The Bible is clear that there are rewards for those who work and consequences for those who don’t. We need to instruct our children in these things.

Money is a natural and obvious consideration when we start talking about work.

The Bible says, a workman is worth his wages. In our day and age, we automatically think a wage is money. The Bible also says, the love of money is the root of all evil. We have tried to balance these two thoughts as we train our children’s hearts towards work.

The Bible often talks of riches and yet I don’t believe it always means money. I am concerned that if we give money to our children, or a physical reward for doing the right thing we are giving them external reason, external motivation for work. (Remembering it is a moral issue not just a physical issue).

My heart is for my children is for them to do the right thing, to have an internal motivation, within their own hearts to carry out a task to the end (ie work). As parents, we have to be careful not to shoot ourselves in the foot – we need to set out at the beginning the same way we intend to finish at the end.

My end goal is for my children to have a desire to get the job done, the rewards need to enhance this inner motivation.

Once my children have an understanding of the importance of work, and a habit of diligence and obedience then we do start to think about money. We want to instill a value for money though as well, so these are the guidelines for money rewards we have in our house.

• Some jobs don’t get paid for – we work as a family to look after our possessions. This responsibility is a part of belonging to our family.
• Before you are paid for any task you have to be at a skill level where you do the task by yourself.
• We have a two level wage system – one for training (the apprentice wage) and one for experience (the fully fledged worker)

Once our children start to earn money we then start training them in the wise stewardship of money.