Blended Family and Allowance

An "allowance" can be different than paying for chores.
THEN allowance can be used as a behavior incentive.

As far as money management, you might consider both getting a set weekly allowance which has to be saved, spent and given (the 3 uses of money, boiled down). This would be great for them to learn at 8. I have a 9 year old.

Don't confuse "rules" with "chores"! (Ex. It's a rule that the bed gets made every morning and a chore to COMPLY AGREEABLY when asked to carry the trash outside.)

I say you don't pay them for chores. If you want to give them an allowance, can you give them each $5 per week? Regardless of if they are there or not? Or whatever works for your budget?

My kids help out because they know in order for us to maintain our house, they have to help. They don't do excessive amounts of chores, and they actually kind of like what they do, but they do help. And the stuff they do to help, is a tremendous help to my husband and I. But they aren't paid for it.

I say....no allowance for either child. Basic chores are simply a part of life. :)

& no, I don't agree with your husband....which further proves my point: don't do allowance....there is no way to be fair to each child. This is not a win-win situation.

With 9 years btwn my sons, our rules changed as our family grew/fluctuated/etc. My older son did have an allowance for a while, but I found I preferred simply teaching him how to be responsible....with special treats as a reward for owning that responsibility.

I also realized he was learning life skills twofold: he learned to be responsible, & he also learned to govern his time. By getting those chores completed to allow for "fun time & treats", we provided a reward for time well spent. :)

Like many parents, I felt that having chores and earning money was "good" for children. Didn't work out so well in reality though.
The problem is that kids quickly get bored with the chores, they don't want to do them anymore and they don't really care about the money.
Instead we have mandatory chores and no allowance. Pitching in is part of being a family, and we all do our part. I rotate the chores so everyone doesn't have to keep doing the same job over and over (no fair to be the only one who ever has to pick up the dog poop, lol!)
My kids didn't start caring about money until they were about 12 or 13. That's when they started to wanting cash to go to the movies, or get ice cream with their friends, or get some fancy new jeans that they didn't really need. At that point they started babysitting and pet sitting in the neighborhood, or we would give them a job to do, like washing and cleaning out the cars, pulling weeds, washing the dog, that kind of thing.
IMO and experience money management and responsibility is better learned as a preteen/teen, not as a child.

Kudos for you in trying to make this fair for both kids. I personally wouldn't offer your stepdaughter the opportunity to do extra chores while she's at your house. To an eight year old that could seem like her mean stepmom and dad making her work twice as hard as her stepbrother. Instead, I'd offer a weekly allowance and weekly chores. Whomever is at the house that week gets to do the chores and earn the allowance. That means that your son will get a weekly allowance (and do weekly chores) and your stepdaughter would only get an allowance every other week. Your stepdaughter won't be there to see your son get allowance those other weeks -- nor will she see how hard he's working at his chores. They'll only be able to compare themselves to each other when they're in the house together. Either way, have your husband talk to his ex about chores at her house and an allowance so it's consistent for the girl.

Do not tie chores to allowance. As you can see, that's what's creating the conflict and it's a bad practice anyway. Chores and allowance are two totally separate concepts. Chores are what each member of the family does to keep the household running, learn responsibility and practical skills, and share the workload. An allowance is a chance for you to figure out what you would spend for incidental and activities and then set up some structure around that so that the child can learn fundamentals about spending, saving and budgeting. Kids should not think that chores are optional or that they get paid for doing what's expected - by tying allowance to chores, that's the expectation you're unconsciously setting up.

OK so that said...each child should have daily and weekly chores that get done whenever they're home.

For allowance, figure out what you normally spend per child for things like snacks, activities and non-essential items that you might buy them on a regular basis (hair trinkets, baseball cards). If either child gets an allowance or spending money at their other house, factor that in as well. Each child should end up with roughly the same amount of spending money each month - whether or not you end up paying all of your SD's because her mother won't participate etc. shouldn't matter and should be something that you both work out with your respective exes. If you settle on $5 per week per kid and each month your ex and you each put in $10 but your husband's ex doesn't participate, then you two are on the hook for $20 for your SD even if she doesn't spend as much time at your house. It may not seem fair to you, but it would be fair to her.

