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Money, Money, Money

Eleanor's class in school has been doing an "Economics unit." In December, they set up a "factory," where parents helped kids mass produce Christmas presents: Russian tea, bath salts, trail mix, and so on. Eleanor made bookmarks. The kids were "paid" for their labor, complete with bonuses, and the next day they shopped for presents using their money. It's amazing the difference in motivation when you are adding up to see if you have enough money left over for a present for yourself, as opposed to doing yet another worksheet. Eleanor got quite good at adding 2 and 3 cents together.

In January, the kids were assigned to do jobs around the house (jobs they don't regularly do) to earn money to go to an Italian restaurant. Eleanor worked sporadically at unloading the dishwasher (.05), making her lunch (.25), folding socks (.15). She earned $5.05, so we advanced her .95 so she could go to the restaurant. Eleanor now can add quarters, nickels and dimes pretty quickly and accurately.

Amanda has been following all this money discussion with interest (no pun intended). She thinks that all coins are "dollars," so the other week when Eleanor for some reason gave her 4 quarters, she carried around her "dollars" all the time, until she lost two. Yesterday she showed me a necklace (Mardi Gras beads) she told me was for sale for 2 dollars. I got two pretend dollars out of my pocket and gave them to her, but she complained "I meant real dollars." I had to explain to her (while trying not to laugh) that I wasn't going to give her money to buy something that I had given to her...

Eleanor knew that Amanda was sad that she had lost two of the "dollars," so she gave Amanda two more quarters from her allowance. Eleanor explained that it was just a loan---after Amanda spent some of the money, Amanda would have to give Eleanor back the rest of the money. I jokingly suggested that Eleanor could charge interest, and explained the concept in generalities. I figured it had gone way over her head.

But Eleanor thought about this, and a few minutes later she came to Amanda and said that Amanda would have to pay back $.25 of the .50 that Eleanor had lent, but if she didn't pay soon, then she would have to pay .50, and then .75, and then a dollar...so Amanda should pay Eleanor back soon. Eleanor did not offer help Amanda swim with the fish if she didn't pay.

Needless to say, I immediately regretted introducing Eleanor to the idea of being a loan shark. I took the .50 out of the bank while Amanda wasn't looking and told Eleanor that she could give money to her sister, but it wasn't ok to loan it. Eleanor gave the money back to Amanda with no strings attached. In this case a generous heart wins out over greed, for now anyway.

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