Читать книгу Money Mammoth - Ted Klontz - Страница 51

Allowances can provide wonderful teaching opportunities. There is some debate over whether allowances should be a basic right that a child has simply by being a member of the family or if allowances should be tied to a list of chores, responsibilities, or behaviors that are rewarded monetarily. Regardless of your opinion, allowances can be used to reinforce values and to teach basic money management skills.

A common mistake is to give children an allowance without any strings attached. Don't be surprised if they mismanage it. Of course they will! Their prefrontal cortex, the part of their brain responsible for planning, controlling impulses, and delaying gratification is not fully developed until early adulthood. The best approach is to build structure around the allowance in accordance with the values you wish to instill. For example, you could teach the concepts of buckets, where the allowance is divided into four portions: 1) saving, 2) spending, 3) giving, and 4) investing, as follows.