Helping child earn money while still encouraging helpfulness for its own sake?

[Liziz]

DD1 has always been fairly helpful around the house. She loves to help me do things, and will generally help out with what she can just because she likes to. I've worked hard to encourage that and let her help, even though usually it's not particularly helpful (she's not quite 5 yet...).

Recently, she's become quite focused on earning money. She does get a small allowance once a week, but she's been asking for ways to earn more money. DH mentioned to her that she could do extra chores to earn money. Currently, she has two "chores" that she's required to do: pick up the toy room after she's played in it, and feed the dogs. She's been asking me for jobs so she can earn more money.

Since this started, I've noticed that the general helpfulness is gone. Every time I ask her to do something (like, "hey DD, would you please put placemats on the table for dinner?), she wants to know if she gets money for it -- or just does it but then gets upset afterwards if I won't pay her for it.

I believe that being part of a family means working together and taking care of the house and each other. I do NOT want to create a culture/situation in our house where being helpful around the house is a paid activity. It's something that should be done because we live together and are a team. However, I do understand DD1's desire to earn extra money, and am happy she's starting to learn some money lessons (she really wants an expensive toy and wants to earn money so she can save up enough to buy it). I'd like to help support her in her goal, but without creating an impression in her that she only helps out around the house if she's being paid.

How have you handled this situation? Anyone come up with a good way to do it?

[specialp]

A set amount of $ a day tied to one chore. 9I have a roll of quarters I give out and then it's a money/math lesson when we exchange them out of bills every couple of weeks. Keeps me from having to get more quarters.) It’s all or nothing so no money if only part of the chore is done. We do not give opportunities to earn extra money at this age. Piggy banks are spend, share, give and they divide how they want. It takes a really long time to save up for an expensive toy and that’s a lesson in itself. All other chores they are expected to do and aren’t tied to money. It works for us so far.

[bisous]

My parents always had extra chores we could do for money. So cleaning up and helping out were part of just being a family. For pay, I could pick citrus, or scrub the grout on the long entry way, or other jobs that were kind of outside all of that. A big one for us was washing cars. We had 3 growing up and they needed fairly frequent washings. I learned how to wash a car really well at around age 9 or so. It worked because my parents didn't usually wash their own cars, they'd take them through the car wash but they figured they might as well pay us instead of strangers. Obviously your DD might be a little too young for some of those chores. I think I would just make it really clear that these were extra things.

[123LuckyMom]

In our house we all do chores to help out. That's just being part of a family, and nobody earns money for that. Most of the extra jobs I give out for earning money are things like pulling weeds, shoveling snow, special organizing or cleaning projects. I've also paid the kids to do my tasks for me, like mopping or taking the laundry directly from the dryer (because I usually do the folding, hanging, sock matching, and the kids just put their stuff away.) Any and all of these things could just be regular tasks on another day, truthfully, but it's hard to come up with chores for money! The idea, though, is that you're being paid because you're doing a chore for someone else in addition to your own.

One thing we did do for a while that was actually really successful was to pay the kids to try new foods, especially veggies. Every time they tried a taste of something new they got a quarter, but eating the whole portion earned a dollar. If they ate a full portion of the new food three different times, they got $5. We had a chart to keep track. We did this for about three months, I think. They tried a lot of new foods, and decided they liked a bunch of them, so the project expanded their eating. We should really do it again.


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[klwa]

How about make a chart of things you don't expect her to help out with and what their worth is. (Cleaning the toilets, etc.) Then explain that the other things you ask her to do are expected because she lives there, but these are extra tasks that she can do for money.