Raising Generous Kids: Beyond the “Give” Jar
Most parents I talk to want their kids to grow up to be generous and empathetic. To care about others and to help others when they can. But how can parents support that? Should it be through an allowance? And if so, which allowance method is most likely to help?
When my son was very young, I thought for sure that the answer to these and related questions all came down to allowance and how I raised my kids to think (or rather not think) about material items. I had read Ron Lieber’s book The Opposite of Spoiled and thought I had the answers.
But as my son grew, several things happened that made me question my belief. He wasn’t clamoring for money or toys. (He did ask for treats from Starbucks pretty regularly, but that’s a different issue.) After he saw me give money to buskers and heard me talk about compensating people for creating beauty and joy, he started to do the same with whatever coins he happened to find. And he showed genuine curiosity about and compassion for the homeless people we encountered on the street. Based on my conversations with other parents, I started to realize that he wasn’t that unusual in this way, and started to examine whether the approach I’d assumed was the only way to raise kids to care about others was necessary after all.
Before We Start: About Allowance and the Three-Jar Method
When someone asks a question in a parenting group about allowance, it’s pretty much guaranteed that somebody will recommend “spend/save/give” jars. This idea was popularized by Ron Lieber and basically involves giving kids three jars—one for saving, one for spending, and one for giving—and requiring the kid to divide their allowance equally (or equally-ish) between the jars.
Of course, there can be variations on this. Some parents choose to add an “invest” jar for a total of four. I know one parent whose kids have jars for college savings, the cars they’ll presumably want to buy when they turn 16, and for “rainy day” savings. I know parents who change the percentage of allowance that goes into each jar so that it is a closer representation of the family’s budget. Some parents require that *something* be put in each jar, but let the child decide how much. But on some level, they all dictate how a child is to use their allowance.
(There is a “no allowance” view as well, though it isn’t as common. The most compelling articulation of it that I have encountered comes from Meaningful Ideas.)
Why We Chose Not To Do A Give Jar
When I first started thinking about giving my oldest an allowance (which was about 5 years before I actually did it—but that’s a story for another day) I thought for sure that I would follow the three-jar method, giving my kid a dollar per year of age and dividing that sum (roughly) equally between the three jars. That was the recommendation I’d heard over and over again and it made sense. Didn’t it?
I sure thought so, until one day when this topic came up in a moms’ group and the mother of a slightly older child (I think he was 8) shared what her son had said about it.
“When you tell me how much money to give away, it makes me not want to do it. I mean, I do it, because I don’t have a choice. But I don’t do it because I want to. And I will NEVER give more than what you make me give.”
Reading that I had to wonder—if the goal is to raise children who feel generous—is the right approach to require them to give away a certain amount of money? It certainly wasn’t for this boy. And I started to question whether it would be for my son, who at that point had a habit of asking me for change to give to both buskers and homeless people on our Sunday walks through downtown.
What we decided to do instead
After my mind was awakened to the idea that having a give jar could backfire, I put the whole issue of allowance on the back burner. That’s not to say I never thought about it—I did—but I decided not to start it until he asked. Which he didn’t do until the middle of kindergarten, when he was 6.5.
At that point, we decided to have one jar—a save jar—and a wallet for his spending money. We might add more “save” jars in the future, but there’s no money set aside for giving, though he seems to intuitively understand that the money for buskers and people asking for money on the street needs to come out of his wallet. In December, when we are planning our end-of-the-year donations, each kid chooses one organization to receive a $100 donation from the child. The year I am writing this, our 2-year-old chose to donate to the animal shelter (because she thinks they’ll give her a cat in return) and our 7-year-old decided to make a donation to an organization fighting climate change.
Three (More) Ways to Encourage Generosity Beyond the Give Jar
Talk to your child about your own charitable giving. What exactly you share—Dollar amounts? Specific organizations? Strategy?—depends on a lot of not-strictly-financial factors, such as your values. It also might depend on your child’s age. This year I decided to share some specific dollar amounts with my 7-year-old. Honestly, I think they were a little too large and left him with the erroneous impression that we are really rich. But I believe in transparency, so I did it.
Volunteer together. I’m a little hesitant to suggest this because providing family-friendly volunteer opportunities can create a lot of extra work for already overtaxed nonprofits. But many organizations rely heavily on volunteers and it is helpful to let children know that there are non-monetary ways to give back. So if a good volunteer opportunity presents itself, go for it!
Read books, watch shows, and tell stories about people who live in different conditions than your children. If we want our kids to be generous, they need to develop empathy and an understanding that not everyone has the same experience as them. (A precursor to putting themselves in someone else’s shoes.) Now, we shouldn’t stress about this because *most* people develop empathy and perspective taking pretty naturally. But we can help nurture it. We’ve found books to be particularly helpful for this and one that was in constant rotation when my son was young was Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña.
One Last Note on The Opposite of Spoiled Book
Despite my decision not to follow the three-jar method for allowance, I really do think this is a great book. I have adopted other ideas from it (such as our approach to the tooth fairy) and it really got me thinking about how I want to decide whether to make certain purchases. There are also some great ideas about how to handle clothing budgets when kids get older. I just don’t think that it is a necessary read for parents of young kids.
So much of what kids need to know about money and generosity will just come to them naturally. And what doesn’t, might be better if postponed a few years anyway. So this is one area where I do think that waiting is better and that the best thing we can do when our child is under the age of (approximately) seven is work on our own money mindset and habits so that we can model the things we want them to embody when they are grown.
Now it’s your turn. What are you doing to encourage your kids to be more generous?