The Words of the Cooper Family

How To Handle Money -- Learning Through Experience

Simon Cooper
November 4, 2010

I always admire my wife's ability to create space for our children to learn from their own decisions and experiences. Three of the boys decided to pool all their money. They were excited by the fact that through sharing it they felt like they had more money. Lenny (8) knew what he was doing because he had less to put in. Mark (6) who had the biggest funds didn't think it through so much and Eddie (5) was just in for the thrill.

Recently they realized it's hard to make purchase decisions with shared funds. And when they finally came to the conclusion after a few purchases that it was getting too messy Chieko let Damon (almost 10) over see the dissolving of the fund, since he had no money invested in the box.

Basically since they had nothing written down and were in dispute about the equitable distribution, Damon decided to divide the money equally by 3. Of course Mark was upset, as it finally dawned on him that he had probably lost out.

I told him it's good to sometimes give people money but maybe not to share it. Unless of course, it's your wife. He said NO WAY. Not sure whether that was about having a wife or sharing with her. Anyway, I realized my advice was not really needed, and a bit inaccurate, and Chieko had delegated the more pure lesson through their own experience.

Mark turned his attention to finding ice cream in the freezer and after that everything seemed to cool down. 

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