Should children get an allowance?

As far as parenting goes, lots of opinions buzz around the topic of giving out allowances:

How often should they get them?

Should they be doing chores to earn them?

What age is a good time to start?

Although many parents choose to use allowances as a reward mechanism, US News says that allowances work best as a tool for teaching the lesson of money management. There are many reasons to focus on this benefit, but most stem from the fact that tying allowances to chores is often ineffective. In many cases, chores should be a mandatory part of every member of the household and tracking the tasks often falls off after the first few weeks.

It is much better to hand out a set amount of money each week or month and teach the child how to count it and separate it into different groups such as spending money, giving money, and long-term savings. Determining the starting age is often as simple as waiting until the child can count and understand money, often around age 6.