I hope that helps - believe me, I have two 14-year-olds (son and step-daughter) and they DO scorekeep everything, as does my husband. My SD's idiot mother provides nothing for her so it's always been on us to buy everything and spend everything, even when she didn't live with us and we only saw her on the weekends. But at the end of the day, it's about providing equitable lives for the kids, not about who spends $10 more per month than he or she should.

Maybe make it based on chores. If they take out the trash, it's one price and if they fold all the towels and sheets they can earn something else, etc. That way if the child who isn't there busts their butt, they can earn as much or if the child that is there decides it's not important to have $10 he/she won't earn that much. I would make some chores just Things You Do and I would spread out the chores so it isn't stuck on one kid or impossible for the other to do anything and earn money.

Here, we were custodial so DH provided them an allowance based on age - $1/week elementary school, $5/week middle school and $10/week HS. Further, there were just some things THEY needed to start paying for at each level. You want popcorn at the movie? Do you have money? That sort of thing.

It's going to be tricky no matter how it's done, I think, because you still have another household that could give the kid money and that will have other variables. I would remind your DH that his daughter also has other resources when she is not with him so he shouldn't feel like he has to be completely even with your son, as long as there's some system that is fair.

And if you go the chores route, then make the news come from her dad so she doesn't feel like Cinderella. Frankly, at 8, allowance doesn't have to be much at all.

My daughter (10) gets an allowance of $5 per week. This is NOT tied to doing chores. It is to learn how to manage money. Children are NOT motivated by being paid for chores. Chores are done because she is part of the family and we each share in the responsibility. I do not want her to learn to ask for "pay" to help me around the house. Allowance is to learn how to save and spend money.

Read the book "Drive" by Daniel Pink to understand motivation, and how we typically ruin the natural instrinsic motivation that children are born with by doing things like paying for chores and grades. If you think adults are motivated by a paycheck, you would also be wrong. As soon as our basic needs are met, financially, we are not any extra motivated - or happier - when we make more money.

So, pay them the same weekly amount, as allowance. And assign chores in a way that makes sense for their schedules.

My suggestion would be to give prices to chores. I don't in a lot of cases that is rediculous but sounds like for you it would work. And log their chores they do in a note book and on pay day they get paid for what chores they did. That way if your son does more just because he's there more he does not get the short end of the stick. I know when my kids got an allowence my oldest since he did more got more. That's just how it goes. Not that they are both into so much that cost so much they don't get an allowence. But we do get special stuff once in a while for them. Hope that helps

Good luck and God bless!

How is it fare to pay her the same amount of money for doing work for only half the days he has to? Honestly, if you want to be fare he should get paid for 10 days of work and she should get paid for 5. If you work one week and your co-worker works 2, would your paychecks be the same? no, of course not. If there are larger chores you want to offer extra money for (for us it is washing cars, mowing lawn, anything big not in the normal chore list) than those big chores should be available to both children, but maybe only offer the bigger ones during the weeks she is there so they can both have a shot at them and they are not all done by him on her week off leaving her none to do.

I do not have a blended family, but I do have the same arrangement where on my kids' dad's week they are at my house while he is at work (not all day, just few hours after school.) On dad's week, they don't have chores at my house...if my ex chose to send them to a childcare provider, they wouldn't have chores there, so that's my reasoning. But I also do not tie chores to allowance, to me chores are more about a family working together to make the home run as smoothly as possible.

