It’s a Times Money section reader dilemma. Give the star  answer and you could win yourself vouchers worth £25.

More usefully, you could offer some thoughts on young people’s need for independence. And say a little about the relationship between power and money. And perhaps hint tactfully that the person who most  needs a lesson in the value of money could be the father, not the daughter.

And I know it’s a small detail, but it would be nice to see an article about young people and money that wasn’t illustrated with a wretched piggy bank. What’s wrong with picture editors?

Guardian Money dutifully followed the press release. “Pocket money rockets” was the headline on a story that began:  “Today’s children are quids in on the pocket money front…”

The trouble is that the £8.01 a week average has dropped compared with last year’s figure of £8.20. And that was down on the previous year. Why wasn’t the story “Today’s children feel the pinch as income drops”? Mysterious.

The headline on Sky News was “Kids Laugh All The Way To Piggy Bank”. Again, odd, since the story noted that children in the North West saw the biggest fall in their pocket money, a drop of 31% since last year. A very big laugh.

The Daily Telegraph did much better, with a short but thoughtful editorial that pointed out the fall, and tried to put things in context. “It sounds a lot, but it is down 37p on 2005, and it has to cover all sorts of things that children never used to attempt buying.” Quite.

But why did the Halifax urge the rather pointless 20-year comparison? That’s easy. It was blowing its own trumpet – giving itself the chance to claim that it has been “conducting research into children’s pocket money since 1987″.

Can’t blame the bank for putting a commercial spin on its survey. But journalists don’t need to follow so slavishly.

Okay, I was fibbing about the excitement.

If past years are anything to go by, most newspapers will cover the Halifax’s latest publicity gimmick, sorry, findings. They’ll probably spin with some variation of how children have never had it so good. Regional and local papers will note the geographical breakdowns carefully provided by the bank’s publicity machine. They’ll report to their readers on how parental generosity compares nationally.

It is an inspired bit of PR frivolity for the Halifax. For very little effort, it gains widespread coverage relating to a soft and non-controversial subject.

What will be missing is any genuine, thoughtful understanding of the financial realities of under-16s in the modern world. It won’t cover how many are working, from choice or to relieve the family budget. There won’t be any serious analysis of the price of bus fares or the implications of the high cost of mobile phones.

Which is a shame. Can anyone be surprised that young people’s understanding of money is so poor, if their finances are trivialised and joked about from an early age?

I’d like to be wrong. If I am, and the weekend papers have some worthwhile pocket money coverage, I’ll report it here.