Other People's Kids

(originally posted at Rational Jenn)

Recently on OGrownups, Diana asked this question:

What do you do when other people's kids behave badly toward you, such as destroying your property?

For example, my three year old niece tore apart a card that I was planning to save.  It wasn't a huge deal, and she was just playing, but I wanted to emphasize the principle that she shouldn't destroy other people's stuff.  At the time, I expressed my surprise and dismay, told her that I'd wanted to save it, gave her the half that I didn't want, then stowed away the half I wanted to save.  Nothing went wrong with that, but I wonder if I should have done differently.

More generally though, I wonder how to deal respectfully with other people's kids, yet respectfully of my own boundaries too.  Advice would be appreciated.

This question generated many thoughtful and interesting responses. I'll post my response here:

Other People's Kids can be really tricky to deal with sometimes. As with pretty much everything else, context matters.

I think you handled the situation with your niece just fine--she saw the effects of her actions on you when you expressed your emotions, and learned something about property rights. Then you redirected her toward something that she could have instead. If this was just a one-time thing, then that might be all that's needed. With three-year-olds, I've said things like "Oh don't color on those walls! Those walls belong to me. If you want to color, here's some paper." I like to point out to them which things belong to me--I think they're just too young to have any clue that there are things in the world that belong to someone else!

If this became a habit (I don't know how often you see your niece, or if she lives near you), then you might take further steps, including talking to the child's parents, having a chat with her about it at a time in which you are both calm and removed from the situation (not five minutes after something gets destroyed, I mean), putting things away before she comes over, restricting her access to certain rooms of the house, meeting them on neutral territory or at her house, etc. Three years old is still quite young, and if such a thing happened repeatedly, I'd do all of those things, and wait until she matures a bit more before relaxing such rules.

Was the child's mom or dad present? What did s/he say? Sometimes when handling OPKs I will take a cue from or follow the lead of the parent. If I'm keeping someone else's child at my house, then I generally treat them the way I treat my kids--our house rules are the same for all, and we handle problem-solving issues and redirections the same way across the board. If you don't have kids, this might be hard to come up with maybe, lacking general kid-related policies and procedures perhaps, but really it boils down to having clear, honest communication with children, exactly like you did above.

(Sometimes kids who are in my charge don't quite know what to do when I ask them to help problem-solve--the differences in the ways we parent and our kids' friends' parents parent are becoming more obvious as the kids get older)--but hey, my house my rules! You got a problem--you're expected to help with the solution!)

Even tricker with OPKs are playground situations where there is no other parent around (as far as I can tell), and the other parent hasn't explicitly left the child in my care. So OPKs who cut in line at the slide or try to blow into the other end of a snorkel while my child is wearing it (sitting on him and pushing him down into the water in the process) or even very little ones who wander in the pathway of a swing or a slide--it's a little trickier because sometimes you can't predict how the other parent will react. Though I generally just follow my usual Kid Policies and Procedures: "Oh hey! Did you see that this girl [pointing to Morgan] was waiting for a turn?" or "He doesn't want you to touch his snorkel or push him down. Can you give him some space please?" or "Oops! You're very close to the swings!" and then gently scoop the kid out of the way.

I have rarely had a negative reaction from other parents (who often appear from nowhere when the realize someone else is disciplining their child--as I would, too), but I've had a few, including one mother who was appalled that I might scoop her toddler out of the way of an incoming swing + kid. For the record, anyone reading this--PLEASE feel free to scoop my kids if they're in danger! :o) I read a blog post a while back about a dad who did something similar at a playground and the other parent called the cops!

One more version of tricky--when other parents you are friends with or see fairly regularly are doing things that makes you worry they are putting their children into harm's way. We have neighbors and one of the elderly, nearly helpless, grandmas lives with them. Yet they continued to use her as a babysitter for the kids after school let out and before they got home from work, etc. So many times she was unable to unlock the door from the inside of the house to let the kids inside--the kids would come here and get the extra key. Trying to get my neighbor (who I used to be closer to than I am now, for other reasons) to understand my concerns about the safety of the kids (and the granny) was futile. I always felt torn about sending them there if they'd been here playing and one of the parents was not yet home. Finally I got to a place where I had to let it go. This was the parents' decision, and both kids are old enough and have enough sense I think to come get me or another neighbor should something happen. My neighbor knows I'm uneasy about her arrangement, but again, it's her decision. It was easier for me to let it go once I sat down and thought about the kids, what I knew about them and how sensible they are, and also now that they're a bit older.

