pocket money
Your child has ticked off every task on the board this week. They've done the maths on their minutes, they're pleased with themselves, and then they ask whether they get paid as well.
It's a reasonable question, and the instinct to say yes is strong. You're already tracking what they do each day, so why not attach money to it too?
We thought about this for a long time. Our answer is to keep the two apart.
Two Different Systems
ScreenTickr is built on one principle: children earn downtime by completing the everyday responsibilities they're expected to manage themselves. Getting dressed. Packing their bag. Going to bed on time. These aren't jobs. They're part of growing up.
Paying for those tasks muddies the message. It implies there's a choice about whether to do them, and that withholding effort is a legitimate negotiating position. Follow that thread and you get a child who asks what brushing their teeth is worth today, which isn't a conversation we wanted to have.
Pocket money is about optional work: things a child chooses to take on in exchange for payment.
The Pocket Money Job Rule
A useful test, borrowed from The Barefoot Investor for Families: is this something you'd pay someone else to do? If yes, it's a job. Examples:
Deep cleaning bathrooms
Taking out the bins
Loading and unloading the dishwasher
Folding laundry
Mowing the lawn
Washing the car
These are real tasks with real value. A child chooses to take one on and gets paid for it. They can also choose not to, and nothing bad happens, which is the point. That choice is what makes it a job rather than a duty.
Unlimited Earning
Rather than a fixed weekly allowance, we prefer a model where children earn as much as they're willing to work for. The mental shift matters. Instead of waiting for pocket money day, they start asking "what can I do to earn it?", and the answer is in their hands rather than yours.
It also takes the pestering out of it. The money isn't handed down at a parent's whim, and it isn't won by asking nicely or sulking until you give in. It's earned by doing the work, the same principle the board runs on: if they want more, there's more they can take on.
What they earn gets divided across three purposes:
Spending: small treats and everyday wants
Saving: bigger goals they're working towards
Giving: a portion set aside for charity or a cause they care about
A worked example. Our daughter wanted a set of headphones costing around $40. At $2 for the bins and $3 for the car, that's a long way off, and her first reaction was that it may as well have been a million dollars. Six weeks later, having taken on the dishwasher most nights, she had the money. She also had a very clear sense of what forty dollars costs, which is a lesson no allowance would have taught her. She still has the headphones, and she looks after them.
The Practical Separation
Responsibilities earn screen time. Optional jobs earn money. Keeping the systems distinct removes the confusion and teaches something more useful than either would alone: not everything we do comes with payment, and not every piece of work is something we're automatically expected to do.
Both reinforce the same underlying value. Effort and reward are connected. They do it in different contexts, and children can hold both ideas at once more easily than we tend to expect.