenagers doing any chores. They are not domestic slaves or employees

Unpopular view anywhere..! Your kids will grow up without understanding responsibility or any skills in running a house/cooking etc.

My 16 year old isn't a slave or an employee, she's a valid member of the family who takes an active part in it! Your kid is a freeloading lodger who isn't important enough to be trusted with anything...well that's the message your sending anyway!

My 16yr old get £10 a week and has to unloaded the tumble dryer every day and sort the clothes out. Obvs put hers away too. She also has make drinks for the family at dinner time everyday and walk the dog at the weekend.

For £20 a week your ds should be doing a lot more!

Weary will be back to tell us they learned all of those skills and more

I lived with a few entitled lazy sods over the years who didn't know how to do even the most basic things. Some of them did know but as it had never been routine for them to do their fair share then they never actually managed to pull their weight (although they believed they were doing enough/a decent job)

My ds was paid £20 a month and had to empty dishwasher every day, sort recycling and look after his own room. He did none of them without a reminder every day. I would tell him my boss didn't ring me every morning to remind me to go to work. I stopped giving him the money but it made not a blind bit of difference because he wasn't fussed about cash. He always had a bit fir his birthday and Christmas and eked that out over the year. He's now at uni (was) and complains about flat mates not keeping the place clean and tidy. He's the one who washes up and hoovers etc. Reverted to type now he's home again. I have no idea what the answer is. He will do anything I ask him to without complaint but I do carry the mental load.

When I was that age I would tidy my room, put clothes in laundry, put clothes away after my mum had washed and folded them for me. At the weekend I would dust everywhere and hoover the whole house and help clear the table after meals. She still feels we got off lightly and we were never given money for doing chores it was just expected that you would do your fair share.

Fwiw, I grew up without any chores, just handed the pocket money each week.
I remember being 17years old and my friends taking the absolute piss out of me because I didn't know how to cook pasta. Still, almost 20years later, I make a shit housewife. I haven't a clue how to look after a home because I've never been taught how to. There's so much stuff I have no idea how to do (such as read a gas meter) because I've never been shown how to. My parents probably thought they were doing me a favour letting me focus on studies, but parenting is really teaching our children how to be successful adults. And that includes learning housework

Feed the cat
Unload dishwasher
Take out washing from bedroom
Keep room tidy
It is a battle, I allow abit of Le way and give notice to have the jobs completed by end of the day Saturday, by then I would be taking a stance of no pocket money in your situation.
I think more learning to take responsibility than reducing the jobs.

This seem like a lot of money OP. My DD is 14 and since she started y7 at school we made the decision to give her £30 per month into her bank account. She has no set chores as such but is expected to keep her room tidy, keep up to date with all homework and on top of that complete any job we might ask her to do. This can be anything from hoovering to emptying the dishwasher. Basically we expect her to be a member of the household and just add to the help when it's needed. The money she gets is for everything she 'wants' but doesn't 'need'. She uses it for going out or buying make up clothes, sweets etc. But obviously is she needs toiletries, money for school or clothes (because she has outgrown them) then we pay. The rule has always been that she has to learn to manage the money herself and if she runs out then tough. Not once in over 2 years has she ever had to ask me for money on top of her allowance(she even buys friends bday presents out of this money out of choice) and she really seems to respect and understand what things cost.

I'm not saying this will work for you but it might be worth a try.

At the moment I would say pick your battles and at least get him to tidy his room, clear his own dishes and put dirty clothes away. I am not a fan of giving money for chores as he really isn't doing you a favour, he lives in the house too but if you can afford it fair enough. Keep persevering!

I don't agree with tying pocket money to chores. We all have to do chores. No-one gives me or DH cash for cleaning, laundry, cooking etc. DC need to take part because it's part of life not because you are paying.
I made sure my DC could do any job but didn't allocate specific ones and never tied them to pocket money. Plus it makes for miserable family life if you are on their case day in day out.
So they could cook dinner / clean the bathroom / empty the dishwasher whatever but I didn't expect a list of jobs done every week. I found it worked better if I just allocated chores ad hoc.

My 18 year old, when in his last year of sixth form last year got £30 per week. That had to cover his lunches at College for the week and his pocket money. He could choose to make his own sandwiches with stuff already in the fridge and have more for 'spending' if he preferred but rarely did unless he and his friends had a day out planned that he needed more money for.

For that amount he:
Fed the cats every day and washed the dirty bowls
Cleaned the cat litter tray out completely once a week
Cleaned and tidied his bedroom once a week plus hoovered the landing and his brother's bedroom while he was at University
Emptied the dishwasher every day
Cooked dinner once a week (he enjoys cooking so that wasn't a hardship to be fair).

I think though, whilst that was kind of the agreement in return for his spending money each week, he really appreciated that as an adult living in the household he needed to pitch in with housework.

I hope that as a mother of two boys I am raising them both to understand that everyone does a fair share and that one person (mum or wife/girlfriend) shouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility alone.

I don’t expect or want my teenagers doing any chores. They are not domestic slaves or employees.

Wow! I wish you'd been my Mum/Dad! My Dad had a list of rewards per chore for our pocket money. He had it pinned to the fridge and we ticked off what we wanted to do. My Sis and I used to fight over who did what chore! Outside chores were worth more than inside chores too, so I became a very keen gardener/painter/window cleaner.

Youngsters today have it easy.

I wanted mine to grow up knowing how to manage money because their dad (my ex) was so bad at it, so from very young they had a regular allowance - it started off tiny and grew with them, but I never linked the basic allowance to chores. My feeling was that when you live in a family you do your share of chores without getting paid. Once they got to 16 I worked out what I spent on toiletries, clothes and odd extras, and gave them that as an allowance to manage for themselves. I continued to pay for their travel cards. DS has pots of money but half his clothes are threadbare. DD has plenty of clothes but is skint. They cook once a week, do a laundry load once a week, pack their own lunches, change their own beds, do their own ironing (or go crumpled), wash up on a rota and I ignore the mess in their rooms. DD earns extra money by doing one of chores that I can't bear like cleaning the venetian blinds. DS has just started F/T work so he now pays board, but I stopped his allowance when he got a decent P/T job.

£20 a week seems a lot of money in the first place for 14 years old. There would be no planning and saving involved. Just spend it without thinking, and next week, you get another £20. That's a easy life.