I'm definitely interested in more discussion about how to handle situations with other people's kids!

One thing I'd like to add to my response that pertains specifically to Diana's original question: When dealing with little ones--your own or the ones who belong to others--tone of voice is critical. (I'm sure Diana's tone of voice was appropriate!) I mention this because it's an issue that I often need to watch in myself.

I'm not suggesting that you keep all emotion out of your voice. Even young children are hardy enough to experience the consequences of their actions, and that includes emotional consequences in others. Still, sometimes I have to make myself step back and repeat "Assume Positive Intent" and remember that the little ones especially simply don't know about these things yet, and a gentle tone will get my point across effectively, too.

What say you?

Kids & Money

(Originally posted at Rational Jenn)

Money is a Good Thing (my recent obsession with Twitter makes it hard not to precede "Good Thing" with a #).

Oh yes, money is dead useful if you need to buy something or do something fun or eat, and we seem to go through an awful lot of it around here.

Beginning a couple of years ago, Ryan (now nearly 7) developed a keen interest in money of all kinds , and quickly grasped two key principles concerning money: More Money = Better; and My Money = MINE. Morgan is not quite there yet, but she is beginning to discover that we hand over money to cashiers at stores and we then get to bring items home. So she'll get there.

So Brendan and I began to discuss ways in which to help Ryan get the money he yearned for while making sure that we help him understand just where money comes from. Easy discussion, right? Ha! This money issue turned out to be the only major disagreement Brendan and I have ever had about parenting. (Tip: try to avoid major philosophical disagreements while one of the parties is pregnant or newly post-partum. I know it sometimes can't be avoided, but try.)

There seem to be two main schools of thought about how to teach kids about money: the Allowance School and the Chores School. There are many different combinations of the two ideas. When we first started talking about Ryan and his desire for money, I was very pro-allowance and Brendan wanted Ryan to get his spending money solely through earning it. It became clear that we had different ideas about kids and money, partly because of our own childhood experiences. What we ended up doing is defining some of the goals and thoughts we had about money, our principles, and have developed a way for us to satisfy all of them. I think. :o)

Ryan's Goal

To have money of his own!


Brendan's and My Goals

To help our kids understand:

• How wealth is created
• That earning money is tied to hard work
• Money management skills, including budgeting and planning
• The value of saving

Brendan was, and to a certain degree remains, very much in the Chore camp. Any and all money ought to be directly earned by the child working to do something meaningful around the house.

I also like the idea of the kids earning money through chores. Because of course it reinforces the concept that wealth is earned, and the Trader Principle, too. So what was my problem? It was all in the execution.

We tried the Chore route for a while last summer and it was really darn hard for me to keep up with. Now I have no problem paying kids (or anyone!) to do extra jobs around the house (especially the Cruel and Unusual kind, such as tax preparation and yard work and window-washing), but coming up with daily tasks that a kid could get paid to do was a big pain for me. Which tasks? How much should I pay? How much did I pay last time? What if I'm short on cold hard cash at the moment the task is/needs to be completed? (I often don't have tons of cash lying around. Uh, in case you were wondering.)

Not only were there administrative issues which I didn't enjoy and took up more of my time than I wanted to contribute, Ryan seemed to be unable to grasp the distinction between jobs we would pay for and things everyone needs to help out with as part of living in a family (aka responsibilities). So he was beginning to say things to me like: "You owe me a dollar. I just took my plate to the sink!" or my very favorite: "How much will you pay me?" when asked to do things such as clean up a mess of his own making or brush his teeth. Charming.

So I brought up the idea of a regular allowance again. I had received an allowance as a child, but Brendan never did. I liked having money of my own and being able to count on adding a certain amount to my stash each week. I still had the option of earning extra money if I wanted to by doing extra work around the house. Getting a regular allowance helps a person learn all of those money management skills such as planning and budgeting and tracking expenses. It's easy to administer and eliminates the Pay-For-Existing revenue model that Ryan was using.

