Cash or Credit Card Parenting

When my kids were younger and I was a stay at home mom, my husband and I knew we needed to create a budget to help control our spending and make sure we were saving. We listened to a podcast about making the switch from credit cards to cash as your main form of payment. My husband is a numbers guy so he created a spreadsheet with our monthly salary and all of our set monthly bills deducted from that amount. The money that was left over was divided up between our savings and a weekly cash allowance for our family. We continued this practice for many years and reaped the benefits of it. We were able to save money so when our van broke down we had money set aside to pay for it. We also were able to save for a couple of small family vacations. While the benefits were great, it wasn't always easy to manage our weekly cash allowance. We needed to make sure we had money for groceries, gas, the usual Target run and any entertainment we were doing each week. This meant that, sometimes, I didn't buy that cute shirt I saw at Target, no matter how much I wanted it. It also meant that we had stay on top of cooking at home instead of eating out. Even though it wasn't always easy, it was well worth it in helping us manage our finances.

At this point you are probably wondering, what does this lesson in financial planning have to do with parenting? Well, a very wise Parent Educator who I have worked with uses the analogy of cash or credit card parenting. In other words, we can pay now by doing what is hard as parents or we can pay later by taking the easy route.

A quick and easy example of this when you are at the store with your child and your child is asking for a toy or candy. You say no and your child starts to whine and cry. You say no again so your child kicks it up a notch. At this point you start to get that dreaded feeling that a full on tantrum is on the way. What do you do? Do you continue to say no while showing empathy for your child's disappointment? Or do you avoid the tantrum by grabbing the candy or toy and handing it to your child? Which one is the easy way out for us as parents? Most of parents probably would answer that it is easier to avoid the tantrum.

However, the more important question is what does your child learn for each of these approaches. If we, as parents, take the easy way out, our child has learned that no doesn't mean no. It means you should get more and more upset until you get what you want. The next time they are at the store the same type of situation will most like happen again. More importantly, these kids don't learn how to handle disappointment when they don't get what they want. The reality of life is that as adults we will eventually be told no. We might not get the job we want or the salary we want or afford the car we want. Children who grow up not hearing "no" turn into adults who are unhappy because the world will tell them "no". We might escape the pain of dealing with a tantrum in the moment but we are going to pay for it later in the future. 

If we practice cash parenting, we will probably have to deal with a tantrum in the moment but overtime our children learn valuable lessons. Our kids learn that "no" means "no". More importantly, they can learn how to handle being disappointed by not getting everything that they want. Parents who respond to their child's disappointment with empathy are also modeling empathy to their children. These kids will be more likely to display empathy to others.

So the next time you pull out your parenting wallet, go with cash instead of credit.