Chore and Allowance Program for Children

Doing chores and getting an allowance are ways to teach children responsibility, how money and work are related, and to help with household duties. However, family “chore and allowance programs” are often unsuccessful due to frustration, lack of clearly defined rules, inadequate parental supervision, unclear guidelines for “acceptable” completion of duties, and inconsistent or delayed distribution of allowance. Successful chore and allowance programs need to be easy to understand for both child and parent, easy to administer, and able to be reliably monitored for quality control. They also need to ensure a method for immediately granting income contingent upon successful completion of duties.

Why should children be paid to do things that they will eventually need to do as adults? Children should be paid for their work, as payment is an incentive or reward that will extrinsically reinforce their likelihood of performing chores. Payment also teaches the link between completed work and salary. Adults perform household chores for a variety of reinforcers (e.g., approval of neighbors). These reinforcers are not generally developmentally appropriate for children, so money is substituted. When children become adults, they too will be paid by nonmonetary means for their household work.

Creation of the chore and allowance program involves the following:

• Step 1: Specific duties and details regarding the completion of chores should be discussed as a family and outlined in a formal family contract:
  • a.
    What chores are to be completed by each child
  • b.
    Days of week each chore should be completed and by which child
  • c.
    Time by which each chore must be completed for each day
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  • d.
    How-to steps and criteria for proper completion for each chore
  • e.
    Amount of allowance to be earned for each chore's completion.

  Table 1 Sample of a child's chore and allowance chart with rules
  JOBS	Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
  Wash dishes	$ .50	+$ .50	$ .50		$ .50	+$ .50
  	7 p.m.	7 p.m.	7 p.m.		7 p.m.	7 p.m.
  Collect garbage				Trash
  		$ .25		+$.75		$.25
  		8 p.m.		7 a.m.		8 p.m.
  Clean room	$1.00				$1.00
  	5 p.m.				5 p.m.
  Walk dog in morning			Night		Night
  		$ .25	+$ .25	$.25	+$ .25	$ .25
  		7 a.m.	6 p.m.	7 a.m.	6 p.m.	7 a.m.

• Step 2: This information should be transferred into a chart format so that each child has a separate chart detailing the above information. Colored pens can be used by each child and parent to indicate which chores were completed and at what time. The parent can then initial each job that has been successfully completed on time.

Determining allowance amounts and how to dispense it can be best accomplished by considering the child's age, developmental level, spending needs, and number of chores assigned. Parents should approximate the total cost of the items they would like their child to purchase with the allowance and then add a little more money so that the child can save, if desired. For younger children, the allowance should be given immediately following successful completion of the job in order to effectively demonstrate the relationship between work and pay. Over time, the child's allowance should be faded to weekly payments. At first, parents should verbally praise the child by providing constructive feedback about what the child did correctly and what can be done differently the next time, if necessary, to improve performance.

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