Allowance Revisited

We have revisited the weekly allowance for the kids, specifically the amount of remuneration. In speaking with a few parents from school, it sounds as though our positions of $1 for a third grader and $0.50 for kindergarten may be on the low end of the allowance spectrum.

The updated compensation level for the boy proposes $3 per week based on him cleaning his bathroom and keeping his room clean. Failure to meet with compliance yields what is now considered a meager $1. He has performed adequately so far at bathroom cleaning which includes emptying the bathroom’s trash bin. His Achilles Heal has proven to be cleaning his room. The first few weeks under this program his remuneration has been a lowly $1, I’m sad to report.

The problem, you see, is the guy’s Hot Wheeling inclination. He likes making Hot Wheels tracks. He especially likes incorporating his entire room, desk, dresser, his dinosaurs, dominoes, and all his other toys into the landscape of the tracks. It really is all encompassing. So much so, that before I check on him before I go to bed, I can’t get to him without stepping on some portion of the track. He maintains that the track must remain standing until all his cars, of which there are about 100, have driven it. He then immediately sets out to modify the track which necessitates that he repeat the process with all the cars. The room never actually gets clean because there’s no down time between tracks.

As for our daughter, she’s been bumped up to $2 weekly. Her responsibility in return is twofold:
(1) She practices writing her alphabet. The task is supposed to be done daily, but my diligence sometimes falls short. The capital letters have been mastered and she’s working on the lower case. The ‘j’ has proven problematic for her as to which way it curls.
(2) She practices her numbers daily. This entails a variation of writing her numbers from 1 to 30 and counting by tens to 100 or counting to 100. She’s really gathering steam here, although that ‘50’ is sometimes elusive.


They’re good kids, but let’s not tell them that. Wouldn’t want to spoil them.
-klem