Brendan's primary objection to an allowance was that simply giving money over to the child without explicitly tying it to industrious effort will result in an adult who somehow thinks money and wealth do not need to be earned and created, or worse, that it somehow comes from the government. He doesn't want our kids to think that money somehow magically appears. And of course, I agree.

But how to address the idea that wealth is earned and not a handout?

We can do this in two ways. First, we own two businesses, and the older kids understand that "Dad works for his clients in exchange for money that we use to buy things." They do the happy dance with me when we receive a check from the company that manages our cabin rentals for us, and accompany me to deposit the check in the bank. We always talk about how people give us money in exchange for getting to stay at our cabin, and that we use that money to pay for electricity at the cabin and other things, too. I really think that Ryan at least has a solid grasp (for a kid) about how we get our money--through our thinking and efforts. I really don't see how the kids wouldn't connect our earning money with our efforts, unless we tried to hide it from them for some reason.

The second way is to continue to pay them for Cruel and Unusual Work, as referenced above. This is how my parents did it with us, and I think there is room for both schools of thought in our house, too. It's similar to earning a bonus at work for doing an extra project.

But Brendan was still a holdout on the allowance issue, despite my well-reasoned and airtight arguments attempts to demonstrate that a child receiving an allowance would not necessarily guarantee that he will end up on welfare.

Brendan views allowance as a "handout." So I suggested that we instead look at a weekly allowance as a way to turn over to Ryan a very small portion of the money we already spend on him. We spend money on him all the time: we share our food and share our home and electricity and cars: why not share our money, the means with which we acquire those things we share with them? Brendan was worried that they would somehow get used to having money handed to them; the fact of the matter is that kids are necessarily dependent on us. They can't go get jobs, at least not yet, and rely on us to take care of their needs. In giving Ryan some control over a bit of money, we can provide him with experience in handling financial matters, and as he grows, the money and responsibilities will grow, too.

So we decided to try the allowance plan, to the tune of $3 a week, and have been on the plan since about October. I win! We reached a mutually beneficial agreement, which we can revisit later if things aren't working out according to plan.

We have a few parameters around his allowance.

Ryan is in complete control of his money. He can spend it or save it however he wants. I think this is important because it's his property. That means he is responsible for his good and bad decisions. There is no savings requirement and certainly not a charitable donation requirement, as many websites about kids and money seem to suggest.

He can buy whatever he wants to with it: toys, candy, books, etc. (subject to general restrictions like movies we don't think are appropriate, for example). Ryan seems to enjoy saving up for specific things, but he also splurges, too (he's a sucker for vending machine rubber balls). If he wanted to give all of his money to a charity, we wouldn't stop him--we'd probably have a chat about it, just to see why he wanted to do it; but we wouldn't make him do it either.

He is in charge of keeping track of it. As Brendan is fond of saying, "What can you buy with Lost Money? Nothing." Since Ryan has been responsible for his own money, he is very careful to put his allowance in his wallet and treasure box.

But, as a condition of us turning over some of the money we spend on him, we have told him, and he has agreed, that Brendan and I will no longer buy him LEGO or souvenirs on vacation. As he gets older, he'll receive more money, but will also be expected to be responsible for other kinds of purchases. For example, at some point, I don't know exactly when, he'll get a clothing budget and make all of those decisions for himself. The reason we started with LEGO and souvenirs is that those are two general expense categories where Ryan always, always wants us to buy something for him, and until recently he has had very little concern with how much those kinds of items cost.

Extra money can always be earned by working on household projects for a mutually agreed upon price. This includes all of those jobs I mentioned before, and I'm sure we'll think of others that fall into the category. Picking up one's toys and putting one's laundry in the laundry room is a responsibility, not a revenue opportunity.

His allowance is not tied to any punishment or reward. This was a hard idea for Brendan and me to work through, but once we did we renewed our commitment to non-punitive discipline techniques (PD). The allowance is shared with him, provided for him--in the same way we provide a home. It is not a reward for good behavior. And just as we would not withhold food from our kids as punishment, or take away a toy they love, money should be no different. I would hate to remove money or other property because it would give them the wrong impression that property rights can be violated at the parent's discretion.

