Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Economics, 4 year old style

We were in a park last week which has a view of baba-san's office building. Ariana pointed at it and says 'there's baba". We then went on the discuss what baba does in the building. Ariana chimed in with her opinion "Baba goes to the money shop".

Yesterday in the mail, we received a flier for Acachan Hompo, a popular children's store here in Tokyo. There were lots of pictures on the large page and Ariana started pointing at things saying "I need this". "This" included Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh chopsticks, Anpanman pajamas and band aids and Lightning McQueen pajamas. I replied that perhaps she needed to make some money to go buy these things and she replied "we need to get it from Baba's magic box (actually my change box that baba-san routinely scrounges through). I told her to ask Baba and she went to him and said "baba, can you share?".

You see, sharing is a big thing in school and at home. I think she has learned the lesson well, particularly when someone has something she wants. She needs a little more studying when it's the other way around.

This morning, she again stated a list of things she wanted and I said we have no money. She quickly replied, "we have to share baba's money".

Baba san and I had a brief conversation about 1) what the proper age to start an allowance is, and 2) can we give Ariana little jobs to do and if so, what? Since she is interested in money now, we figured this was a good time. Any thoughts???

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