[Njorun38]

This, 100%. I feel like the focus should be less on exchange for allowances and “stuff,” and more on balancing time between their hobbies / interests (sports, their favorite show, piano lessons), their studies, and doing “real important stuff” (survival basics). If you feel useless, powerless, and meaningless in life, like you just exist to entertain and be entertained, to shop ad a consumer and be exploited for a pittance wage that doesn’t match rising costs… you teach a child to be miserable, and an obedient servant. An allowance teaches a child to be a wage-slave in an ever-inflating economy. Buy them what they need and some of what they want that you can afford without overly spoiling them, or give them an allowance if you want and teach them to budget themselves, but not for doing the basics of what they absolutely need to know— no one pays you to be a homesteader, and no one is going to pay them either when the time comes. Have them work on the homestead not for an allowance, but to tell them “all that the light touches here is your human inheritance, this nature was made by your Creator, and it’s your responsibility to know how to till and tend it to survive, to pass this wisdom on when you’re older some day.” That’s not “too big” for them, it makes them feel a part of something bigger and they’re old enough to understand.