Lord knows, I don't have all the answers to how to raise kids mostly because each kid is different and what works for one doesn't work for the other two children I have.
What I have learned is that you have to pay attention and find the incentive that your kid needs.
Some of this "paying attention to incentives" comes from subbing. I had one boy who didn't want to clean up his area. He had papers on the floor and food wrappers. I tried encouraging and reminding until someone said there was a spider in the room and this particular child freaked out.
DING! DING! INCENTIVE FOUND.
I said, "You know, bugs really love messes. All those papers on the floor give them plenty of places to hide, and they love to eat the food residue that is on wrappers and on the food debris under your desk."
This kid cleaned up his area not because he wanted to please me (he did not care), but to avoid bugs.
N and M are natural savers, while money in G's pockets burns figurative holes.
I realized that I had to very deliberately talk about why he needs to save (because it causes me anxiety when he doesn't because it makes me worry he is going to grow up and live in my basement forever).
I also had to put timelines on him until he can get better at putting timelines on himself and control his spending impulses. I have to incentivize saving because he doesn't have a natural tendency to want to do this. I'm hoping that after years and years and years he won't need me actually saying stuff to him but will have internalized it.
He likes video games, so after he buys some, I don't let him buy for several months. However, if he is able to save up his money to a certain amount, he can then buy something. No saving=longer wait to buy another game. More saving=shorter wait.
Since N now works a "real" part-time job, G and M are the primary neighborhood petsitters in their little business. They earn great money doing this. I have never given them an allowance, although this summer I am paying both boys for any chapter books they read ($5 per book).
G wants more money, and G isn't too interested in reading chapter books. I'm hoping payment for reading (which I've never done before) might be the incentive he needs.
One of the issues D had with G saving up and spending his money was that he bought things that D thought were stupid. D said, "He doesn't even finish these games."
My response was: "You buy a brand new iPhone every couple years and spend over $1,000 ON A PHONE which I think is stupid. You don't want someone telling you that you can or can't buy with money that is yours. Same applies to G."
The truth is I hate shopping so most everything that anyone buys I personally think is stupid.
But that's not the point.
The point is that the kids learn to save their money so they can buy without debt the stupid things they want.
It is important that the kids know that mom and dad aren't going to buy them everything they want. If they want to drive, they pay the insurance and gas. If they want something beyond the basic food, shelter, clothing that we provide they can buy that stuff, too. We don't look at Christmas and birthdays as the time to get our children their heart's desires.
My kids aren't perfect, but they have learned fairly well that no one can have everything they want the exact moment they want it.
I try to remind them that when they see friends who have more than we have (and FFS, we have a lot), those kids have both moms and dads who work full-time. They are reminded that we don't know what those family's credit reports look like, how much retirement savings they have, how much overall debt they hold. We only see what they have; we don't know how they paid for it or if they paid for it or whether they'll be paying for it for a really long time. We don't know if the kids going to X,Y,Z college are in debt because of it. We don't know if these families pay outright for their cars or have loans they pay each month. My kids are reminded often that what they see is only half of the story (and that's generous).
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