7 surprising results when you pay your kids for chores
One of our parenting goals is to rear frugal kids. Take care of their stuff. Spend wisely. Save for a rainy day.
Making the goal is easy, but implementing the goal? Definitely harder.
How Our (Current) Allowance System Works
Over the last couple of years, we’ve been experimenting with the best ways to teach our kids to manage money. What I’ve learned is that it’s best to keep our system flexible as the kids mature and develop more skills. So we decided that our system will probably always be subject to change so we can accommodate their growth, but here’s how our family’s allowance system currently works:
Family Allowance System
- Each child has a spiral notebook.
- Every day, write down the jobs they need to complete. This includes things they need to do for music lessons or school. Add in things that help the entire household run more smoothly.
- They check off each task as they complete it.
- If they complete all their jobs, write in the standard pay rate. If they don’t? Nada.
- At the end of the week, total each day and pay them.
- They must give 10 percent and save 10 percent in their savings account, but the rest is pretty much up to them.
It’s Not Without Challenges
I say that what they do with the rest of their earnings is “pretty much up to them” because sometimes we have to intervene a little bit. (See the shoe example below.) So that’s a bit of a challenge, but there’s other issues to tackle too. If you pay your kids for chores, do you have similar challenges to ours?
Challenges of Paying Your Kids for Chores
- Finding the balance between having enough jobs for them to do, while still allowing plenty of play time and down time.
- Deciding how much to pay them — enough so they’re motivated, but not too much so they stop being hungry for more money-making opportunities. (But how much is that?)
- Figuring out what they should be responsible to pay for themselves
- Thinking through whether any restrictions should be placed on what they can buy.
- Defining age-appropriate expectations.
- Teaching a healthy relationship to money.
7 Surprising Results When You Pay Your Kids for Chores
This isn’t a perfect system, but I wanted to share what surprised me. And you may notice similar things too.
1. They take better care of their stuff.
Our current system actually started when I decided the kids needed to buy their own tennis shoes for school.
When I bought their shoes, they didn’t take care of them. To say the least, our kids’ shoes weren’t looking good at the end of the last school year. For the 2015-16 school year, it was time they bought their own shoes.
I figured out how much I would need to pay them each day in the summer so they would be able to pay $50 or so for a pair of tennis shoes and still have about $100 left over after their giving/saving money.
In the spirit of keepin’ it real, I need to tell you that this was too overwhelming for my eight-year-old. She often didn’t complete her jobs for the day, because she just wanted to play. She squeaked by with enough money for shoes, but had very little left over. She also doesn’t seem as interested in caring for her shoes. Maybe she’s not developmentally ready for this?
On the other hand, our 11-year-old takes GREAT care of his shoes. He rarely wears them outside just to play. Multiple times he’s told me that he wants to make them last as long as possible.
2. They make some choices based on quality vs. quantity.
Going back to the shoe example, I explained that I had learned that cheaper shoes weren’t always the best value. However, they could choose their own shoes and spend as much (or as little) as they wanted. They bought more durable shoes.
Not all their purchases are as mindful yet, though.
3. They prioritize their own wants and spending.
If they ask for anything extra, I’ll usually ask them to buy it.
If they really want something, I don’t mind chipping in. But almost 100 percent of the time, they either didn’t really want it enough in the first place or they easily make a plan to get it.
For example, my daughter’s school book fair was last week. She didn’t have quite enough money for the book she wanted, so she asked for extra jobs to earn more. She eagerly did enough jobs to earn enough to make up the difference.
4. They manage their time better.
Slowly, I’m starting to see them plan their afternoons better. While they still have plenty of days where they play first, they’ve started working on their jobs first most days.
Too many times, they ran out of time before completing their jobs for the day. The only thing worse than not getting paid for doing nothing is to do some of the jobs and not get paid for it!
5. They look for entrepreneurial opportunities.
When our family complaint department gets complaints of low wages, I say I’ll accept proposals for a raise for additional responsibilities. So far, I haven’t received any proposals.
However, the kids are looking for opportunities to earn money from others.
I love to see their minds mull over the possibilities. And I love to discuss their ideas — How will you find customers? How much do they want/can they afford to pay you? Why would someone pay you when they could do it themselves?
6. This cuts down on conflict.
In my opinion, the best thing that’s come out of tying their chores to money is that it takes nagging out of the picture (almost – hehe).
