Welcome back to the Simplicity Parenting podcast with me, Kim John Payne, and we've got some exciting news. I'll tell you a bit more about it at the end of the podcast, but we are just about to launch our podcast support community. You know, we began these podcasts years ago before there was much of a thing called podcast.
Just little audios we put out on our website and then it grew and grew and monthly and then podcast and then weekly and oh gosh, the feedback has been so wonderful to hear and we want to continue doing this, absolutely, and we're reaching out for your support to keep doing it at this level. So, in our show notes, there'll be a link to our website about how you can support this podcast going, staying like it is and growing and improving. Anyway, that's that.
Money for kids. That's this week. Now, you know, it often comes up in my conversation with parents and, you know, do we give allowances? Do we give money to kids to buy things? And you know, I've always thought that the question really wasn't about money as such.
When I listen to what the parents are asking, it's more about values really at a basic level. Many of the parents I talk with are trying to work out, you know, like what is essential? What is inessential for our family? And it's a kind of a core value, like what do we really need? And what do we really don't, we simply don't need? How can we lighten our load? How can we declutter? How can we organize? And how can we tread more lightly, you know, in life in general, including care for the planet? What can we do on a day-to-day level to walk our talk, to live our values? And I've often thought one of the places that this manifests is around money and giving money to kids, because treading lightly is kind of teaching children to value what we have rather than what we have not. It's a little bit like I mentioned in the Simplicity Parenting book, where I talk about what is rare is precious.
This whole principle of having less and therefore having it be precious. And it's managing money, and I often hear this a lot. Parents will say, we want our children to learn the value of money.
And I always think managing money is really essentially about essentials. It's not about paying for kids doing chores or what I prefer to call home care. Caring for our home is actually a value.
It's caring for what we have out of love for our home that keeps us cozy and warm and not so much a reward. And part of the whole money equation for kids comes very, very close to behavior modification where kids don't do what is right. They do what is advantageous.
And it turns them into little expert negotiators. Now, some parents have said, well, we'd like to give our kids an allowance and then talk to them about and have them talk to us about what it is that they're going to purchase. Other parents have gone a different direction.
And they've said, well, we let the children know that there's a certain amount of money budgeted in what our family has and that we need many things in our family. But we have a little pot of gold. We have a little bit of money for treats or for things that might be special to you and that we can work that out together.
And so what they're doing, one mom described that to me, is that it's not actually the child's money, their own money. It's our family. So it's our family's money.
And particularly, you know, if there's more than one child, then we have to make sure that's that's equitable and that we're only buying what is really essential. One dad described to me that he, since they went to that kind of system, it's really cut down on impulse buying, that I want that and therefore it's my money, I'm going to buy it. The my money thing, and you can't stop me buying it, my my sort of little nag nagging feeling I have about that is that it's undermining an adult authoritative presence.
That's sort of one of the downsides. There are I've heard parents speak well about the upsides of it. There's not so many, but there I'm sure there are upsides to this, some that I haven't heard of.
But I think at its core, what we're doing with money and the way money is distributed around the family and for the children, is it really speaks of our togetherness of what we're trying to do as as a family in the world and in our home. And that that as long as we keep that in mind, as long as we're working with what is essential, what is not essential, as long as we're avoiding like just purchasing of meaningless things that we know will come and go, even if a child has like it's almost like a yearning, a craving for that thing. And they they must they absolutely must have it.
I also think that what is, you know, I talk about this again in one of my books where I talk about the gift of anticipation that as a parent, we can say, well, let's just see as a family, we might and that's reasonable. But let's say it's a reasonable request. Let's see.
We'll save up for that. And we'll we'll you know, we'll absolutely keep that in mind, because if we're trying to teach children the value of money, it doesn't necessarily mean giving them money. It means we'll save up for that as a family and we'll keep track of that a little bit and we can check in.
But it might be some time before you can have like, let's say it's a big thing like a new skateboard or a new bike, or it might be a little while before we can we can actually do that. But let's let's see what we can do. And yeah, absolutely.
If you want to contribute to that by doing some gardening care or land work or lemonade stand, that classic thing, then absolutely. And we'll keep track of how much money you'll put into the pot as well. We will.
In that way, I think we are teaching children the value of money, but we're also teaching them the value of family. And if we can do both those and have them be side by side, then then I think we're doing a good service to our children. And that's the way that's the way that's the lens I see it.
I know there are many lenses and different ways to look at it, but I tend to look at it at the through the lens of strengthening family when there's so many forces trying to pull our family apart. One of the videos you might read, the videos and podcasts that I recorded were how marketers now refer to us as parents. We have an interchangeable name now.
We're referred to as purchasing friction. That's our new name. Marketers don't refer to us as parents.
They often refer to us as purchasing friction. And their job is to be the removers of purchasing friction. So our kids and this is another one of the points that often occurs to me.
Our kids are being subjected to some very sophisticated marketing messages. Now, if they have their own money, they're they're very likely. And why shouldn't they be victims to that to that kind of thing? Because these guys, these people doing this are really smart and they know how to press children's buttons.
I think we need to run interference. We need to not let them be be poor victims to this stuff that's going on in the world. We need to slow things down.
We need to filter the messages and we need to talk about how that lands for our whole family. So there we are. That's my lens on on money and allowances for children.
All right. Hope that's helpful. And don't forget the the launch of the Simplicity Parenting podcast support community.
Boy, I I really hope that this goes well because we we're dedicating so much of our time now to producing these these podcasts. We will we would so appreciate any kind of support that you can give us. All right.
That's it. Bye bye.
