AIBU to think doubling pocket money for books is unusual

[Oscillating]

My friend says she gives her kids weekly pocket money, but if they buy books with it, it's doubled. They get £3. They are 8 and 9 (nearly 10)

I think that's an unusual stance to have? We just buy/borrow books as and when. We're fortunate to be able to get free books from a village bookswap, a plethora if charity shops where books are 2/3/4 for £1 and live between two libraries.

My daughter is 6 and LOVES.reading and we would never say that they'd have to spend pocket money for books 🤷
It just seems like they are saying that the kids can't buy stuff they want?

I don’t see anything wrong with it. They can buy what they want but if they choose to buy a book they get a bigger budget.

I think it's quite good especially if the kids are reluctant readers. Might try this with my reluctant one!

I think it’s a great idea!

Yeah this. They still get pocket money regardless, but a bigger budget if a book.

Well it's still your money at the end of the day isn't it, you're just giving extra for books so it's not really any different from the way you do it.

I don’t see why you have an issue with it?

It just seems like they are saying that the kids can't buy stuff they want?

It still seems reasonable for a parent to have rules around pocket money for young children.

It just seems like they are saying that the kids can't buy stuff they want?

How do you reach that conclusion? The children can spend their money on whatever they choose. And if they choose to buy a book, their parents will basically refund the money. Seems like they have the best of both worlds to me.

We buy DD as many books as she wants. She loves waterstones, charity shops, book swaps etc and we encourage reading - it's taken a while for her to ignite this passion so we're doing all we can to support it.

The way I see it is that’s it’s a reward for choosing a book rather than tat or sweets? Seems like a good idea

Not one part of your post makes sense OP. They're not saying their children HAVE to buy books. You've also said yourself that you can get books for £1, which would be a third of their pocket money. I don't understand what you're saying.

Of course they can spend their money on whatever they want. It's not like the parents insist they buy books. My parents always bought me books and we had an extensive library at home which we inherited from my grandfather (lifelong sci-fi book collector) and my parent's and aunt's childhood books. So there was no shortage of things to read. I was still buying my own books, at least from the age of 10. Yes, my parents would get it for me if I asked but it felt very special to be able to make decisions about what to read independently and extra pocket money to fund it.

Money was tight as a child so pocket money for books - and an extra £1 towards a book if possible - seems perfectly normal

Whilst we don’t have rules about pocket money as such. It’s not like their being unreasonable and placing restrictions on the money they’re just using the book thing as an incentive.

Your post comes over as though you think you're superior as a parent because your children can buy or borrow as many books as they want. Great, good for you. Your friend is just incentivising reading in a different way.

I think it comes across the opposite way and the OP feels inferior.

Either way it's a strange thing to give mental space to, let alone start a thread about.

It just seems like they are saying that the kids can't buy stuff they want?

This is a really bizarre way of looking at it. It's pretty much the exact opposite. They can buy whatever they want AND get a book if they want it.

Excellent idea. If my DC buys a book with pocket money, I actually reimburse it!

Excellent idea! Reading should be actively encouraged

It’s a good idea.

I did a they can stay up an hour later if they spend it reading thing.

That worked well, I think anything that encourages reading is good.

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I like it. We just keep the book budget separate and for DD it is close to infinity. We use the library liberally, but also buy books.

I think it’s a good idea. My kids have been given a ridiculous some of money for holidays and I said they had to put a quarter of it towards books. Sure enough we went to Waterstones last week and they both picked out a few books each,total cost was £96!

Weird thing to judge someone for, in the grand scheme of things.

When mine were preschool/ infant school age we had a star system rather than pocket money.
They earned stars for almost anything they did well. So if they put their bowl in the dishwasher - one star etc.
They then could use those stars to exchange for things.

But I had a sort of tax system:
So roughly it was 2p per star.
But sweets were heavily taxed. So if they wanted to buy 20p of sweets they'd need 25 stars.
Books were the other way. So a charity shop book for £1 might also be 25 stars.

The reason we did it that was was because I looked at the amount they were getting and realised that if they were a "spend now" child, then really the only thing they could buy each week was sweets or similar, and I didn't want that being the only option.
Saving also got rewarded - if they saved a whole sheet (I think that was 50 stars) they got £2 into their savings account as well as what they bought.

It helped them when they were small to think about what they spent their money on.

I suspect the op does indeed feel inferior for some reason and is looking for reasons to make herself feel better.

I’m going to adopt this measure. I think it’s very clever.

Surely incentivising desired/healthy habits is part of parenting?