“Only if you pay me”: What a Five-Year-Old Can Teach Us About Kids, Work, and Money

“Only if you pay me.”

Manuela met her mother, Evelyn’s eyes as she spoke. Evelyn gaped back at her five-year-old daughter, astonished.

“You were so excited to do your summer play book last week, Manuela!” Evelyn pleaded. 

“Why don’t you want to do it anymore? You can get the sticker at the end if you finish.”

“It’s not a playbook. It’s work,” insisted the rising kindergartener. “You paid me to do the letters and numbers before! I should get paid for this workbook. It’s work.”

On this point, Manuela was correct. The book was meant to keep kids academically engaged over the summer, but she wasn’t fooled by the “play” label. Now her parents were stuck. Last week, they had paid her a quarter when she didn’t want to do the workbook. This week, she wanted the same treatment. Manuela had learned the value of her work—just not in the way her parents hoped.

If you have young children, this scenario probably feels familiar. Many parents deeply want to teach their kids financial basics, but don’t know where to start.

Parents of teens often struggle with tough conversations. Learn what not to say, how to avoid exasperating your teen, and how to build trust instead.

What Not to Say

Having conversations with our teenagers about important issues can be really tough. It’s easy for our teens to misunderstand us and often hard for them to see the big picture behind our intentions. Next thing we know, the conversation takes a bad turn. We know our teens. Their weak areas. Their vulnerable points. We know where their buttons are, and it would be easy to push them. But that would be a form of exasperating our kids, which violates a clear command God gives parents in Ephesians 6:4:

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

What does exasperating our kids look like?

• Accusing them—especially if we claim to know their motives when only God does.
• Interrupting them without asking for permission first.
• Acting annoyed or impatient with them as they talk.
• Arguing or debating them as they try to explain themselves.

Few of us remember the days when a family sat down to dinner together. It was even a leisurely affair, marked by laughter, sharing of the day’s events, and mostly void of interruptions. Kids and parents stayed at the table until everyone was dismissed. It was a time of re-connecting.

Today this sounds more like a scene from an old movie or TV show.  Family meals have been replaced by car pools, late arrivals, spouses that don’t come home for dinner, kids that rush from the table to something more “urgent,” and the presence of phones that just “have” to be monitored at all times.

There are too many good options for us in how to spend our time. Sadly, these can easily replace an even better tradition.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of overbooking our families with good choices. However, as parents, our job is to take the long-term view. We have to ask the question, In the long run what is going to matter more?

Is it crucial to sign our child up for one more activity where he might win one more trophy?  Or would it be more valuable to have family meals several times a week in order to build family friendships? In the long run, do we want to collect trophies that will one day gather dust on the closet shelf or do we want to build friendships among siblings that will last a lifetime?

Family Worldview Today

Today, most families would see themselves as a nest. As long as our children are in the nest, we’ll feed them, protect them, and try to do the right things for them. We’ll do all that we can to make sure they get the best food, the best clothes, the best education. We’ll go the extra mile for them to make sure they get the best experiences—sports teams, music lessons, vacations, academic tutoring, and so on.

We’ll wait anxiously to see if they made the top teams. And we’ll pile on experience after experience, trying to make sure they don’t miss out. With all this focus on children, it can seem we are family-focused. But we’re not. Kids are at the center of the world—not the family.

This child­centered parenting has the impact of teaching kids that the world is about them. The accomplishments of the individual are more important than the accomplishments of the family, the community, and the church.

The Goal of the Family

Because of this attention on the individual, our perspective of kids is that they are expensive. If we are going to fund all their needs, including college, then those bills will add up.

Learn how ordering the environment can nurture the heart of the child, bringing peace, healing, and rhythm to your home and family life.

Many of us have that child, the one who screams and cries and doesn’t care that they’re in a store or at church or around a million random people who are judging you and think you’re the worst mom on the planet. 

One day, one of my children started screaming and wouldn’t stop. It became a daily occurrence. They had trouble communicating, they screamed and cried, they’d respond to things they didn’t like with insults and occasionally something violent. 

Order the Environment

I was in the middle of this when I read words that my friend had written, “Instead of trying to order the child, order the environment.” 

She told me, “Your child is who they are. Things are going to be okay. Sometimes they just have to work through things inside of them. The best way to help them is to love them, hold space for them, and create an environment of rhythm and comfort where they can thrive. Leave their response to the environment up to them.

