Excerpted from Earn It, Learn It: Teach Your Child the Value of Money, Work, and Time Well Spent, copyright © 2011 by Alisa T. Weinstein.
So What Is Earn My Keep?
Earn My Keep is an easy-to-do parent/child program that helps kids ages four to twelve earn money for exploring and experiencing real careers.
Kids pick a task from one of fifty career profiles, complete it within a set amount of time, and earn a set amount of money.
Not Your Mother’s Allowance Program
So here’s a pretty incredible fact: allowance has been the go-to means of teaching American kids fiscal responsibility for more than one hundred years. Even more incredible: it hasn’t changed since its inception. But allowance basics–earning for doing chores or for doing nothing at all–offer little more than change in a piggy bank and groans of “Do I have to?!” In the end, kids either think money falls from the sky or making their bed is automatic cause for payment (neither of which has been known to fatten a wallet in the real world).
Think about how you learned about money. Do you remember? Was it effective? Are you replicating the same lessons with your kid? And even if the “chore chart” is working as well for your child as it did for you, is it working as hard as it could be? Teaching kids that “hard work equals money earned” is a meaningful real-world lesson. But adding an education in finding passion and purpose in life, introducing the concept that hard work can also be work loved–that’s pretty tasty icing on the cake.
There’s also that elephant-in-the-room question: where are you now, financially speaking? Earn My Keep was born in one of America’s worst recessions–a time when my husband and I were paying for our own overspending. And heaven knows, I didn’t want my children to repeat our mistakes.
The first step, I thought, was making that aforementioned critical connection between hard work, self-satisfaction, and money earned. Enter Earn My Keep, the allowance program that allows you to: Differentiate between things we do as productive family members (making the bed, clearing the dishes) and things we do to pay our (eventual) bills.
Expose your child to art, culture, creative thinking, history, language, literature, manners, math, money management, public speaking, research, science, and social responsibility–without your kid even realizing it.
Introduce a whole bunch of career opportunities and the idea that passion and job satisfaction exist–a major component to achieving a better quality of life in adulthood.
Teach your child that we depend on each other to make the world work, and how accepting that responsibility can make the world a better place (the Horticulturist grows the strawberries, which the Dietitian uses to make a healthy treat, which the Chef decides to serve in his or her restaurant, which the Accountant determines is too expensive–you know the price of organic food).
Get that deep-down yummy feeling that comes from satisfying a child’s curiosity about the adult world.
And, most importantly, connect with your kid, promote a lifelong love of learning, and introduce the above-mentioned and all-important fiscal understanding.
Creatively Challenged? Time Crunched? Budget Tied? Bring It On!
So by now you may be wearing a quizzical look that falls somewhere between confused, skeptical, and “this chick is out of her mind.” (My husband, Adam, wore the same look when he first learned about my grand plan for his daughter.) But rest assured, the Earn My Keep allowance program is not only doable, it’s the kind of thing you’ll actually look forward to doing. Better yet, your kid will too.
If you still need convincing, let’s start with the creative aspect. As in, you don’t need to have a creative bone in your body to look like a hero to your child. Why?
The brainstorming has been done for you. Inside this handy-dandy guide are more than nine hundred fifty activities that bring amazing careers to life for your kid–no thinking necessary. But if you do happen to love thinking outside the (crayon) box, then no holds are barred. Consider Earn My Keep a starting point for wherever you want the experience to go.
