My 8 year old DD loves gift cards - she likes to be able to take me to breakfast and pay for it. I thought about getting her a cute wallet and in the credit card slots put some $5-$10 gift cards for places like McDonalds, the movie theater, book store, etc for her to be able to spend. It could be a little expensive, but I think she will like it. Yeah or nay?
Great idea! I gave my 6dd an old wallet of mine, and lo and behold, she's saving money in it!!!
Great idea, but it would be a better learning experience for her to do work for money to put into her wallet. Kids these days have a harder time grasping the value of money b/c all they see is Mom and Dad whipping out a credit card to pay for things.
The gift cards are good for starter as a present but one dollar bills and change is a better learning tool. not only will she be able to practice her money handling skills by counting out the dollars while she is paying herself, she will tanglibly see with her own eyes how quickly money can be spent, and when it is gone, it is gone, and she needs to do some work to earn the money she is spending.
At Lakeshore Learning, there is a game called The Allowance Game, which can also be used to help teach money skills to this age group.
Quoting PerfectVirgo:
Great idea! I gave my 6dd an old wallet of mine, and lo and behold, she's saving money in it!!!
Be sure to also teach your daughter to only keep what needs in her wallet and put most of it in her bank... because if she puts it all in her wallet and she loses her wallet or it gets stolen, she would lose all of her money. By keeping only what we need in our wallet, and the rest in the bank keeps her money safe.
(I teach this now after my daughter put her birthday money in a wallet $20 and the wallet has disappeared somewhere, probably stashed in some other purse somewhere.... and her response was "that's ok, it's just money. You can give me more." Umm, no.)
I volunteered for the Christmas shop at the school last week and the number of kids who had no idea how money works was unbelieveable. There were kids 10-13 years old having to put things back because they assumed their parents paid for whatever it was they picked up. One 8 year old had a $12 check and $55 worth of gifts and actually asked to call her mom because she didn't give her enough.
OP, I'm not saying your child is like the ones at the school but it seems to very common for the kids to think the way they do. Learning about how it works and getting to pratice those lessons is a great thing.
Quoting mom22tumblebugs:Great idea, but it would be a better learning experience for her to do work for money to put into her wallet. Kids these days have a harder time grasping the value of money b/c all they see is Mom and Dad whipping out a credit card to pay for things.
The gift cards are good for starter as a present but one dollar bills and change is a better learning tool. not only will she be able to practice her money handling skills by counting out the dollars while she is paying herself, she will tanglibly see with her own eyes how quickly money can be spent, and when it is gone, it is gone, and she needs to do some work to earn the money she is spending.
At Lakeshore Learning, there is a game called The Allowance Game, which can also be used to help teach money skills to this age group.
Quoting mom22tumblebugs:
Quoting PerfectVirgo:
Great idea! I gave my 6dd an old wallet of mine, and lo and behold, she's saving money in it!!!
Be sure to also teach your daughter to only keep what needs in her wallet and put most of it in her bank... because if she puts it all in her wallet and she loses her wallet or it gets stolen, she would lose all of her money. By keeping only what we need in our wallet, and the rest in the bank keeps her money safe.
(I teach this now after my daughter put her birthday money in a wallet $20 and the wallet has disappeared somewhere, probably stashed in some other purse somewhere.... and her response was "that's ok, it's just money. You can give me more." Umm, no.)
I will not miss Math Homework!
- gregheather
on Dec. 10, 2012 at 9:20 AM