I agree with those that say Chores and no money. We tried this just with our son, and while a good idea on paper, he chores not to do the chores and be broke. Now he does them because EVERYONE in the house does chores..its how families take care of each other and sometimes you just have to do things you don’t want to do just because you have to do them.
Like I said I understand that people want to teach that if you work you get money, but it can also be looked at from the flip side too. Some times you have to work and NOT get anything for yourself just because that’s the way it is!!
I agree with the mom that said Make them to chores and give them 5 buck regardless. Just my thought. I hope you are able to find an answer that will work best for your family!!
Blessing

I come from a "blended" family... if there is not fairness there will be hostility. Weather you know it or not. My family didn't do allowances but we did rewards night for grades and jobs well done. We pick the dinner, movie, and games that we played. I could hold A's in school and I still didn't get the privileges his did because " they are not here as much" um excuse me if I don't get the privileges why work at it... Not something i am sure you want your kids to feel. I would say equal or nothing. It may cause resentment between the kids.

What exactly are you trying to teach your children? Are you trying to teach the children how to manage money? Are you trying to teach them about responsibility? Or are you trying to teach them that life should always be "fair and equitable?" Life is never fair or equitable and anyone that searches for that to be true ends up very disappointed. Instead, we can focus on teaching our children how to deal with how life is and give them tools to resource themselves when life doesn't turn out the way they think it should.

Too often in blended families we lose sight of what is the real issue. We often get caught up in making sure everyone is "happy" rather than making sure that each person learns how to feel their feelings appropriately, how to have open,clear, and direct communication, how to problem solve, and how to move through a crisis, disappointment or loss.

Sometimes, as parents, we try and make sure that our children never face "bad" or "hurtful" things. In reality, you are taking away their chance to learn tools that will help them when they get out in the world and have to face life head on. Rescuing our children from feeling negative emotions or from facing tough/painful consequences does not help them. It only robs them of the gifts and lessons they could and need to learn in life. Instead, support them in working through their "negative" experiences. Fixing or changing how they feel is not the goal. Allowing them the space and giving them the tools to feel their feelings and experience the consequences supports them in maturing.

As far as tying money to chores or not. Again, what is the intent? If you want to teach them about managing money then however you provide that money isn't the issue. If you are trying to teach them about responsibility then the experiences need to be directly linked to -- here is the responsibility and here is the consequence and then be consistent.

Often, when we take the time to really define what the actual purpose to our rules is it becomes much easier to define the rules and consequences. Sometimes though it is a little tricky and we have to be willing to be totally honest with ourselves, as parents, about what our real motivation and agendas are when it comes to our children. We have to be careful that we aren't setting things up for our children with the hidden agenda that it is simply to make our life easier or to not trigger our own unresolved issues.

Fair is only equal pay for equal work. So if he wants to pay her the same as your son then your son gets easy jobs all the time. She gets the poopy jobs that no one wants.

Tell your husband to look at it this way, he works 40 hours or so, right? How would he feel if another guy came in and worked 10 hours and got paid the same since that is all they can work, would he think that was fair.

I have two kids (all the time). I use chore sticks where I have yellow sticks for required chores (like (mak your bed) and other colors they get to pick from. we require them to do all the yellow required chores, and evenly divide up all the others (feed the cat, water teh plans, unload the dishwasher, etc). You could do the same, where you give them required chores for the weeks/days they are in the house, and optional/extra chores.

The main difference is that we don't pay our kids for chores, it;s just expected. And we don't do an allowence. But I imagine such a system would still work for you. Just create the extra chores and maybe limit how many they each can do. For example, you must do these 3 things every day tha tyou are in the house. Then, you can do 4 extra chores per month. Let them figure it out.

I personally think that your kids should only get the opportunity for chores for the weeks they are there, but the opportunity should be the same. Let the other parent have their own system (ideally , you would agree, of course).

We don't pay our kids to keep their rooms clean or to wash, dry and put away their clothes. But they do get paid for other chores. My daughter loads and unloads the dishwasher, my son takes the trash down and back from the street, and takes out each of the trash in the house, almost daily. Since yours are both full time every other week, just have them do all the chores on the week they are here then have the next week off. That way, they will both be "even". However, when summer is over, one will be back to every other weekend so not sure what you can do for that. Good luck.