I think the solution Brendan and Ryan and I reached is a good one for our family. It reinforces our values: property rights, responsibility, independent decision-making, learning about money management. It gives him the opportunity to earn more money if he wants--he's planning to do a bunch of yard work as soon as the weather clears up. It lets Brendan and me off the hook for certain optional spending--LEGOs, which are really pricey!

And we are of course still continuing our family conversation about how Daddy (and sometimes Mommy) earns money, why he earns it, the hard work that goes into it, what happens to the money we get, where the money that we spend goes, etc. The kids have always been involved in our work; it's just how we do things. We take them to meetings concerning the cabin; Brendan takes them to work with him; they help mail out bills and invoices; they go to the bank. And one day Ryan will get a job and get a more personal perspective!

I'm certain that there are many different solutions to the money question. We haven't encountered some things yet, since our oldest is just getting into the money thing. One day I imagine that we'll open bank accounts and show them how to balance a checkbook and do a budget. Right now, the main concept that Ryan is having trouble with is the idea of "making change." But since he has just cottoned on to the subtraction idea recently, I think we'll make some good headway there pretty soon.

How do you handle money with your kids?

Resources

For some interesting pro-allowance essays, see Kids Money.
Clark Smart Parents, Clark Smart Kids, by Clark Howard.

Do the Right Thing

(Originally posted at Rational Jenn)

Ryan's best little buddy from next door was here all day yesterday. His grandfather died and we offered to keep him so my friends could take care of what they needed to without kids around. So we had him for a looooong time yesterday.

Ryan and A had a great time, not even a minor fight, which is good for them. They tend to bicker like siblings, having known each other literally since the day A was born (when we took Ryan, all of 5.5 months old, to the hospital with us that day). So yesterday, they played in the backyard for a while, then spent a goodly amount of time on LEGO projects. In the afternoon, they wanted to play out in the front, which is a Big Deal in Kid-dom around here. I told them they could, since both are trustworthy enough not to play in traffic.

After a while, Ryan came running into the house and said, "I think A has done something that he might need to go to court for."

Court? Errr? What happened?

Turns out, Ryan and A were having a rousing game of Let's Throw Big Rocks, when an enthusiastic but unfortunately wild effort by A resulted in a busted windshield. Of another neighbor's car. A new car. A brand new car.

Whoops.

I reassured Ryan that I didn't think anybody was going to need to go to court over this (I hope). But we needed to go tell the owners of the car what happened, apologize, and tell them that we would pay for the repairs.

Ryan didn't need convincing, but his friend did. He was hiding and tearful and thought he was going to be in Big Trouble. And the poor thing is under a little stress right now, too. I felt for him, but I made him come with us. He was soooooo reluctant--saying that it was an accident, he didn't mean to, etc. But I told him that it was still our responsibility to tell what happened and fix it if we could.

So we talked about what we should say to our neighbor, practiced it a bit, and then went across the street to Mr. Neighbor's house.

Ryan just stepped right on up and rang the doorbell. I explained what happened and offered my apologies and told him we'd pay to get the windshield fixed. Our neighbor had a look on his face that made me think he was remembering his own boyhood, and thankfully didn't fuss at the boys or me. He has lived across the street from A's house for 10 years, and even though we're not close, I think he knows that we're all nice people. :o)

I asked the boys if they had anything to say to Mr. Neighbor and Ryan looked him right in the eye and said "We're sorry we broke the window and we'll pay you back."

I can't even express how proud I was of him in that moment. He was so . . . unafraid. And truly sorry. And not just because he's going to use his own money to help get the windshield fixed.

When we talked about it later last night, right before bed, I told him how proud I was that he did the right thing. And he told me, "At first, after it happened, I thought the right thing to do was to run and hide. So that's what I did. And A ran and hid with me. But then I thought, 'No, the right thing to do is tell someone what happened.' So I came and told you. And I'm glad, because I want to do the Right Thing." Music to my ears.

I really am sorry that Mr. Neighbor's windshield got broken, but I am so glad in a way that Ryan had this experience. I think I handled it well and Mr. Neighbor was cool--irritated, sure, but you never know if someone's going to have a temper about such things. This incident--and the feeling he got from doing the Right Thing--will be something Ryan remembers for a long time.

Needless to say, they'll be playing in the backyard (where it's easier for me to watch them) for a while. And . . . court? Where in the world does he pick these things up?