The Entitlement Trap

I've been reading a book called "The Entitlement Trap" by Richard and Linda Eyre.  I'm generally not a fan of parenting books, but this book caught my eye for three reasons.

1.  It was written by a couple who happen to be members of our church.  That tells me that they have the same basic family values that we have.

2.  This paragraph in a book review that I saw on Pinterest:  "It attacks the biggest parenting problem of our time, and YOU NEED IT even if your kids don't have an entitlement attitude (because their friends do!).  You know, because if so-and-so has it they MUST have it too.  

3.  Two of our older kids suffer HORRIBLY from this entitlement issue.  They think they are entitled to everything and they want it NOW.  Is it something we did wrong?  Heck yes.  I didn't have to get past the first paragraph to figure that out.  We have to fix it so we don't do it again with the younger boys. 

When our "older set" of kids was younger, we pretty much bought their happiness.  We felt guilty because of the emotional trauma they had gone through with divorce and setting up a new family, and we bought them whatever they wanted.  Most times they didn't even have to ask.  They all had nice clothing, new gadgets and technology, and cell phones early on.  We justified it by divorce strain, and also by telling ourselves "They are such good kids..."  Nobody ever really earned anything on their own merits by working for it.  Toys were easily broken because they didn't VALUE them.  Clothes were lost because they didn't understand the VALUE of them.  Major parenting mistakes.  We worked our butts off to make sure those kids were happy.  And I didn't understand how tragic that mistake was until the author's put it like this:

"Do your kids work for you, or do YOU work for your kids?"

In other words, are you running them around to practices or lessons every day, play groups, parks, spending so much time making them happy that they think you OWE it to them?  I'm guilty.  I want my kids to be happy.  We go from one sporting season to the next, I take Justice to school on Saturday, we do this, that and the other for the kids.  The park, playing whatever they want outside, etcetera.  I plan menus around them, we watch whatever they want on TV.  Life revolves around them and making them happy.  Apparently it's not supposed to work like that or they grow up to not appreciate anything.  

I get it.  Doing EVERYTHING for your children without establishing a sense of value creates a giant spoiled kid.  And guess what else?  It makes them incapable of taking care of themselves when they are older.  We eventually took a hard stance with the two older offenders and forced them to sink or swim. And they both sank because they had NO IDEA how to take care of themselves.  Because we never taught them.  We thought we were teaching them though, we rewarded good behavior and good grades, felt sports were important, and if they performed well we payed well.  We have learned some things on our own over the years about these mistakes, specifically about sports.  I remember the event that changed our "pay for points" stance.  I was at one of Justice's soccer games and a little girl wasn't playing well.  Her Mom called her over to the sidelines and this is the conversation:

Mom:  "Why aren't you playing well?"

Kid:  "I don't feel like it."

Mom:  "What's wrong?"

Kid:  "Pay me 7 dollars instead of 5 for each goal plus McDonalds and I will play better."

Mom:  "Deal!"

The girl proceeds to go out and score three goals.  And the Mom thinks it's cute.  And I'm thinking "You are so screwed, wait till she is a teenager."  BACKFIRE!!  I was freaking FLOORED.  Seriously?????  And from that day forward their would be NO payment for any points scored.  Thank goodness Justice was just out their because he loved it and we never paid him anyway... But we made it perfectly clear that his reward for scoring any points was us just affording him the opportunity to play.  

We also stopped paying for grades.  You get good grades because your life will suck if you don't.  End of story.  Not a popular stance with most parents, but like I said, we learned the hard way.

One thing we have noticed is that one of our older kids doesn't suffer from this entitlement problem.  He was the one with the bad grades that never got paid.  The one that wouldn't play sports so he never got paid.  The one that would always lose his clothes all over town so we stopped buying him expensive name brand stuff.  He never asks us for ANYTHING.  We helped him pay for college, but he didn't ask us to.  He actually appreciates every single thing we have ever given him, and now we totally understand why.

One of the older kids moved out a while back because she was an "adult" and truly thought she was doing it on her own.  She wasn't even close.  She borrowed money to pay her rent on more than one occasion, and we still pay her car payment as well as her car insurance.   We have nobody to blame but ourselves for that.  We finally cracked down on her, stopped the handouts and she was forced to move back in.  She is going to have a RUDE awakening in a few months when the car she is driving is paid off, transferred to her name, and she is taken off of our insurance and responsible for her own.  The irresponsibility of four traffic accidents and two speeding tickets is going to smack her upside the head hard when she stares down at that insurance estimate.  

I have not finished reading the book yet, but one of the things we wanted to start immediately was a new allowance and chores plan for the boys.  We used the method suggested in the book.  Each child earns the dollar amount per week equal to their age.  So Justice earns ten per week and Jack four.  This seems like a lot of money until you put the second part of the plan into action.  The kids have to pay for HALF of everything that they want.  This is what creates the sense of ownership, as well as starts them out learning dollar value very early in age.  You want a pair of jeans?  You pay half.  You want new pencils for school?  Half.  But only after you pay your 10% tithing and put 20% in your savings account.  Whatever is left goes into your spending envelope for future purchases.  That's where we screwed up with the older kids.  They never had to pay for anything... the loads of extra money they got was spent on whatever they wanted to spend it on.  They had it made.

I created these charts for the boys, and they are required to mark each item off daily as they complete it. Jack's is fairly simple because he's just four.  He is also really good at doing his chores.  He always has been.  He has been feeding the dogs by himself for almost a year now and never complains and does a great job.  

Justice's chart is further detailed because he's older, and he needs the structure.  His ADHD meds work awesome during the school day, but they wear off right about the time he gets home from school.  That makes a schedule difficult for him unless it's written on paper.

If either of them misses a checkmark, they get half the dollar amount per week.  If they miss two, they get nothing.  We have a system in place where if they actually do miss two marks they have the ability to earn no more than one back by doing a special chore.  Giving the dogs a bath, sweeping the driveway, etc.  Justice missed one checkmark his first week and he was DEVASTATED.  He cried and cried and cried, and tried to justify missing it and we were THIS close to giving him a pass his first week, but we realized that is exactly what got us into this mess with the older kids to begin with.  We stuck to our guns and we are so glad we did.  He told me this morning he was NOT missing a checkmark this week.  If we would have let him slide he wouldn't have learned a thing.  

Here is our "bank".  I have enough small bills and change to give each of them exact change for tithing and spending.  

I keep tithing slips in the bank, and each boy has a small composition book to keep track of how much they have earned, tithed, saved, and spent.  

We have payday on Saturday, and at that time they fill out their tithing slips (I fill out Jack's) and they watch me transfer their 20% to their savings accounts.  They fill out the composition books and we discuss what needs they might have coming up that they want to save for.  And funny thing... all of the sudden Justice has stopped bugging me for a few toys he wants.  He says he has enough toys right now.  After only one week I can see the difference in this system.  It's not so important if he has to pay for half of it.  

Jackson is a little different with money.  He's already a tight wad.  He's the kid that at age four goes through the pants-pockets in the laundry looking for change.  He scours parking lots, couch cushions, and nightstands for what he calls "found money".  He has a jar he painted himself that he calls his "found money jar" where he stores it all.

The best picture of all... Jack paying his tithing for the very first time!  Jack was SO excited, and our Bishop did a great job of making him feel important when he gave it to him. 

Good financial habits like saving money and paying a full tithe need to be set at a very young age so it becomes something they've always known.  I think we are on a much better track now, and I look forward to seeing how well this system works in the future.  I also look forward to finishing this book so we can continue to make some positive changes towards raising self-sufficient and financially savvy kids.