At this point, they know they need to do their entire list to earn money. While I still get annoyed if I have to pick up their stuff or dry the dishes, I say to myself, “Their consequence for not putting their backpack away is not getting paid. A lecture is no longer included.”
Er, at least that’s how I want to be. Nagging and lectures come so easily, that I’m still working on that. But I’m getting a lot better. I still whip out lectures when the situation calls for it, but I try to let consequences be the lecture in most situations.
7. As they manage their money, they’re learning about sales tax, interest, prices, and bank deposits.
Having money to save and spend naturally helps introduce financial concepts to them. They now know they need to consider sales tax in addition to the list price (and shipping if they are ordering online). They look at their bank statements and see the measly interest added to their accounts.
They also seem to be making a connection between their efforts to earn money and what something costs.
While we have a long way to go and we’re still making a lot of mistakes, I am happy with the improvements this system has made to our home and their knowledge about money.
If you pay your kids for chores, what positive results have you noticed that surprised you? Do you face any challenges about allowances?
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There are 33 comments to "7 surprising results when you pay your kids for chores".
Financial challenges are a part of life which should be taught to children from a very early age. This has positive effects in their life and they start to learn the value of money from very early stage. Nice article. Thanks for sharing.
I like this, I think my favorite part is that you get paid only if you do all of your chores. The next favorite part is cut down on nagging. Taking out the household trash was my chore growing up, and I think I noticed it more readily. Lastly, showing your kids about banking early on makes it less scary in the future.
My challenge is getting organized to keep track of the chores, pay, and having my son bring his money with him to buy things. He’s four so we’ve just started and already I can see benefits. Right now he is motivated to earn so he can buy food for a food drive, and buy his little sister a ($1) birthday present. As he gets older we are going to need to be more organized about what he pays for himself, though.
I also have problems with keeping myself organized. Even though I rewrite their lists every day (which doesn’t seem efficient), I only have to keep track of one notebook per child. Probably wouldn’t work for a 4 year old, but I feel your pain!
We have been using Three Jars for quite a few years. It is great for tracking chores and payouts.
While I approve of teaching kids responsibility, some chores should be done simply because you are part of the family. Keeping rooms clean, doing the dishes, taking out the trash and putting away your own clothes come to mind. I can see docking allowances for these being undone, but not making them paying chores. There are plenty of other chores that can be money earning. I mean seriously, no one pays me to cook dinner or mow the lawn.
Barv, you hit the nail on the head. Why isn’t anyone paying us to do the laundry and cook?! That would be fantastic!
As you can see in my comment to Jules, I was not paid for chores, so I don’t know if it’s the best solution. But it’s definitely working well now.
I know our plan will evolve again eventually
“There are plenty of other chores that can be money earning.”
Like what, do you mind me asking?
The reason I ask is this: once, my mom found out my dad was paying my brothers for extra help doing yard work around the house and my grandparents cottage while I was expected to do extra work around the home for free. Message being received was that “men’s work” = $$ while “women’s work” = free. Needless to say Mom put a stop to that pretty quickly!
We settled into a system where there were chores we had to handle ourselves (like cleaning our own rooms) and ones that rotated (we took turns cleaning, setting the table, cooking, etc. so we learned essential household skills.) Anything above and beyond was an opportunity to earn extra cash.
I think we need to be careful how we pay for chores (or not) because children learn lessons about how household labour is valued (or not). I like the model of having to pay the parents for chores that don’t get done because that’s how life works for me. True, no one pays me to cook, but I have to pay someone else to cook if i don’t do it!
From the other side, we were never paid for doing chores as children. Chores were what you had to do as your contribution to keeping the household running smoothly (my parents didn’t want us to get in the habit of expecting a reward for what was essentially good behaviour).
My parents taught financial responsibility by giving each of us a budget for essentials and a corresponding list of things that had to be purchased. It was up to you how you split your budget among the required list (so you might spend more on tennis shoes and a designer t-shirt and then economise with own-brand jeans) and you were free to top up the budget with babysitting or birthday money, but if you ran out of cash before you got everything on the list, Mom got to pick out the missing items, you weren’t allowed to complain about her choices, and the cost was deducted from your next budget allowance.
