To link pocket money to school effort?

[Arriett]

Cost of living and planning for a special holiday next year means we don’t have as much spare cash at the moment.

We have a big family: DC4 (YR), SC11 (Y6), SC10 (Y5) and SC9 (Y4). We have SC every other weekend and holidays. We all enjoy going on family days out but they inevitably end up in a gift shop with four kids whining for tat, same for supermarkets, fairgrounds, petrol stations… Often it’s discarded in the footwell before we even get home, and because SC aren’t here much and we’re often busy when they are, toys are barely played with.

I’d like to link some of their pocket money to effort with school. SC have apps for maths and English so we can see how much they do, and all have reading diaries. That way we can get them GoHenry cards and they can spend as they wish and it will help with their budgeting, they can open a savings pot, learn about interest, learn the value of money… And make me feel like less of a cash cow every other weekend.

We would still buy anything they need, this would be for extras.

How much pocket money do most people give at these ages?

* before anyone asks, DP is on board. He usually just says no to any requests so SC often come to me as I’m more likely to say yes *

Sounds like a hugely time consuming way of calculating pocket money for 3 kids?

If their own Mum isn't following a similar approach it might cause friction.

keep on with the reading and encouraging you're doing but making it financial seems OTT.

for the pocket money, just agree a set sum and go with that - go henry and similar schemes are a bit much for kids of that age IMO

What books have you tried? Comic books? Ones linked to what they like, eg Pokémon, other characters? Some kids aren’t big readers. My boyfriend at 51 doesn’t read books apart from newspapers. He can read though and studied 3 A levels including French when younger.

I’d hope it might inspire a bit of competition!

They all accept it when they have birthday money etc so I don’t think that’d cause any problems.

Agreed here. My DNephew would get confused by Go Henry. His cousin who’s almost 9 might cope with it.

Yes - comic books, magazines on things they’re interested in, Pokémon / Paw Patrol / every TV character you can think of’s books, non-fiction, audiobooks.

They watch a lot of TV and to be honest their attention spans aren’t great. And because there’s three of them, it’s rare for there to be much calm so I can understand them finding distractions.

I was a bookworm as a child and it makes me sad that they’re missing out, but also worried that they’re all behind at school. They’re all bright. I think being capable readers would have made the world of difference, and the gap is getting wider as they get older.

Yeah that could end badly by all means give pocket money but don't turn it into a battle find other ways , personally I would stop buying them rubbish and give a set allowance on their cards, give the older children more.

I don’t think it’d take long. We were planning to do it monthly. A sit down to look through their reading diary and on the apps, then get them to add it all up (more maths!) wouldn’t take longer than 10 mins.

My DD10 (YR5) gets £10 pocket money week. This is paid into her bank account that she has a card for so can spend it online too. She gets this money if:

• homework is done

-room is tidy

• no bad behaviour

This does stop her from asking for loads of stuff in the shops.

She's at her dad's half the time and I think she gets £5 a week from him but that mainly goes on sweets

Secondary question: how much is the going rate for these ages these days?

You can't compare a 4 year old's reading to that of older primary school children.

Many children like being read to when little and get bored with it once older (particularly if they have access to other activities such as screens).

I think they are still young enough that you can institute family reading time (with some 1 on 1 time mixed in) every day; they can read whatever they like or an adult can read to them.
We used to do this at bedtime so there are no other distractions.

Thank you, this was the kind of thing I was planning, though £60 a month seems a lot for a ten year old!

We already do that every day they’re with us. They tend to finish a chapter book each if they’re with us for a holiday.

So if you just don't fancy going to work one day you'd still expect to be paid?

The children have been "at work" all day.
AKA school.

And those who are in 6th form or uni with part time jobs? They are studying during the day and working as well.

My 3 - Yr 6, Yr 1 and nursery (bless him he wanted to be involved and does writing and phonics) get £15 per half term / end of term break if they complete their homework with no whinging. DD (Yr 6) I'm pretty strict with, the younger two do have some leaway (like sometimes ds1 (Yr 1) will read four pages of a book sometimes, other times the whole book but as long as he sits down for homework time and puts some effort in then he's OK.

I stopped buying stuff in shops last summer holidays, I was fed up of it. They don't ask anymore. I explain the ticket is expensive enough. They can spend their own money but DD likes to save hers to get more expensive things and the boys like to spend theirs on pokemon cards. Gift shops on days out are thankfully not a problem anymore.

I have fewer children to contend with (2) but i saw on here once they should get a pound for their age. So a 4 year old would get 4 pounds. All fine and dandy and it worked really well for us for a while but now they are 16 and 14 it became too much for me to fund!!

They do get a set pocket money each week but I also give them an extra pound when they get a house point at school. This is on the principle that I expect to get rewarded for my work (via my salary) so it was fair enough for them to get awarded too.

That proved to be a motivator for some years. I pay out every half term.

I think it would be much easier to say not going into gift shop today, not buying anything extra in the supermarket, etc and just decide on an amount of pocket money each week and give them that.

I would say yes as long as it’s against effort not attainment as that wouldn’t be fair. I put way less effort than my younger brother but my grades were significantly higher

You're clearly trying really hard. Some other ideas:
Put subtitles on the TV. Normalise adults reading - let them see you reading yourself during the day. Keep on with picture books longer than you'd think. Read to them without expectations of them joining in. None of this sounds as time efficient as 10 mins on an app I know.

I swear my little one cracked decoding thanks to a giant Star Wars sticker book. It was way too old for him and had thousands of stickers so he had to use the character names to match up the stickers with the gaps. He didn't even know it was reading practice. You're trying different tactics which is great - it might just take that one new thing to click into place.

I apologise for being harsh with you about the magazines. I'm not a fan, I think they are too busy and hard to concentrate on, but it's a well used tactic to try to engage children in all the tat on the front reading

That’s completely different, though. Although all jobs have their boring bits, as an adult you get to choose not to do jobs that involve things you really don’t want to do.

Not everyone enjoys reading for pleasure and that’s absolutely fine (and I say that as someone who does enjoy reading).

I don’t believe pocket money should be linked to anything except possibly chronological age.

Pocket money on a card has worked well for us. They now only buy if they really want it.

I don't agree with pocket money being conditional on anything. Your issue is that you need to say no to giving money - have a set pocket money and that's it - they can spend or not. School work is separate, they should be doing that because it is important and will benefit them. I particularly think your situation would get complicated by having SC and could create a lot of frictions between the children.

£5 a week. They get some birthday money in cash from relatives. They also earn for selling old toys like lego. Dh puts in the effort though with posting etc