What parent doesn’t want financial independence and prosperity in the future for their child? And, naturally, everyone teaches their child, based on their ideas and experience, how to manage money. Each parent chooses his own position, some believe that the child should not have pocket money so as not to spoil him. Some people, on the contrary, are of the opinion that a child should have as much money as he needs. Some parents believe that the child should earn his own money and therefore pay him for doing housework, and in order to stimulate his studies, they also pay him for good grades. How can you teach a child how to handle money? One thing is for sure: just as it is impossible to learn to read without books, it is also impossible to learn to handle money without real money. Therefore, it is important that the child has pocket money; he should use it as he sees fit, spend it on chewing gum or chocolate, or maybe buy some kind of toy. When parents give money to their child, he begins to think and plan what to spend it on or maybe keep this money for another occasion, but there is an important nuance. In order for him to think about this, parents must give the child a certain amount, for example, once a month, and then he will be forced to think about how to spend it. After all, they can be spent on the first day and then you will be without money for the remaining month, or, on the contrary, distributed so that it is enough for the whole month. The question may arise: how much can you give your child for his expenses? It depends on the age of the child and your income. It is clear that the older the child, the greater the amount required, but this does not mean that you should give him all the money. Based on your family’s income in this matter. Remember that pocket money is not a measure of your love for your child. In this matter, the goal is to teach how to use money, and not to express your love in monetary terms; there are many other ways to show love. A fairly common phenomenon lately is to give a child money for doing housework. This can be considered a serious misconception. What is family and home? This is a place where commodity-money relations should not exist, because there should be mutual assistance, care, help and support in the family. And by paying a certain amount for taking out the trash or washing the dishes, we translate this into a market relationship between employer and worker. There is no place for words: “Help me, I’m tired at work...”, etc., because you are paying. We can guess what kind of help can be expected when parents need help in old age; will they be ready to pay then for their already adult child? We can say that he will grow up and will help not for money, but what is brought up in childhood goes into adulthood. After all, gratitude, empathy, and caring are learned in childhood. Author: Tatyana Postoyalko, practicing psychologist, consultant-dialyst