You gotta know when to push them...

My son gets a weekly allowance and dutifully puts the money into one of his jars. We've used the money in his Give jar a few times for donations to his school and other causes that he chooses. It's the Save and Spend jars that I am still teaching him to work with.

I think he understands the concept of the jars, but he doesn't have anything he is saving up for. Sometimes he will tell me that he is saving up for a Lego set, but when I follow up with him, he says he doesn't want it anymore.

So the money just sits there.

Which is probably why this past weekend, I told my son to take some money out of his spend jar and we would go to the store. Here's a list summary of what happened:

• He told me that he had more money in his jar, but he only brought $26, because that is all he "felt like spending"
• We wandered the aisles of the toy section for an hour
• I had to talk him out of purchasing something he already owned
• He ended up with a Nerf-style bow and arrow set
• The entire drive home, he kept saying, "I can't believe you let me buy a bow and arrow!"
• Me either.

Once at home, he got uber-frustrated by the bow and arrow set and the position of his thumb on the bow. We tried to help him, but he was so amped up, we all had to walk away from him. (Better to let him fail and then work it out on his own.) After a cooling-off period, he eventually got the hang of things so I could make the parental points that it takes practice to be good at something and that it is OK to fail.

Now, he claims that the set is his favorite toy.

It's hard to know when to push and when to walk away, isn't it?