If you have a daughter you may have had the challenge of handling the emotions of a girl. I mean we have to deal with our own emotions at times, don’t we?

I have four girls and three boys and there is such a vast difference in the emotional challenges and needs of my girls, than my boys. Sometimes there are exceptions to this rule, but overall that is the case.

My girls require much more emotional attention and being a woman, it is difficult to handle something I myself don’t have handled!

When my eldest was younger, she would have occasional emotional breakdowns over silly things. Even she couldn’t explain why she was crying or why she couldn’t stop. And she is a very complacent and easy child; although I didn’t realize it at the time.

Three children later and I had my second girl. Her emotions are much more intense then my first. Over nearly everything.

Something I am coming to learn and understand is that sometimes even they don’t know how to control their own emotions.

Are you feeling discouraged as a mom? Overwhelmed with stress? Jesus feels for you more than you realize.

As a mother raising three children I (Kristi) was stressed from continually juggling the balls of kids, marriage, work, house, shopping, and more. Much to my surprise, that is still my life with all our children married! Now I’m juggling even more balls, including six little grandchildren and leading the staff and nonprofit ministry of Soul Shepherding.

Through it all, I’ve discovered that Jesus has empathy for moms like us.

Does Jesus Really Understand Being a Mom?

After all, Jesus is the perfect Son of God, knows all things, heals people, and does great miracles so how could he relate to being a tired mom wiping runny noses, quelling squabbles, and figuring out how to help kids with their homework?

The Son of God became human like us and took on real limitations (Philippians 2:6–7). He was tempted to sin and was sinned against. He felt thirsty, hungry, sweaty, bone cold, browbeaten, and soul weary. He experienced sore feet, sleepless nights, pain, irritation, anger, abandonment, anxiety, doubt, and death.

From the very beginning—I struggled with adjusting to being a mom. 

It’s a good thing we had another baby fifteen months later and still another one seventeen months after that. But whether it was one child or three kids under age three, I felt as though I was drowning. I struggled during those early years of motherhood, and it was disappointing because I wanted so desperately to love it. But I didn’t. I just floundered and stumbled my way through.

Head Outside

I signed up for different child-focused programs because everyone else seemed to be doing that.I would return home from that day’s child-focused program utterly exhausted. 

I joined MOPS during those years (now called MomCo International) and loved the moms at my table. I made some enduring friendships at MOPS. It was so thoughtful that it included two hours of childcare—however, my kids were the kids who were always crying and would often be brought back to me.

One day, I was sitting at my table with my crying baby and crying toddlers, and a friend who had been doing some educational research told me, “Charlotte Mason says kids should be outside for four to six hours a day whenever the weather is tolerable.”

That sounded like a punishment.

Exhausted, overwhelmed, and doubting if you’re enough? Discover how letting go of mom guilt and embracing your unique strengths can transform your parenting journey.

Momming didn’t come easy for me. No matter how hard I tried, I never felt like I was doing enough. Having a baby was hard. I was exhausted. Having a toddler and then a strong-­willed preschooler was even harder. We were always late to everything, he wouldn’t eat dinner, he had night terrors, and he never slept. So I never slept.

There were so many challenges. As soon as I figured out a solution to one problem, there were three new problems. I couldn’t keep up. I was failing miserably. I was forgetting everything, and the feeling that I wasn’t doing enough consumed my waking thoughts. Have you ever felt this way?

Added Pressure

There is enough stress when raising kids. The added pressure I allowed myself to feel took energy away from actual problems. The actual problems were things like their medical concerns or emotional issues they were struggling with.

Most of the problems that consumed my mind were not real problems; they were problems I allowed to live inside my head.

Motherhood is a very high and noble calling but it’s not meant to be a total fulfillment. There is only one Source who can be that for us.
I am all for encouragement. In fact, many have said they believe I have the gift of encouragement. But we need the hard words, too.  I am most empowered by words that challenge my comfort. But there has been so much written on grace and “being OK with where you are”, that there was a time I lost sight of what the Bible really says. Because it’s NOT okay to remain where we are (Romans 6:4).

I am not speaking about perfection here. But reaching farther then we have been (and maybe you already do). I know I can reach farther. I know I can sacrifice more. I know God will fill in where I cannot reach, but I need to be willing to step out first.

Obedience

I love all Sally Clarkson’s books for grace and gentle guidance when I feel like I’m emotionally “over it”. She certainly doesn’t sugar coat anything though. But she writes with complete understanding, having been through the same seasons we are going through.