A quick poll - do you give your 5 yr old pocket money?

[florenceuk]

And if so how much?

DD (6 next month) gets £1 a week if she does her chores (setting the table, keeping room tidyish, making bed & hanging up her uniform). She may, if she wishes choose something from my "Magic Drawer" (the place where things live for extra special presents.) But if she chooses a "bigger" item, then it gets assigned a "value" e.g. that will be 2 wks of chores. She likes the scheme and saves her money up for things she wants. So is working well.

We started at 6, w/ 10p per year of age. So dd now gets (nominally) 60p, ds 70p, each Saturday. Nominally, because they forget to ask & we forget to give, so every few months we tot it up in a little double-entry book (they think this is exciting - bear in mind ds thinks Compound Interest is a Fascinating Topic) and then they get something nice & substantial.

So about £1 if you do give money? We are doing star charts (to correct a really appalling run of behaviour pre-Xmas) and I was doling out various small rubbishy toys for each chart completed all of which probably cost more than £1 ea). But DH thought maybe £1 a chart might work. Cousin (in NZ) gets $2 a week give or take 50c for bad behaviour. But what scares me is the amount of sweets you can buy for £1 here.

Those comics you get in the newsagents with free toys are about £2 aren't they?

I think a 5 y/o with a star chart needs a more instant and more understandable reward than money. Mine were happy with a sparkly sticker that they could choose from a sheet (bless!). I think it's more about the praise and approval than the reward.

We give £1 a week pocket money but it's not linked to behaviour - though I suppose we might dock it for something REALLY bad.

We started on ds1's fifth birthday, but he had a good idea of what money was for. He had £20 for his birthday, so I gave him £2 per month, as long as the £20 remained unspent!

He was very happy with the arrangement, and it was wonderful in that he stopped asking for things when out shopping. The answer was, of course, that he had his own money and could save up for things. He always thought very very carefully before spending anything.

I suspect after our trip to NZ when I loaded up with about 3 sticker books each plus numerous toys, stickers, paper and pens etc that a sticker on its own wouldn't cut it - plus we have a ton of stickers floating around as DD(2) is going through a sticker obsession anyway. I am probably doing the star chart wrong but basically he gets smiley or grumpy faces through the day, then the smiley faces go on the chart (which we do together). After about 40-odd smiley faces (about a week's worth of being good) he gets a reward. He seems to understand how the chart gets put together and harassed me about his last chart and the reward until I produced something. Does this make sense?

my 5 yr old get £1 per week. He gets 5p deducted for bad behaviour - works just like the pasta jar.

He also gets bothday money etc from grandparents.

I think he has a good understanding of teh concept of money and is getting an awareness of value.

He loves to go and spend his money in Toys R us or the Lego shop - it also stops him from constantly asking for toys to be bought for him.

No. Nor my 6, nearly 7 year old.

Except when we go on holiday.