We have accounts set up for our kids through our bank. We set them each up an account when they turned 3. They made a big deal of the kids bringing their $5 in change to start their accounts. LOL
Their accounts are attached to our checking account, meaning we can transfer funds back and forth, etc. Over the years their accounts have been tapped into a time or two (or ten) when times got tough or when the kids needed something that wasn't in the budget but had money in their savings. Right now their savings accounts are acting as our emergency fund for baby step #1 on the Dave Ramsey program. Rather than open a separate savings account for ourselves we just use theirs as it is all family money at this point (my kids are 8 and 11). Each week 1% of DH's check goes into each of the kids' accounts automatically. When he has weeks with a lot of overtime, that's a decent chunk. Oddly, since saying that their accounts are our emergency fund, we haven't had to touch them and they have started to grow quite nicely. Crazy how that works! Right now each child has the exact same amount in savings. At some point we will sit down and figure out how much extra we need to add to our daughter's account since she will be off to college 4 years before the boy will be.
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