Earning her keep

Tonight, my husband and I had one of those moments of sharing brain waves, I love when that happens. Just the other night I had read (and I wish I could remember where, it was one of the MANY blogs I read) that a good rule of thumb for allowances for younger kids is to give them half their age. I had meant to talk to him about it, but then tonight he brought it up at the dinner table, explaining to our oldest what an allowance is, and how you get one. I mentioned the half-the-age part and our daughter was ecstatic about the thought of getting $2.50 every Friday, and then $3.00 once she turns six in a few months.

She’s already expected to do certain things to help out, though it’s not usually been anything set in stone. We more or less expect her to help us out with things when we ask her to, like setting the table, picking up the living room, that sort of thing.

Now we’re going to work out a routine of daily chores for her, especially since she’s home all summer. I’d like it to include making her bed, and I’m probably going to throw in clearing the table after supper (partly because I hate it). Her 2.5-year-old sister is pretty good for setting out placemats and utensils, but our oldest can handle removing dishes from the table at the end of the meal.

I don’t want to overwhelm her with a huge list of chores, so I want to keep it simple.

Do you do allowances? If so, is it just something that you do anyway, or is it tied to doing chores? I’d love to hear what your kids do around the house for an allowance (as well as their ages) if you do.

(Happy 4th of July to all the American readers from this little Canadian blogger!)

Image: sxc.hu