Parent: When you were a kid, did you ever battle with your mom about what you could wear and what clothes to buy?
Dr. B: Why do you ask?
Parent: Because every time we go shopping, it seems like another round of Hunger Games?
Dr. B: Where only one survives?
Parent: You get the picture. We never used to have these problems shopping.
Dr. B: As kids approach adolescence there so much peer pressure to fit in, keep up, or stand out?
Parent: I know.
Dr. B: And there are powerful forces out there exploiting those concerns. “Buy me” temptations dangled in front of them everywhere they turn. Which becomes an urgent need for you to fix? Right?
Parent: Yeah. Buy me this Mom. Buy me that Mom. Shopping is no longer fun.
Dr. B: So all their worry that they don’t look good enough gets translated into a demand for you to rescue them with another purchase?
Parent: Seems like it.
Dr. B: And there’s never enough.
Parent: Never.
Dr. B: No amount of clothing and jewelry will ever be enough.
Parent: Nope. So what am I supposed to do? Tell her in the middle of the Mall, “Dear, this is an internal problem that cannot be fixed with external solutions like more clothes”?
Dr. B: Wow. That would be quite an intervention.
Parent: Seriously. What do I do?
Dr. B: How do you make buying decisions for yourself?
Parent: I figure out what I can afford, given the money I have.
Dr. B: Exactly! Can you get your daughter from “Buy me this!”, which is a conflict between parent and child, to “Figure out whether you can afford it”, which is a conflict within the child?
Parent: That would be nice.
Dr. B: Give her a clothing allowance.
Parent: Huh?
Dr. B: Yeah. Tell her she can decide what to buy, but that allowance is what she has to spend for the month.
Parent: So she has to wrestle with wants within a limited budget like the rest of the world. How do I do this?
Dr. B: Deposit a fixed amount of money, automatically, every month, in a debit card account. With that money, she is free to purchase her own clothes, but that is the entire budget. No extras, no loans, no exceptions.
Parent: How about graduation clothes and soccer cleats?
Dr. B: You can tell them that there is a separate allowance for special things, like graduation and prom.
Parent: I like this idea. It will force her to make careful choices.
Dr. B: Yeah. My daughter became the best bargain hunter, bar none.
Parent: And your son?
Dr. B: He just wore T-shirts and spent his money on computer gear.
Parent: Instead of battles in the store …
Dr. B: You’ll be able to say to her, “That’s a tough decision. I’m sure you’ll figure it out”.
Parent: You guarantee this will work?
Dr. B: The end of the month will be challenging at first.
Parent: When the money’s been spent?
Dr. B: If you can tolerate some initial conflict, you’ll get to a good permanent solution.
