--- title: 8 Simple Ways to Avoid Raising Spoiled Kids description: First up, get rid of that piggy bank. canonical: https://time.com/3732182/8-simple-ways-to-avoid-raising-spoiled-kids/ author: Whitney Buffa article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-05T13:00:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:44:27.704Z og:title: 8 Simple Ways to Avoid Raising Spoiled Kids og:description: First up, get rid of that piggy bank. og:url: https://time.com/3732182/8-simple-ways-to-avoid-raising-spoiled-kids/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5408cae78ec997c1/69878223a988ca8db76acc95/savings-jar.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2100 og:image:height: 1181 og:image:alt: savings jar og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 8 Simple Ways to Avoid Raising Spoiled Kids twitter:description: First up, get rid of that piggy bank. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5408cae78ec997c1/69878223a988ca8db76acc95/savings-jar.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 8 Simple Ways to Avoid Raising Spoiled Kids > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=c7cd7e6f-b7f0-4e4e-8600-4f80b36c0ee9&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Attachment Parenting: Dr. Sears and the Origins of a Movement [Watch (HLS stream): Attachment Parenting: Dr. Sears and the Origins of a Movement](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/yMNteD4K.m3u8) (4:11)  _Published 2012-05-10. TIME reporter Kate Pickert explains how 'The Baby Book' author Dr. Sears' controversial ideas on parenting have trickled into the mainstream_  by [Whitney Buffa](https://time.com/author/whitney-buffa/)  ## Whitney Buffa Mar 5, 2015 1:00 PM UTC  Coins in a Jar Coins in a Jar Getty Images  by [Whitney Buffa](https://time.com/author/whitney-buffa/)  ## Whitney Buffa Mar 5, 2015 1:00 PM UTC No one intends to raise spoiled brats, but it’s sometimes hard to see the consequences of your actions several years down the road. [Ron Lieber](http://ronlieber.com/), personal finance columnist for _The New York Times_, offers his advice on the subject in his new book _The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous and Smart about Money._ Here are his eight most practical tips: **Hand out on a regular allowance.** Commit to doling out the funds once a month or once a week, and offer raises on birthdays. But there’s a catch: Allowance money shouldn’t be given to children as a reward for chores completed. “If they do (their chores) poorly, there are plenty of valuable privileges we can take away, aside from withholding money. So allowance ought to stand on its own, not as a wage but as a teaching tool that gets sharper and more potent over a decade or so of annual raises and increasing responsibility,” says Lieber. Instead, let allowance work as “practice money,” and let children learn about finances by controlling their own allowance. **Keep their money where they can see it** The cover of Lieber’s book shows three mason jars labeled spend, save and give. This is his preferred method for helping children track their finances. “I hate piggy banks, and the problem begins with the metaphor itself. Pigs are dirty, and they eat a lot, so piggish behavior isn’t something to aspire to,” writes Lieber. “Meanwhile, ceramic or metal containers are problematic, since we want kids to be able to see what’s inside and watch it grow.” **Let them spend** Allow for a little bit of impulse, but also teach your children the difference between wants and needs. Show them where to draw the line between high quality and high dollar. “My wife and I are still debating exactly where we’ll put the line,” Lieber writes. “I’m making the case for a broad-based ‘Land’s End Line.’ If we adopt it, that means we’d pay whatever Land’s End (my definition of a suitably mid-priced merchant that sells quality clothing) would charge for any clothing needs, even if an item comes from some other designer or shop. Anything with a price to the right of the Land’s End Line would be a want.” ### These Kids Want to Show You Their Favorite Toys  Ralf, 4 Riga, Latvia Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Allenah, 4 El Nido, Philippines Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Maudy, 3 Kalulushi, Zambia Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Watcharapon, 3 Bangkok, Thailand Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Reania, 5 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Pavel, 5 Kiev, Ukraine Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Bethsaida, 6 Port-au-Prince, Haiti Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Julia, 3 Tirana, Albania Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Abel, 4 Nopaltepec, Mexico Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Shotaro, 5 Tokyo, Japan Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Noel, 5 South Dallas, Texas Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE  Roxane, 5 Paris, France Gabriele Galimberti—INSTITUTE **Help them save, but only to a point** Money in the savings jar should be collected with a goal and timeline in mind, Lieber writes. For younger children, the concept of time and goals are already fuzzy enough, so keep it short and specific. For teenagers, their savings goals might be a bit loftier – it might be earmarked for a first car or senior class trip – and they might outgrow the jar system. Help them establish a savings account and transfer their allowance there automatically. **Use an app** Use [Allowance Manager](http://allowancemanager.com/how-kids-understand-money) to make automatic weekly payments to your children’s accounts. They can spend their money with prepaid Allowance Cards and track their purchases with mobile and desktop apps. Lieber also recommends [FamZoo](http://famzoo.com/), another family banking app that also offers prepaid cards and money tracking functions. It also has an IOU feature that lets parents owe money to children and vice versa. **Show them how you use your money** Accordine to Lieber, a remarkable “64% of kids said they had no idea what their parents were giving, if anything,” so he suggests parents make an example of their charity while also giving kids a chance to get involved. Let children help decide where mom and dad should donate money and time and teach them how to vet the worthiness of charities asking for money by evaluating if they provide essential services or goods to those in need. **Throw around less cash but more imagination** Lieber pokes at the problem with elaborate birthday parties and bar mitzvahs (for example, [this stage show in honor of one Texan youngster](http://www.kveller.com/sam-horowitz-bar-mitzvah-boy-live-at-the-omni-hotel/)) and Tooth Fairy inflation. It can all lead to materialism. But he offers some advice: Do things more modestly, but make them more special. The Tooth Fairy can (and should!) visit to stay in line with lore, but Lieber encourages parents to put their own twist on the tale. Maybe your Tooth Fairy leaves glitter on the windowsill or [gets caught on camera](http://www.icaughtthetoothfairy.com/). Birthdays are still cause for celebration, but in lieu of expensive gifts, Lieber suggests requesting party guests’ parents spend about half what they normally would and donate the other half to charity. This also eliminates the envy-inducing gift opening ceremony. **Finally, let grandparents break all the above rules** Accept that grandparents are the X factor. They’re bound to come through with the North Face jacket your teen is dreaming of while you’re striving to tow the Land’s End Line. “We’ve found that grandparents will gleefully disrupt this attempt at standard setting with spontaneous bursts of generosity,” write Lieber. “Still, as long as it doesn’t happen too often, the continuum will hold if we parents apply it consistently.” _Want more tips like these? Sign up_ [_here_](http://time.com/t4parents) _for our weekly email TIME for Parents. It’s free!_ _Read next:_ [_How to Parent Like an FBI Agent_](http://time.com/3734457/how-to-parent-like-an-fbi-agent/?xid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ## Transcript [00:01] Attachment parenting has really shifted mainstream [00:04] American parenting, because the ideas have kind of [00:07] filtered down to every modern American parent. Lots [00:11] of people breast feed even if they're not into attachment [00:14] parenting now, in fact, breast feeding rates are at the [00:16] highest levels since the 1950s when formula was invented. [00:20] Lots of people actually sleep with their babies in their beds [00:23] now. Up to 20 % do that at some point which is. Really, [00:26] really a new phenomenon. I'm Kate Pickert and I'm a staff [00:29] writer at Time magazine and this week I wrote our cover [00:32] story, about attachment parenting. And the, man who [00:36] basically invented it, Doctor William Sears. So attachment [00:39] parenting is, child rearing philosophy based on the idea [00:43] that you should follow your instincts. And that your instincts [00:47] as basically as a mother would need you be very close to [00:50] your baby at all times. So there are three basic tenets [00:55] to attachment parenting. One is breastfeeding and actually [00:58] people that are into attachment parenting often breastfeed [01:00] their kids until their toddlers, until their one, two, or even [01:05] older. Another of the tenets is what Dr. Sears calls baby [01:08] wearing, which is this idea that you should keep your baby [01:11] close to your body at all times in a sling. And [01:15] the third tenet of attachment parenting is [ MUSIC ] What [01:18] people call co- sleeping, which is this idea that it's natural [01:21] to keep your baby in bed with you at night so that mother [01:24] and baby are close at all times. So Dr. Sears wrote a book [01:28] in 1992 called The Baby Book. And