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Jackie Hyland: Do you pay your kids to do chores?

I do not give my girls an allowance. As for chores well ... we need to work on that! Out of a group of four moms, I was the only one who did not hand out a weekly allowance!

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Jackie Hyland
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Jackie Hyland

I was recently hanging out with a group of volleyball moms. After a long week at work, it's nice to switch gears.

As I am still relatively new to the Raleigh area, I learn a lot from these mothers, and I enjoy the mommy talk! I will admit, we talk a lot about volleyball.

But every now and then the conversation takes a turn ... and this time it was to the juicy topic of allowances and chores. It was an eye opener for me.

It's true I do not give my girls an allowance. As for chores well ... we need to work on that! Out of a group of four moms, I was the only one who did not hand out a weekly allowance!

It seems it's common practice these days to give children and teenagers a base allowance. Nothing too crazy. The going rate seems to be anywhere from $3 to $10 a week.

The idea behind the allowance encourage kids to save their own money and spend their money when they want a new toy or clothes. They can even boost that allowance, I learned, by doing chores around the house.

I went home after volleyball practice that day excited! I was going to start giving an allowance to my girls. And I was going to start asking them to do weekly chores for a fee of course.

I presented the idea as soon as I got in the door.

My older daughter immediately said: "Didn't we try this before? It's not going to work!"

My younger daughter was immediately drawing up a detailed chart listing all the chores she was going to take on, asking me how much I would give her for walking the dog and doing laundry!

My husband wanted to know why we had to pay our daughters to help around the house!! Good point!

OK, its been two weeks. I haven't handed out any money yet. And my husband and I are still doing pretty much everything around the house!

Maybe my older daughter is right. I am not sure if this is going to work for our family, but I do like the idea.

What do you think? Do you give your children an allowance, and do you pay them to do chores? I would love to hear from you!!

Jackie is the mom of a tween and a teen. She is an anchor for WRAL-TV. Find her here on Go Ask Mom monthly.

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