Each morning they are responsible for a few tasks to help us get up and moving, and to school on time: get up and dressed, eat breakfast and put away dishes, feed and water the cat, and brush teeth and hair. All of it must be done without arguing (with me or each other), and JD is also responsible for completing his reading log. He prefers to do his reading before bed at night, then complete the reading log in the morning.
If they complete all of these tasks by 7:10am, they get a sticker for the day. They earn $.50 per day but if they get stickers on all 5 days, they'll earn an extra $.50 and get $3 for the week. Last week, they earned $2 each (no sticker on Friday for arguing). So this morning, I paid them their $2, and attempted to explain some basic money management principles: give the first part to God, you must save some of the money, then you can spend the rest.
It's really hard to explain 10%, so I just told them $.25 would be about right. Then JD said "It's more important to give to God than to save or spend the money, so I want to give $1.00." A couple minutes later, he changed it to $.50. I explained that once he gives money to God, he can't take it away from God, but since it was his first time and just learning, we'd make an exception this time. Fifty cents is still really awesome -- that's 25% of his money, which is a whole lot more than what the rest of us give. Following big brother's lead, Ryan also gave $.50 to God.
I'm very proud of JD and Ryan, and I really hope that these lessons in time management, personal responsibility, and money management are the beginning of some great life principles for them. Too much of today's society is about greed, self-indulgence and materialism. I can't change the world, but hopefully I can influence two little people who will someday impact their small part of this big world.
No comments:
Post a Comment