That sounds like an excellent idea!

>>Boy can I sympathize! I have a 13 year old and it is amazing how stressful middle school is these days. She will turn 14 in August and finally start highschool (9th grade) that same month. I only had a couple of outfits when I was in middle school. Today, if your daughter wears the same pants twice in one week then her life will be made a living "HE L" by the other girls. Very sad and not easy to change. I wouldn't want any child to go through that stress if I could help it. I want my daughter to learn what it really means to go without, but at the same time school is stressful enough as it is to add that to it!
>>
>
>Something I habitually recommend to parents of teenagers is a clothing allowance. Figure out how much you're spending for her clothes in a year, divide by 4 and make that much available every three months. Then she gets to decide whether it's more important to her to have lots of choices or expensive stuff. She learns to be a good shopper and to budget her money. We also found that it took a lot of tension out of our relationship with our older son.
>
>Tamar