DD lost money

[StarDolphins]

My 7 year old is alway messing in her money box, taking notes out & leaving them in various places for me to put back.

I’ve just gone in her bedroom, the lid is off & she can’t remember where the money is, she thinks she put it in the drawer but it’s not there. I can’t find it. I’ve told her I’m disappointed & cross & she knows I’m not happy at all & shes devastated at me being upset & cross. She doesn’t care about the money one bit, more that I forgive her.

Aibu to say she has to save her spends to put the money back now instead of spending it like she usually does?

She’s a 7 year old, I think you’re being quite harsh. She’s “not bothered” about the money because you haven’t taught her the value of it. That’s on you. She’s a young child that doesn’t know the value of money, it’s hardly her fault- of course she’s more upset at the fact that you’re upset with her, that’s very normal for someone of her age.

But if she can't use the money in the moneybox to buy anything why would she care about it? It has no value to her because it is of no use to her (other than to play shop with!)

So once a year she can spend some of the money, but the rest of the time it's just something to play with. She's 7. She probably doesn't even remember that the money she spent on the trip last year was from the savings tin. You're expecting a lot from a child, but are refusing to take accountability for your poor decisions.

You can think it, but you're wrong. Having unrealistic expectations of your child will make for many problems.

You could learn about child development if you wanted to.

It may be that you had a harsh/unfair upbringing yourself. This often causes unrealistic expectations.

No it’s not clear to her but she loves our annual shopping trips on the train so I usually let her take £40 out of it to spend.

I was going to match her £5 to get it out back quickly!

Assumed when you said Ask her to work out what she will go without to replace the missing money you meant to do that, to make a 7yo go without for 12 weeks.

If I misunderstood, I apologise.

So it's play money in her tin for 12 months a year bar one weekend when she's allowed to spend some of it.

If course it doesn't mean anything to her.

If she's not allowed to take that much to spend at Easter, then put the extra away.

What's the point of say getting £100 a year, only being allowed to spend £40 and keeping an increasing amount of cash in a tin to prove to you that she can keep it safe?

most Of her 7 year old friends look after their belongings. She’s only just lost a pair of sunglasses & a sun hat 3 days ago.

Maybe you have low expectations?

I think it's right to just let it go - and hope it turns up. 7 year old don't know the value of money at all. My DDs have spent their money on things that I think are a waste but it's all part of working things out for themselves and learning the value of money.

Personally I wouldn't keep £60 in there again though, pop it in the bank for when she's older.

She is allowed to spend it but only on big things she really wants. She really wanted a 3D pen so that was fine. I just don’t let her keep taking it out for letting a, plushies, lip balm etc.

Thank you, I will do this. I have moved the money box now & will open an account as soon as I can.

But she IS just allowed to take it out and play with it. My 7 year old is alway messing in her money box, taking notes out & leaving them in various places for me to put back. It's a game. She takes them out, you find them and put them back. Except she took them out, and you lost them. You let her play the game until something went wrong and now she's a terrible child who loses everything whilst all her friends have tins full of cash they never touch 🙄

Instead of allowing your DD to spend the entire £5 each week, maybe going forward, your DD could save £1 or £2 each week and spend £3 or £4, she will see the ££ adding up and will hopefully get into the habit of saving.

@StarDolphins - perhaps you could get her to earn the pocket money for this weekend? Give her a list of jobs, with an amount attached as ‘pay’, so hopefully she learns to equate the money to her own effort - that might make her grasp the value of it, going forward.

You made parenting errors? Absolutely not, don’t believe that for a minute! Come on!

I get where you are trying to go with this OP, but you’re not going to get there with any of your current tactics.

Now all you are doing is confusing her.

Look for the money together… at some point replace it if you don’t find it. Then look up resources on how to teach kids about money.

Thank you, this is a really great idea. I will have a chat to her in the morning & do this starting this week!

You can't want to take her £5 for 12 weeks surely that is very over the top.

I don't think getting her to pay back a little bit via her "spends" would have been terrible initially, although not the whole amount. But now she is already upset at disappointing you I'm not sure she really needs further punishment. I like the idea of giving her the "spends" on a Sunday and she has to look after it until the next weekend though that a PP suggested.

If it makes you feel any better my nearly 7 year old who has worn glasses for 4 years now decided yesterday for some unknown reason to dry them by rubbing them on the floor. They are now very scratched...I was initially pretty frustrated which I think she knew, but I tried to not get too annoyed and realise that as she has never tried to clean her glasses this way then of course she wouldn't understand the consequences. So the natural consequence is she'll have to wear her spare glasses (which she is less keen on) for a week or two until we have time to get to the opticians to get the lenses replaced. I don't think she'll make the same mistake again though, so she's learnt! But it's easy if you have a reasonably bright, articulate 7 year old to forget they can still be idiots - they learn by making mistakes.

I’d be getting her to sort and tidy her room together to look for it. Also getting her to
realise the value of money.

At that age mine had £2 a week as pocket money and had to save for things so it wasn’t a continuous trail of ‘things’ We used to talk in terms of how many weeks pocket money something was. There were always little gifts of cash from grandparents for something specific if they’d been saving for a while but it was expensive (say a £30 piece of Lego and they’d already saved £15/20 - then we or a grandparent would pay the rest. But not every single time)

It’s made them really good at saving and appreciating money. We also don’t have endless tat in the house as they now are reticent to buy rubbish if it’ll take away from something they really want.

I was going to match it!& say we just need to put half babk.

You're still punishing her a FURTHER 6 TIMES on top of today's telling off!! Do you really think that's proportional for an accident that affected only her?

A fiver a week is a lot for a 7 year old isn’t it?!

< misses point >

Great idea! Yes I will do this from this weekend, thank you.