it's really the [01:31] attachment- parenting bible. So the book turns 20 this year. [01:35] So we thought it was a good time to go back and kinda see [01:37] where Dr. Sears came up with all of his ideas. It [01:41] turns out actually that a lot of what he's taught has been [01:45] intertwined with his own personal life. Dr. Sears wrote the [01:49] baby book and, and over 40 other books as well, about [01:52] parenting, pregnancy. Mostly with his wife, Martha. And it [01:56] turns out Dr. Sears and Martha both had really difficult [01:58] childhoods. Dr. Sears was raised by a single mom. His [02:02] father left the family when he was only a month old. And [02:06] Martha, her father died when she was four years old. And [02:09] her mother was, had a lot of mental health issues. A lot [02:14] of people who are attracted to attachment parenting are [02:16] kind of reacting to their own childhoods as well. Lots of the [02:19] mothers that I talked to, had difficult experiences, or just [02:23] kind of not super close relationships with their own [02:26] mothers, one of the things I noticed when I was with Doctor [02:30] Sirius when he saw patients is how he is different then, [02:33] maybe a typical pediatrician. One thing that seem different [02:36] is he doesn't take babies and put then on in exam table, [02:39] [ MUSIC ] He mostly does the exam while the baby is being [02:41] held by the mother. With older kids he starts [02:46] each exam by hugging the kids. But even if it seems [02:50] awkward it usually makes the kids smile. And it just kind of, [02:53] diffuses the seriousness of, of a you know, a doctor [02:55] examining you. [ MUSIC ] When [03:00] piece of criticism that doctor Ceres really fielded a lot is that [03:03] he is you know, anti feminist, that you can't really be an [03:07] attachment parent and wear your baby and breastfeed and [03:10] stay up all night nursing your baby in bed, you have a job. [03:12] [ MUSIC ] Dr Serious claims that attachment parenting is [03:15] actually ideal for working moms cuz it's a way of you know [03:19] being really close and connecting with your baby when you [03:21] come home from work. But in practice it can be incredibly [03:25] exhausting in a way that maybe doesn't allow some people [03:28] to function enough during the day to get enough sleep to [03:31] perform at their work You know I think a lot of people get [03:35] into attached from parent feeling like I need to do this for [03:38] my baby but I think some self examination would reveal that [03:42] a lot, its a lot of parent own issues to that, that you know [03:45] feed into that kind of how they decide to parent. And the [03:48] good news is that in the end, data and research has shown [03:51] that a kid that feels wanted and feels loved, is sort of on [03:56] the right track. But there's no evidence to show that you [03:59] know wearing your baby in a sling or sleeping with your [04:02] baby is really gonna change how they turn out when [04:05] they're kids or later when they're adults. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3732182/8-simple-ways-to-avoid-raising-spoiled-kids/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3732182/8-simple-ways-to-avoid-raising-spoiled-kids/"},"headline":"8 Simple Ways to Avoid Raising Spoiled Kids","datePublished":"2015-03-05T13:00:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:44:27.704Z","description":"First up, get rid of that piggy bank.","url":"https://time.com/3732182/8-simple-ways-to-avoid-raising-spoiled-kids/","keywords":["Living","Parenting","Family","finance","advice"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5408cae78ec997c1/69878223a988ca8db76acc95/savings-jar.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Whitney Buffa","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/whitney-buffa/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5408cae78ec997c1/69878223a988ca8db76acc95/savings-jar.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"savings jar","caption":"savings jar","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3732182/8-simple-ways-to-avoid-raising-spoiled-kids/","name":"8 Simple Ways to Avoid Raising Spoiled Kids"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Attachment Parenting: Dr. Sears and the Origins of a Movement","description":"TIME reporter Kate Pickert explains how 'The Baby Book' author Dr. Sears' controversial ideas on parenting have trickled into the mainstream","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/yMNteD4K/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2012-05-10T05:12:03.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/yMNteD4K.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3732182/8-simple-ways-to-avoid-raising-spoiled-kids/","duration":"PT4M11S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3732182/8-simple-ways-to-avoid-raising-spoiled-kids/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```