The average American child is given $3.70 per tooth that falls out. - FactzPedia

The average American child is given $3.70 per tooth that falls out.

Sweet deal! American children get an average of $3.70 from the 'tooth fairy' each time one falls out

Days of finding a quarter under your pillow are long gone. The Tooth Fairy no longer leaves loose change.Kids this year are getting an average of $3.70 per lost tooth, a 23 per cent jump over last year's rate of $3 a tooth, according to a new survey by payment processor Visa Inc., released on Friday.
That's a 42 percent spike from the $2.60 per tooth that the Tooth Fairy gave in 2011.
Part of the reason for the sharp rise: Parents don't want their kids to be the ones at the playground who received the lowest amount.


'A kid who got a quarter would wonder why their tooth was worth less than the kid who got $5,' says Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist and professor at Golden Gate University.
To avoid that, Brian and Brittany Klems asked friends and co-workers what they were giving their kids. The Klems, who have three daughters and live in Cincinnati, settled on giving their 6-year-old daughter Ella $5 for the first tooth that fell out, and $1 for any others.

They say that $5 was enough without going overboard. They didn't want other families to think they were giving too much.
Then Ella found out that one of her friends received $20 for a tooth.

'I told her that the Tooth Fairy has only so much money for every night, and that's how she decides to split up the money,' says Brian Klems, 34, a parenting blogger and author of Oh Boy, You're Having a Girl: A Dad's Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.
Confused about what to give?
Ask other parents what they're giving, says Jason Alderman, a senior director of financial education at Visa. That can at least get you in the ballpark of what your kids' friends are getting, he says. Alderman gave his two kids $1 a tooth.

'I think we were on the cheap side,' he says. Other families gave about $5 a tooth. One family gave their kid an antique typewriter. 'I have no idea how they got that to fit under the pillow,' he laughs.
Visa also has a downloadable Tooth Fairy Calculator app that will give you an idea of how much parents in your age group, income bracket and education level are giving their kids, says Alderman. The calculator is also available on the Facebook apps page.
How much kids are getting from the Tooth Fairy depends on where they live. Kids in the Northeast are getting the most, according to the Visa study, at $4.10 per tooth. In the west and south, kids received $3.70 and $3.60 per tooth, respectively. Midwestern kids received the least, at $3.30 a tooth.
Then there are the heavy hitters.
After losing her first tooth, 5-year-old Caroline Ries found a $100 bill under her pillow, along with a brand new My Little Pony toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.