Teens and Money

Parenting is getting real, hard!

This school year has been a huge transition for the Bolton’ family. My husband and I are transitioning from parents of littles to parents of biggins and our roles as parents are expounding. We are no longer caring for our children’s safety and teaching them the laws of the land.  We now have to deal with another set of issues such as other children, social cues, independence, and responsibility.

It’s hard raising children in this world that are grateful and aren’t entitled.  I feel that children are handed a lot of things that we had to earn.  Tomorrow my in between diva will be nine and my twelve years old will be thirteen in April.  We are at a point especially with my twelve-year-old that we are asking to go beyond our at home playdates. We want to go places, do things and spend money.

Creating entitle diva’s

This is becoming a serious problem in my house, and I have complained about it before but like anything without consistency and follow through my best efforts have been without success. That just means I need a readjustment right? Well, I am starting to realize that as I affectionately call my daughters’ ill diva’s which I intend it to mean (Divine Inspired Virtuous and Anointed) sometimes they are actually what pop culture would refer to high maintenance lil women.  I have no one to blame but myself.  I have been a stay at home mom for going on 13 years. I have catered to the two of my girls every whim leaving them with little to no responsibilities. Although, I have taught them gratitude they often have to be reminded and can be entitled.

Since I was the one who created this poor work ethic and these little girls who “believing they are inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment” without any labor.  My aha moment as I was folding my nine-year-olds (who if I remember my childhood correctly was a skill I had mastered by this age). It dawned on me, these girls need more responsibilities and need to earn their keep. It was either a brilliant idea or my way of lessening my load, but I needed a better chore management system, maybe an app?

We need a solution

In a few weeks, I will have both a nine-year-old and thirteen-year-old. As we approach the lil diva’s Birthday’s, I am starting to see the need to give my girls more responsibility.  At this age, the focus is no longer taking as much care of these independent souls and more teaching them skills to use in life.

At least once a week my husband Ed and I admit we have no clue to what we are doing and this parenting thing has reached a climax. It’s gotten real hard now, the solutions to the problems are more thought provoking and creativity is a necessary.  I am not an expert parent, I know there are those who claim to be out there, and I am very grateful the next generation has a few experts raising them because I know I fail daily.

Benefits of Showing Kid’s Financial Responsibility

Last year, we explored a new app to make chores seem more enjoyable and easily monitored by me without nagging. Well, Homey App (Check out my Original review of Homey App) has revamped and given us parents, even more, option.

I know it’s been a year so let me give you a basic breakdown of what Homey App used to do and what they do now?|

Parents Capabilities:

• Create a household name and password.
• Invite your family members to join and set up an account with family members names, pictures/avatars, and passwords.
• Once that is all setup then you (the parent) can start assigning chores and value.
• You can take a picture of their messy room and create as detailed of a description of what you expect from them to complete the task.

How it works now?

I love the new upgrades that Homey App has made it now has:

• An allowance management functions teaching children the value of labor and future life skills.
• Create savings goals for your child whether they be a short term want like going skating or a long term goal an electronic or game.  It helps them see their effort and their money accumulating.
• You can transfer money! Say what? I don’t even have to got to the ATM to remember allowance. I am an online shopper and use my debit card often. I have bank accounts set up for the girls (not Mimi yet which is a reminder poor third child) and the difference between paying them in cash and going directly to their bank.  They collect interest at the bank, and they will be more likely to use it wisely if it’s not in their hands.

Chore Management Upgrades

Some of the things I suggested before are now available, YAY!

• I like the reward/deduction feature.
• Skip chores
•  undo completed tasks in case they weren’t done up to standards
• can add or take away points and coins
• add photos of the child’s rewards that they are seeking to earn
• edit templates that Homey App has available for you and make them your customer chore pack
• You can also change the family dynamics too. However, they fit your household for example Grandparents raising children or other family members that aren’t the child’s biological parents..

The free version of  Homey App is still available, but this new premium feature will have a subscription fee which covers the bank transfer fees and compliance to enhance your capabilities. You should give this a try for yourself.  We have been using it for a few weeks, and it has made the enthusiasm and reminder for my nine-year-old of her compensation for effort.  She gets points my oldest receives coins and now knows what she needs to do to go to special places with friends.  Now if I am consistent this just may be what the Bolton’s need.

Right now, if you register for Homey Premium, you get a complimentary trial of all the features.  This is a great trial to check out all the features and customize it to work for your family.  Creating an environment that not only encourages good work ethic but gives my lil diva’s some financial responsibility and management skills I think that’s a good thing. If you’re interested go visit my peeps at Homey App and find out more information.

What do you think?