The final step in the process was to receive a credit card tied to Dad’s account at 15. You were then responsible for all your own needs, plus errands for the parents as requested (such as a grocery shop twice a month, filling up one of the family cars, etc). Dad continued to pay the bills, but you had to sit down with him every month and explain each entry on the bill and why it was the amount it was. If he didn’t feel your explanation was sufficient, you had to cough up the cash.
We also weren’t paid for chores when I was a kid. So it’s been challenging to pay the kids, but this is working really well for now. I am sure we’ll adapt it again next summer.
Eventually I would like to get to a system like you had. By the time our kids graduate from high school, I want them to be budgeting for everything we would normally buy for them.
But we’re at a good starting point for now.
Thanks for sharing your family’s experiences!
I recently started using a reward system at home for completion of a daily to-do-list and it is working out great. This post offer me a lot areas where I could get creative and teach personal finance to my kids.
I always got paid to do my chores, and I must say that I’ve developed all of these traits. I’m not sure about “reducing conflict” though, since I was an only child. I plan on paying my kids to do chores – they’ll be my little butlers and maids. Kidding!
Instead of paying our children (6 and 9) for chores, they pay us for the chores they don’t do. The get a set allowance every week and a list of chores they’re expected to do. On Fridays they’re paid their allowance and they have to settle up with us, any chore they didn’t do, they have to pay us back for doing it for them.
We also encourage saving – any money they put in the bank and leave for a week, we match. They also donate 10%.
I agree, the items they’ve purchased with their own money are better cared for, and they’ve learned that impulse buying means they don’t have the money they need for bigger purchases later.
I think you’re missing one important part of the equation. They shouldn’t be taught just how to save their allowance, they should be taught how to invest it. I’ve set up custodial investing accounts for my kids. I’m teaching them how to buy stock in companies that are interesting to them such as Disney. I’m hoping that they will learn about the stock market and investing as well was saving and budgeting. This is how my in-laws, who were both immigrants to this country, taught my husband and his brother. It worked very well for them. We are repeating their lessons with the next generation.
Important point about investing!
Also, whenever I see the enforced breakdown of spending, giving, and saving, I wonder when the children are allowed to spend the savings. Who decides that, and how?
Louise, this is how we’re doing it right now. The 10% they goes into their savings account. And it doesn’t come up until they have something big to pay for (college, car, etc.) or until they reach 18. If they want to save more than 10% for a short-term goal (maybe something big like a bike). It’s a work in progress!
I think you are missing one very important part of the equation. The kids should not be taught just how to budget save and give to charity, but they should be taught how to invest as well. My children are required to invest part of their allowance. I’ve opened custodial investing accounts for them and have them invest in stocks that are of interest to them such as Disney. My goal is for them to learn how to invest and to learn about the stock market. This is how my in-laws,who were immigrants to this country taught my husband and his brother. It was a very successful lesson. We are continuing their teaching with the next generation.
Right now, we are paying them a very low amount, so 10% of their monthly wage is kind of pathetic. BUT, this is a great idea when they start earning more!
This is a great article. I found you through the “should you buy your child a car” article. They are definitely related subjects.
As you have stated a couple of times when you and your husband are raised differently you have differences on what you should do with your kids. Allowance is one of those things with us. Growing up my mother had a long list of chores for us to do, our house was expected to be very clean as we didn’t have a lawn to mow or farm animals, etc. However, my father paid us a very generous $5 per week allowance and we were paid on his pay day, so we got $10 every other week. This was a lot of money then (I’m 39) and still is really. He worked a blue collar job and my mom had odd jobs to help make ends meat, but he was extremely faithful with our allowance. He taught us the “Dave Ramsey” cash/envelope system before it was popular. We took our 10% tithe straight off the top then we had to have different envelopes: long term savings, short term savings, spending, etc. This taught me very young how to save and he would not give us a penny more (for extra stuff) they did pay for our necessary food and clothing. They always told me they could not pay for a car or for college or for extra stuff. (They did end up surprising me by giving me the $1000 beater car my dad had just finally bought for my mom as they always shared one car.) With this allowance and a good summer babysitting job for two years I paid for a trip to see family in Austrailia at the age of 15.
