I came across this post on facebook about a mom who makes her 5 year old pay rent. she gives them 7 dollars a week then takes 1 dollar for rent, one for electricity, water, gas, cable, for a total of 5 dollars. She justifies this by saying she saves the money she takes and will give it to them when they're older. It is supposed to teach then about the value of money and that in the real world you lose most of your money to these things. I wholly disagree with this. Firstly 5 is way too young to be teaching these kinds of lessons. A 5 year old is just learning how to count money. . They can't understand the concept of bills yet. Two, this assumes that a 5 year old understands that they know where gas, electricity, water etc comes from. Lastly, there's no way to stop them from deciding they don't want to pay those "bills" anymore. Are you going to prevent your child from bathing for a week. Turn off the heat, and lights and not allow them to be on. Or simply punish them. Because at that point they'll know that either, they aren't paying for these things and the money was just for you, or that if they do decide not to pay bills, you'll just cover it for them. IDK that's just my view on the matter. what do you think.? Would you make your child pay rent? Edit : I don't think that they should never do this. And at an older age, this is a great idea. Maybe the start of middle school. My only issue with this is how young the child is. I also don't disagree that 5 is a great age to start an allowance. They can use it to buy the toys they want. That way they'll learn about saving. Later introduce this is, when they understand these things. But bills at 5 is just too young. Also the mother herself said she's making them pay rent. That's what she probably told her child as to why she was taking the money so I'm calling it that as well.