Reply to How do you handle a kid losing/breaking things?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Maybe I just need to give a bigger allowance. Replacing something you broke or lost through carelessness should hurt, but it [b]should not preclude your social life for a month[/b].[/quote]

Why not? [/quote]

DP,

One is because that's a consequence that's way out of proportion to what adults experience.  Adults break and lose things too!

The other is because social lives are really important to kids and teenagers and help them learn and grow.  Disrupting a kid's social life can be hard to undo, and can have long term impact.

I can maybe understand grounding a kid for a month for something intentional that's way outside our values, but it's a pretty harsh punishment for dropping an iPad or leaving your glasses where they'll get stepped on.  [/quote]

OP. Pretty much that. It's disproportionate -- my kid's stuff is much more expensive relative to my kid's income than mine is relative to my income! Losing a jacket, even a pretty cheap jacket, means losing weeks of work. It's like an hour of work for me. Plus I'm pretty sure that if my kid goes out with friends broke, even if their main adventure is going to the library, the friends will end up spotting for a snack or a treat because they get more allowance or their moms are more generous and I don't want to raise a moocher.

I think my conclusion here is that I need to be much less permissive about my belongings, because there's a good chance that anything that goes out of my sight will be lost or broken, and I need to increase the allowance more to cover things like lost library books, but in general I should pay to replace necessities with less-nice versions and not replace "wants" at all. [/quote]

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