When my husband and I got married his parents hadn’t given him any allowance (or much money teaching) and he thought the kids should not be paid at all (like he hadn’t been). We compromised on 50cents per week. I wouldn’t pay the kids their allowance for a few months some times because it would be so little. I would always have paying jobs available if they wanted more money, but the basic chore chart chores had to be done every day. Little kids aren’t as motivated by money so I used 20 minutes of computer time to bribe mine with completing chores and school each day. If they don’t have chores and school done they are not allowed to even ask for tv/computer. They are also encouraged to look for work at neighbors houses and I even allowed a few of the kids to have in-house candy stores. Long story…but two of my little kids still have competing candy stores (cheaper than the grocery store) and me and my big kids get our candy fixes from them…with this we had to work out how to work with competition and how to run a simple business and also I had to set limits on how much they are allowed to buy per week…4 of the kids have owned candy stores.
17-years and 7 kids later I approached my husband about giving them a much larger allowance each month. He immediately agreed. We both had realized that the small amount was not nearly enough for big kids and we found our selves too easily handing them $5 here or $20 there for things we really should not have been paying for. We finally agreed on a sliding scale, they get a $1 raise on their birthdays and they get their amount of money that their age is once per month. It ends at 18. The 15-year-old gets $15, the 11-year-old gets $11, etc. I don’t know how much I like this system yet, we just started 2 months ago, but I do like it better. It has been much easier to tell my teenage daughter “no” to the things she easily asks me to buy for her. I also strictly implemented the envelope system with all of them like my dad had done with me. We added in charity for one of their envelopes and they choose how much they give, save, spend, etc. I now sit down with each of them once per month for their “money meeting” to help them figure out what their 10% is or if they need to make adjustments to their envelopes. For the little girls they can give themselves a pay check now and then from their candy store to pay for wanted items when their allowance won’t cover it. They can’t just take from their store as it’s a separate entity. The older kids have become more independent in doing the budgeting on their own. I still have paying jobs available anytime and now have a list of extra jobs and what I will pay for them to be done. They are encouraged to look for work with neighbors.
Teaching budgeting to kids is so important. It’s a skill that not everyone knows but is so vital to live with!
I’m a big believer in doing what works for a specific family. If paying your kids motivates them, cuts down on nagging and makes you happier, go for it! I’m not, however, convinced that big life lessons are being learned here. I suspect your 11 year old takes great care of his shoes because that’s the sort of kid he is. The kind of kid who’s hard wired to care of stuff that he truly feels is his. My 19 year old and 10 year old are that way and have been for many, many years. And I don’t see how I can take the credit for it since I haven’t really raised them differently from the other three.
We didn’t get paid for chores when we were kids, but our parents also didn’t give us money for anything, really ever. We were a happy family, but poor. Basic physical needs were met when we were small but from the time we were old enough to earn money we were expected to pay for ourselves. No money was going to be forthcoming from them. From the time we were 10 or so each of us were buying all our own clothes and quite a bit of our own food. There was no credit – if you personally couldn’t afford something you went without. But when we seven kids went out on our own we all had different experiences with money and credit. Some of us were naturally good at it (definitely not me), some of us were horrendous and had to hit bottom and some of us learned fairly early on that you had more options if you managed your money responsibly.
I don’t want to discount the importance of teaching kids about money. I think it’s important to teach kids your family’s basic money philosophy and never keep them in the dark about your family’s finances. I’m just not convinced very deliberate modeling has as big an effect as we like to think.
I really liked the book, “The First National Bank of Dad.” The author did some serious thinking on these subjects and didn’t want to be another “ATM Father.” I think his solutions were creative and greatly instilled the ideas you are going for; the very concept of money for little ones, interest, compound interest, time is money, entrepreneurism, investment, charity, what should be chores done-for-the-family and what should be chores done-for-money, etc. He even did a great job with a simulated stock market for kids to actively teach investing and market research.
I highly recommend the book for anyone struggling with these subjects that still has kids living with them. Its going for $9.99 on kindle and $13 paperback on amazon, I am in no way affiliated.
The one criticism I would have of the book is the author is VERY middle class. Some of his solutions like the simulated stock market would require the parents to potentially be in a higher income bracket, but it is still worth the read.
I have done similar things with my children, and one of the most important lessons learnt is the value of money rather than the bank of mum and dad. If they want something, they have got better at understanding the work involved to getting the reward (as well as kids can!).
