Children will need access to their own stash of cash when they reach a certain age. Kids develop this need around age 8 or 9 and it grows into monster it will become by about age 15 or 16 ... they do get more expensive with age, don’t they?

At age 8, we began giving our older daughter money for each A on her report card and for each 100% on tests. We receive flack from other parents about it to this day. Mainly, their argument is that children should do well in school because they “want to.” Is this same as “just because?” Sounds like it to me. I think parents are afraid to reward their kids for good grades simply because they feel this will set a bad example. But a bad example for what? That if they work hard and do well, they will get rewards? Isn’t that precisely how world works? We still think it’s a good idea, even 4 years later.

This same daughter gets an allowance plus her good grade money. She can spend her “own” money on whatever trips her wire. She has learned not to squander everything on one momentarily gratifying purchase, she’s a whiz at making sure she’s given correct amount of change and her shopping savvy is positively inspiring. She also must put ten percent of her money in bank. It’s an amount not likely to be missed, but teaches her benefits of “paying yourself first.” She’s amassed quite savings account!

My younger daughter is in first grade and beginning to demand her share of booty. She now gets money for perfect test scores and for a “good” report card. She receives a lot less than her sister but she’s 5 years younger and hasn’t learned to tell difference ... yet. She also gets a small allowance. She knows how much she has to spend and is learning rituals of managing her own money, too.

We want our children to do right thing, especially when they are out with their friends. We want to believe in them, but somehow, we don't feel certain that they would.

Have you ever asked yourself why you feel and act that way? Maybe answer lies in fact that, although you intend to, you rarely teach them how to develop their self-discipline. Or maybe it is because your parents never taught you how to develop yours.

Well, it's never too late to learn. Here are fourteen principles to set you on right track:

1. Natural and logical consequences require children to be responsible for their own behavior.

2. Reward and punishment deny children opportunity to make their own decisions and to be responsible for their own behavior.

3. Distinguish differences between punishment approach and logical consequences approach to developing their self-discipline:

· Punishment expresses power of authority; logical consequences express impersonal reality of social order.

· Punishment is rarely related to misbehavior; logical consequences are logically related to misbehavior.

· Punishment focuses on what is past; logical consequences are concerned with present and future behavior.

· Punishment tells children that they are bad; logical consequences imply no element of moral judgment.

· Punishment is associated with a threat, either open or concealed; logical consequences are based on good will, not on retaliation.

· Punishment demands obedience; logical consequences permit choices.

4. Natural consequences are those that permit children to learn from natural order of physical world.