There are circumstances in which Gift Cards are acceptable. For example, gift cards for online stores (iTunes, Amazon, Steam, etc.). This is particularly acceptable for children, as they are otherwise unable to purchase items from such stores.
>Not having credit cards? It's fairly common. Even Debit cards are not the sort of things you give to kids.
Must be a huge pain in the ass. With modern electronic only debit cards it's really easy to give your kids cards and makes managing money within the family so much easier.
Kid texts you after school and says they need $5 to go out with friends? Sure, pull up your phone app and instantly put $5 to their card. It's almost impossible to cleanly replicate this with cash.
>As for prepaid Visas, they're a relatively recent thing, and generally less known.
Sure, but at this point they're just as available as "normal" gift cards.
> Kid texts you after school and says they need $5 to go out with friends? Sure, pull up your phone app and instantly put $5 to their card. It's almost impossible to cleanly replicate this with cash.
Certainly this could be helpful in an emergency but what's wrong with encouraging your children to budget and plan ahead, rather than expecting instant gratification whenever they want it?
You might want to have two accounts for your kid, one for the card and one for "savings". Hence them messaging you to get access to those savings.
In any case, I think cards and online banking give you useful tools that can make it much easier for your kid to learn budgeting and to track their spending.