…doesn’t forcing children to give part of their money to charity negate the whole concept of charity in the first place? If they’re not doing it by choice then it’s not really giving, is it?
Tyler, I’m not sure who you are addressing but I’ll give it a shot to answer you the way I see it.
If a poor man needs $2 to buy himself a loaf of bread, does he care if the rich man wanted to give him that money or not? Weather you want to give or not, you are still doing good.
I didn’t learn to give to the poor until I was an adult. My husband had learned as a child and then taught me to give. I now find it extremely rewarding and not only that, very rewarding to our pocket book as well. More importantly Christ instructed us to give to the church AND to the poor. If you want to follow the teaching of Christ you are doing the poor, Christ, and yourself a dis-service if you don’t give and teach your children to also. If you are not a Christian then it is up to your own moral value system that you adhere to to teach your children what you will.
As parents it is our job to teach, not force. If we teach in a loving way our children will follow our example and strive to please us and God. This is how we (attempt) to teach our children how to give to charity/the poor.
The nice thing is is that there are so many charities out there the kids can choose what they want to give to. My daughter is helping buy toys for a Christmas drive for poor kids and my son is giving his to the soup kitchen next door.
If you have children you already know that it is the children that have the most tender of hearts and want to help the homeless, the poor, the needy more than us adults. This teaches them that their desire to give is valid and right.
> I’m not sure who you are addressing
I was addressing the author of the article, tho not exclusively so 🙂
> Weather you want to give or not, you are still doing good.
Being forced to do good is not at all the same thing as doing good by choice; the former sends entirely the wrong message, in my book. If one acts good only under duress, one is learning not to be good but how to kowtow to authority. “Goodness” is grown and nurtured, not shoved in and stretched out. Regardless of the illusion of choice being presented (say, which charity to donate to), it is still an arbitrary action dictated by an authority.
> As parents it is our job to teach, not force. If we teach in a loving way our children will follow our example
That’s exactly my point. This is not teaching by example – the author states outright that the children are required to donate 10% of their earning to charity, will-they or nil-they. Mandated charity isn’t charity – it’s taxation. Personally I have no problem with funding social programs thru taxation, but calling enforced donation ‘charity’ is disingenuous and presenting it as such teaches the wrong lesson IMO.
“Regardless of the illusion of choice being presented (say, which charity to donate to), it is still an arbitrary action dictated by an authority.”
Let’s not forget that that authority is the same that has chosen to give the child money, not just to buy shoes but to teach them how to spend the money wisely.
It’s funny that we are discussing this now. My son literally walked in now (he’s 13) and asked if he can do away with one of his envelopes. We sit down so we can discuss this. I wondered if he would want to do away with charity. No, it was his long-term savings envelope. He makes the case that he is a long way from adult-hood and his money is thin and this envelope is taking away 20% of any income he brings in. I ask the 17-year-old standing there if she is glad for the long-term-savings that she now has because of this envelope that will allow her to buy a car, she, of course, says yes. He is still not pleased. My dictatorship is forcing him to keep his adult-savings because with the allowance that I give comes an expectation that he will learn how to divide his money wisely, not something that many parents are teaching their children today.
Parents must lay down the law, that is our job. It is not always fun. But this is how children learn. Perhaps it is a taxation on his money for his future. Perhaps the “charity” is as well. So be it. He will give when he is an adult or he won’t…of his own choice. But as a child he will be taught to do it by us. He will also learn how to scrub the toilet. He won’t like it but he’ll do it. Then when he grows up he’ll do it…or not. It’s up to him at that point but at least I taught him how to do it.
> Let’s not forget that that authority is the same that has chosen to give the child money, not just to buy shoes but to teach them how to spend the money wisely.
> Parents must lay down the law, that is our job. It is not always fun. But this is how children learn. Perhaps it is a taxation on his money for his future. Perhaps the “charity” is as well. So be it. He will give when he is an adult or he won’t…of his own choice. But as a child he will be taught to do it by us. He will also learn how to scrub the toilet. He won’t like it but he’ll do it. Then when he grows up he’ll do it…or not. It’s up to him at that point but at least I taught him how to do it.
It’s not that one is using authority to parent or teach – I have nothing against that, and doubt anyone would. It’s calling confiscating 10% of income ‘charity’ that galls me, and I think sends the wrong message. Donation of time, money or goods by diktat cannot by definition be charity. It’s akin to when an army officer asks for volunteers for an assignment, and then points to soldiers Tom Dick and Harry and tells them they’re the volunteers.
