From the author: Article from the author’s website: It’s hard to imagine a person’s life without money. Money itself is neutral - paper, metal... But it is a resource that can provide many desirable things - rest, travel, comfort, safety, interesting activities... Our, sometimes difficult, relationship with money also affects our attitude towards people, relationships in one’s own family, and of course, raising children. We may not even explain in words what money means to us; children read everything without words, in everyday activities and conversations. For kids, money does not have the same value as for adults. It doesn’t matter to them what is in their hands - a bill or a coin - it’s all “money”. Older children already know the value of money - you can buy various nice things with it. But the child will learn the value of money much later, when he learns to earn and spend it himself. Many parents strive to teach their child how to handle finances by giving him pocket money - and this is justified from a certain age. And sometimes a child is taught to have money by paying for household chores and good studies. It would seem that the goal is pursued well - to teach the child to value his work, to instill the desire to earn money with his own work, to understand the value and price of money, and to manage it wisely. When it comes to parenting, money is not always the best assistant. Yes, it is necessary and important to teach a child how to handle money, spend it wisely, and when he grows up, to earn money through feasible work. But paying for school, decent behavior or doing household chores is not worth it. There are several reasons for this: 1. A child learns not for the sake of knowledge, but for evaluation. If a child’s educational zeal is stimulated by assessing his success in hard currency, then the child will show miracles of resourcefulness in order to earn a grade, rather than learn new information. In my practice, there was a case when parents decided to pay for all grades from “3” to “5”, and take a fine for “1” and “2”. The child decided that it would be easier for him to avoid getting twos and not stress too much by getting a large number of threes. After all, five threes are worth the same as three fives. Who won in this case? Even if a child is not looking for easy ways and strives to earn his “A” through honest work, monetary rewards are also not helpful. Because it adds tension and further irritates the student. A fear of a negative mark appears, and subsequently a fear of evaluation from other people may develop. In addition, it is much more important to teach a child not to earn a grade in order to pass a test or exam, but to look for information and use it skillfully. If it is still important for you to reward your child for good studies, then a “prize” can be given for some new stage in development, a major achievement, victory at an Olympiad, competition, or simply for mastering something new for the child.2. Who is responsible for studies? If parents pay for good studies, then they take on the function of monitoring academic performance. You need your child to study, you need his success, and he may hate school, but force himself to get good grades so that you pay money. The child will not even think about taking control into his own hands. What might this mean in the future? Lack of initiative, the habit of relying on other people's opinions and living according to orders from above. Is this what you want?3. Money or relationships? How much does care cost? By paying for housework, parents also take a big risk. If it is not customary in the family to pay the mother for clean dishes, cooked dinner and ironed clothes, then there is no need to pay for household chores done by the child. In a family, everyone has responsibilities; housework is distributed among all family members. Even kids can and should help put away their toys. An older child is quite capable of buying bread, throwing out trash or washing dishes. One day the mother of a teenager approached me. She proudly said that she had no problems with her son. He studies well, because she generously pays for his A's. He does a lot.