Learning Not to Throw Money Away

Marisa enjoys buying dinner at the bowling alley when she bowls on Friday nights with her community bowling league. I never had a problem with that until this past Friday night. Because I didn't have cash on hand to give Marisa to spend on dinner, I asked her to take $10.00 from her own savings that I would later reimburse her for. After returning home from bowling, Marisa handed me a receipt to show what she had spent on dinner. "Oh, dinner was less this time. How come?" I asked as I paid her back $6.00. Usually, Marisa would buy a larger meal and spend just under $10.00. I couldn't yet understand why she chose a smaller meal.

"I want $4.00 more," she said.

"But you only spent $6.00 on dinner," I answered.

Marisa started complaining and frantically crying.

"I want my $4.00 back!"

"You spent $6.00 on dinner. I'm paying you back for dinner."

I then asked, "What did you do with the rest of the money? Don't you have it?"

"I was trying to win a VISA card," she cried, as tears rolled down her face.

Apparently, Marisa figured that since I said I would pay her back $10.00 for dinner, she could buy a smaller meal and gamble the rest of the money in one of the bowling alley slot machines.

"I HATE those machines. They do nothing but eat money," I told Marisa.

"Next time we're at the bowling alley, show me which machine you threw my money out in." I was infuriated that she wasted the money I gave her, simply because she assumed I was going to pay her back.

This waste of money is something I see over and over again from kids with special needs. The element of surprise seems to be what draws many of these kids to the slot machines filled with junk toys at the bowling alleys. While Marisa bowls with her after school community bowling league for kids with special needs, I observe kids emptying their pockets and wallets of money on the trinkets they purchase from the slot machines. Many of these trinkets end up in the garbage seconds after they are purchased, simply because they are useless items to begin with. So who is to teach our kids that they are throwing away their money if we are not there to point this out to them? And how many times will it take for them to learn this lesson? Well, apparently an endless number of times, because that is what I've observed.

And if I hadn't taught Marisa to save her receipts, so she could check what she spent her money on, I would never have known that $4.00 was literally thrown away on nonsense, and I would not have had the opportunity to help Marisa learn from her mistake. Marisa learned an important lesson when she wasted $4.00 on a slot machine. She thought she was going to win a VISA card. This was a cruel lesson for her, but when I didn't pay her back, she realized that she was out $4.00 that she could have saved for something useful and lasting. "Just think how much money you're going to save by not gambling any more money away," I told her, as she dried her tear-filled eyes and counted what she had left in her savings.