I welcome you to my blog and another wonderful edition of the Hive Learners' featured post. When it comes to placing kids on allowance or not, we have our different opinions; we have those who will kick against it and will go to the ends of the world to preach against it, and then there are those who see it as a normal thing to do as a parent and do it without even waiting to be told. Some adults see placing kids who already have all their needs sorted out by their parents on allowance as spoiling them, and that will probably cause them to be extravagant or not know how to manage their finances, but the truth is that not placing kids on allowance does not in any way teach them how to manage their finances or stop them from being extravagant.
Some parents place kids on allowance and still monitor how the kids spend the allowance they are given, and how they spend the allowance determines if the allowance continues, is increased, or is stopped. Now this is how the kids learn financial management; they get to understand that when money comes in, there are things you should and should not spend your money on. There are also times that when money comes in and you have to go for needs, ignoring wants not because you want to buy but because you have to.
The mistake many parents make is thinking they have sorted all the bills for their kids and for that reason don't see any reason to place them on any form of allowance. When I was in high school, my parents did not place us on any form of allowance, but along the line, they did. But before they did, I felt really embarrassed; fellow students would go to the canteen and buy what they wanted, and then there was me with nothing, and I couldn't even afford even sachet water because I had no money, and that put me under some kind of pressure to a point, and there were mornings when I woke up and didn't want to go to school, not because I committed a crime in school but because I had thought about the embarrassment of sitting and watching others buy what they wanted.
Back then in school we also had cases where some kids who were also not placed on allowance by their parents succumbed to the pressure and had to steal from their parents just to escape the embarrassment of watching those placed on allowance buy and eat what they want. Placing a child on allowance might have both advantages and disadvantages, but I am strongly standing with placing kids on allowance, especially with my type of experience where a child feels left out and the pressure that comes with that is not something every kid can handle; some will end up giving in to the pressure.
Parents can have all the kids' bills that they know of sorted out and not see the need to place kids on allowance because they feel there is no need for that, but the kids will always have needs that the parents don't know of and can use their allowance to sort out, but in the case they don't get any, they might be forced to take the wrong path and make mistakes they end up regretting or that will bring shame to both them and the family.
