Allowance

Aiden announced to me yesterday that he wanted to begin earning some money. I don't know if he gets WHY someone would earn money, but I guess it sounded like a good enough idea to him.
We began with me explaining to him that mommy and daddy both go to work to earn money, so if he wanted to earn money, he would have to do some work too. That sounded OK to him and he said that he wanted to do some work right away.

He had made a bit of a mess with his train tracks earlier that day, so I told him that if he cleaned up his train tracks, he would earn 10 cents. I have never seen him clean up so quickly or with such joy before! It was pretty cute. Once he finished, we went into my bedroom where we keep our huge spare change jar and he picked out two nickels for himself.

Once he had the nickels in his hand, we had to think about where he would keep the money that he earned. We had the idea of making a money jar out of a spare jam jar from the kitchen. We then got some colored construction paper (Aiden picked blue), wrapped it around the jar and taped it, and then we wrote 'Aiden's Money Jar' on it. I told Aiden that he could put his 10 cents in the jar, but he asked me to draw two circles on the paper first. So I did and then he placed the two nickels onto the two circles and asked for tape. He decided that he wanted to use his first 10 cents to decorate the jar! It was adorable and he was so proud of himself.

I explained the whole thing to John once he got home and he was all for it. After I got home from work later that evening, I walk in to find the living room all cleaned up. Aiden had earned 5 more cents by helping to clean up before bed and was apparently quite happy with the situation.

We haven't really discussed if there will be a weekly amount we'll give him or if we'll just decide how much he should earn for each little job he does based upon what it is. I'm just so proud of Aiden for bringing the subject up on his own. And maybe now there won't be such a fight to get him to clean things up when I ask!

Aiden with his new money jar!

His money jar all decorated, just like he wanted.