Do you pay your children to work, or do you give them an allowance and teach them how to use what you give them?
After bringing up two children, caring for and helping train four granddaughters, I have become an advocate for the system of allowances. I base my convictions on what our heavenly Father teaches us as it pertains to the system of His grace.
As a Father He adopts us into His family. We have nothing before then. We could not work for it, and were worth nothing to Him—we were not worth saving or adopting. The allowance of any amount of grace to us cannot be earned. He makes this investment in us, making us a part of His family.
A family that is united in Christ through the head of the family is brought up with the understanding of “grace.” The father shares with each member of the family what he has worked for, and teaches the child how to spend or invest what is given. This applies in the area of money, and other resources that are needed for this physical life.
TRUTH TRUST
But more than these is the allowance of eternal things that are given. Our heavenly Father gives each of His sons “truth.” He entrusts them with this heavenly commodity, and expects a return on that investment. By His grace, in love, we put our “trust” in our heavenly Father, who has given us this truth. As part of His family each one is part of a unit of return that strengthens and grows His whole family. This investment brings dividends for generations to come.
As His sons share His truth with their families this investment continues to grow, as part of God’s plan of redemption. Generation after generation of those, for whom He gave His Son, live in love and devotion to Him. Wives and children do not break away from the family to go their own way when each one understands the truth of the Father’s grace.
In His truth, living and walking by the Spirit of His grace, we learn how to spend and invest our lives, so that all we do is a return for His glory, and our joy.
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation, and believed n him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it,
to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:13-14
God's Grace ~ God's Glory! 
This post definitely gives me something to think about. Growing up I was given an allowance, but not for any specific work that I can recall. I came to expect it like it was owed to me – which is when it stopped. Shortly thereafter I got a job earning an hourly wage. Other families teach on grace also, but not in the context of an allowance. Children are made to do normative chores as part of the family unit without expecting something in return, it is taught more as “pulling your own weight”. They may give the children something not normative in order to earn an allowance, but those things are considered “above and beyond”. J never received an allowance but began working at a very young age on the family farm and was taught financial independence and stewardship at that time. He purchased his first vehicle!
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