Matteeboy

Despite my folks having a bit of cash when I was younger, I have always had to earn my own money.
While at Uni they were hyper skint so funded it all myself.

Do parents spoil their kids because the children demand it or is it partly yet another way to flash the cash?

dave247

Get him to buy a 100 blank dvds, a dvd re writer and a good quality printer. Sign up to the news groups and he can sell dodgy dvds and games at school, should more than double his money by christmas

Torquemada

I'd go with the latter and with the 'keeping up with the jones'' factor.

Personally, as soon as I could get a job, I did. That meant that when I was at public school I'd be stuck there, boarding all week, then at the weekends I'd end up working for the whole time. Meant I had a bit more freedom when I wasn't working, which was nice

[-(o)-]

iTrader: (1)

I think some its the guilt factor that both parents tend to have to work these days. Also back in the day we were happy with pocket money stuff like Top Trumps or a Hacky Sack (what happened to those?), where as now it HAS to be a DS or iPod!

Robert Rosario

True, but hacky sacks were no fun and you had to have legs like rubber to be any good at it, and they split open.

My son (9) has a DS and an PSP, both of which he plays with occasionally and both of which were bought by grand parents. His favourite "toy" though is a football, £5, JJB sports, four years old.

Kids need imagination, fresh air and mates, not IPOD's, DS's and tat.

Peanuts

iTrader: (15)

Hacky sack was ****, end of.
HTH

back to the money making, at the last winter when it was snowing up north; we were visiting family in Leeds (I remember it was just as Shannon Matthews was turned in).
A lad knocked the door and offered to clean snow from the drive for 10p, salt it for an extra 20p and you could buy a weekly ticket of cleaning for 50p (saturday and sunday were free).
He had done his money on a new snow shovel and was turning a few quid down the street.
When he got to my Uncle's place and I clocked the score I gave him the 50p for a weekly ticket and another 50p for bonus.
He was polite, hard working and did a good job, I asked him what the proceeds were for and he didn't have a goal, more he saw the opportunity.
The funniest thing was his mates laughing at the other side of the road mocking him as he was 'wasting' the days off school due to the weather.
He made over £25 that day (he came back on the return leg as I gave him a bonus and did the drive again before the night snow fell) and I was really impressed with his endeavour.

Not may like that nowadays...

sbk1972

Good thread, as I was thinking this the other day regarding my son.

I want him to understand that money is hard to come by and should be valued, but I dont necessary want him doing a paperround, or cleaning cars for £2 etc etc. The main trick is not to give into him, buy him anything he wants, as that makes the pruchase worthless. Make him earn the present, in my belief anyway.

So, for me, I will introduce a rewards scheme, similar to what the guys above mentioned. Jobs around the house, clearing up, gardening, washing our cars, will all result in ££££. Also, school work, marks for course work, again will recieve ££££.

Back in the day, when we were all kids, paperrounds, car washing, basic dross slave labour jobs were the only things avialable. But, that isnt the case now. I did a paper round which was horrible, but discovered that buying a set of bolt cutters, and nicking bikes from the local station, selling them at markets was a far better situation and far more profitable. :-)

I would try and get him into selling stuff he buys from second hard charity shops, on the net / ebay. Or try to get him to setup website stores, computer studies. Try and get him into todays technologies, using them for his advantages.

If all that fails, well, bolt cutters it is then :-)

SBK

Robert Rosario

Have you still got my grifter?

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I watched Gran Torino yesterday, think I will let them watch that, some of the themes fit in with what has been said on here, utterly superb film if you havent seen it by the way.