It’s Christmas Eve and we just cancelled all our Christmas plans because all three children have varying degrees of fever. Evelyn is the most unwell, but Isaac is a close second, despite his declarations of “I FEEL FINE!”
Yeah, I’ve taken your temperature kiddo. Don’t lie to me.
Amy who has been sick the longest, is also the closest to better, but she also hasn’t really been out of bed for three days. For my high energy girl, this is a big deal.
In any case, we’ll have a low key Christmas here, with salad and ham and presents.
In other news, Pocket Money!
What do you do?
Recently Nathan and I decided that our children needed to be helping out more. So (when they’re well) we’re making them wash and dry the dishes – Amy washes, Isaac dries, and fold their own laundry. It seems pretty age appropriate to me, but I’m interested in your thoughts.
You can read my entire article at Money Circle, with all my reasoning.
My mom only paid us kids for what needed to be done, regardless of our being there. Meaning, no pocket money for cleaning our rooms or folding our laundry. Those were things that wouldn’t need doing if it wasn’t for us to begin with. But, she paid us for vacuuming and dusting and mowing and the like.
My girls are happy to work for pocket money. Dude struggles with it. It’s not motivation enough usually. But, I only pay them for things that need doing whether they’re here or not. And it seems to work out fine.
Sorry to hear about the fevers, is it something that normally goes around like measles or chicken pox? Not specifically one of those, but something that doesn’t need to be worried about too much. I hope they’re all well again soon.
I think a few chores to help out is a great idea, I visited my son last Sunday and grand daughter who is nine was washing and drying dishes on her own, and happy to do it.
The other grandchildren, now 17 and 19, have been helping with chores since they were two, their jobs then were to pick up clothes and put in the laundry hamper, and take their dishes to the sink after dinner.
Hope you’ve had a lovely Christmas and that your little ones are starting to feel better.
The pocket money issue is one we’ve struggled with. We’ve tried different things over the years. What works for us now is that they get a set amount each per week. They have to save half and they can spend the other half (or save it if they wish). They have a few basic chores to do regardless of pocket money. As we see it, they live in this house and are a part of this family so it’s expected that they pitch in and help out and we won’t pay them to do this. There are extra things that go beyond basic chores that they can do occasionally to earn a bit more.
We’ve started making the kids do more around the house too. They’re 5&4yr old. They have to make their beds, put their laundry away, set the dinner table and clear their dishes away. The older one lives dusting and vacuuming so she does that sometimes too
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