Tyler, I no longer remember the exact details but when I was a kid, I remember my parents asking me to donate some of my money. I didn’t want to and basically said something like, “I don’t what to, so if you make me, then it ruins it – I should want to give!”
They made me give it anyway in that instance, but I don’t remember if I had to give consistently or not.
As you can see, I know exactly what you’re talking about.
Our kids don’t complain about giving at all. Eventually, we probably will give them more freedom, but in the early stages, we want them to make giving and saving a habit.
We also try to be an example to them. They know which charities we support and that we also give every month.
I’d be interested in your (or any other reader’s) experience about NOT asking your children to give and how that has worked consistently.
Also, personally I have wondered if having a set percentage for my own giving also misses the point. Should I set up automatic credit card payments each month that pays the charity without me even thinking about it? Shouldn’t I give according to needs that I see instead of mindlessly giving each month? In the end, I decided that I couldn’t give perfectly and to continue meant that the charities were at least getting something.
Still thinking about how to handle it with our kids though…
Thanks for the thought-provoking comment!
Thanks for addressing my comment, Lisa – always nice to engage with the actual author 🙂
> I’d be interested in your (or any other reader’s) experience about NOT asking your children to give and how that has worked consistently.
Asking children to give is not the same as not *requiring* that 10% of income be donated to charity! Again, that’s my point – in your instance there is no asking or volunteering, it’s done by fiat. Confiscating goods or money by order of authority is taxation, not charity. Again, I don’t have an issue with that, as I said – my issue is with teaching that involuntary confiscation for social good is equivalent to charity.
My experience with charity and donation is to lead by example, which when started young works very well indeed in my opinion. My six year old niece, for example, was much enthused after having had it explained to her that I was going to donate some of my things I didn’t want or need or use very much to people who might need them, and when helping me go through my things to donate stuff I didn’t use any more for charity we had some excellent discussion on charity and relative need. We wound up going back to her family’s house to do the same with her things to add to the pile I was making.
Similarly, budgeting / paying bills / finance is a bit of a monthly ritual around the house and I involve the kids by having them file paper and electronic bills, click through on the billing website or sealing cheques in envelopes, etc. We have good discussions and education about finance, savings, why we can’t go restaurants to eat every night, why I can’t just buy them a new tablet today like Sally’s parents did, etc. Part of that is explaining what charities I’m donating to and why, and encouraging them to do the same. Sometimes the kids chip in, and sometimes they don’t – and that’s well and good, they’ve their own reasons and their own money, so it’s for them to decide.
I don’t force them to save, either, but they’ve certainly learned the advantages of doing so by (a) my example (artificial “saving up” for treats for myself that I make a big production about) and (b) helping them plan their own budgets and goals that saving can help them reach. Again, they’ve their own reasons and their own money, so it’s for them to decide. Kids aren’t dumb – they learn the value of delayed gratification pretty quickly, once they’re developed enough intellectually to grasp the concept and have some experience with it either directly or by example 🙂
> Also, personally I have wondered if having a set percentage for my own giving also misses the point.
Heh. Nicely segued 🙂 Personally I feel so long as one has made the choice to give – automated or not – then it’s still a positive thing personally as well as socially responsible. Mind you, it’s something I think should be revisited regularly, just like any other investment (I consider charity to be investing in my society and fellow man).
I do a mix myself. I have some automatic deductions that happen (Plan Canada and Patreon, for example), and depending on my budget and the state of the world I may or may not have extra funds to donate for a given month (eg, disaster relief funds)
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and replying to mine!
who cares kys
Could you put more quotes in please?
can you add some more reasons kids should get an allowance.
I disagree with you on kids and chores a 100%!
No kids should NOT have regular chores. Kids are kids NOT mini adults and need childhoods! Play is the MOST IMPORTANT thing in childhood. Kids have school, homework, etc already. EVERYTHING they can learn with chores they can learn in other ways. Yes, we should teach kids skills, etc and its OK if they help once in a while but making them have chores on a regular basis is WRONG! I did not have chores as a kid and have NO problems as an adult, I thank my parents for giving me a CHILDHOOD. I do the same with my kids!