Money Moral Dilemma: Our son got a £20,000 payout - should we focus on saving for our other kids?

Bigwheels1111

In the near future I forsee, Hes has more baked beans than me.

No matter what you do the the children will not understand.

Make your decision and dont tell the kids, until they are old enough.

Say 50.

PaulTee

The compensation money is his for damages from the accident not so that you can not treat him as an equal child by only saving for the other two children.

I sometimes wonder if these are real questions from the public........sadly they probably are which is a poor reflection of the thinking of some people.

KatieWK

Presumably the compensation your child received was actually necessary to resolve some sort of life-changing need rather than you claiming against the nursery just to get a nice financial payout. You wouldn’t put other people through such an ordeal if there was no lifelong issue. Therefore, your child with a serious medical need should keep the money for this and you should continue to save for your three children equally.

vic.star

Sorry to read a child was involved in an accident that received that amount of compensation. I hope he’s okay and won’t need to use the money for any changes to his life from the accident?

About the siblings… as a parent of a disabled child who gets DLA, we save £10 a month away for all 3 of our children. Our son who we get DLA for has an extra amount saved away each month as he is the one we receive the money for, and unfortunately we don’t know what the future will be like for him. Therefore he will need a safety net of money behind him for the future - his siblings don’t have any issues like him and so will not need any extra to help them in the future. 

The same for your other children, they weren’t involved in the accident so shouldn’t get anything extra from it. Save equally for all your children, any additional money given to them over the years is for them, not to be split. If they grumble when they’re older then you explain the reasons why, I’m sure they’ll understand

SavvySlut

Sorry your son was in an accident. The compensation money is nothing to do with savings for your children. It is a separate amount awarded to your son and money he may need either now or in the future to deal with any ongoing issues. Simples! 

Danien

Because of medical negligence my parent died. My sisters and me were awarded compensation that was put into trust until we were 18, but the compensation wasn't the same, it was graded according to age and as an example my youngest sister received twice as much as I did. I never felt any unfairness about it, even as a teenager. The younger ones did not have our Mum around from a younger age, whereas I had her around for longer.

I would have been horrified if money had been saved for me, but not for any of the other three, or only according to the compensation we had been given - that would have been horribly unfair.

Save for your children equally regardless of other money that is put away for them, otherwise you're penalising your child who had the accident and trying the negate the compensation which they deserve, as they had the accident. If you handle it right the other kids will understand, and will learn an important lesson.

rosiesky

Your children need to learn that all are not equal , outside of family love ,in this world,  yes save for them all equally but teach them that their brothers payout was because he suffered a traumatic occurance.  

ChilliSpiceMcFlurry

I saved for both my daughters from the age of 6 months to 18 years. I save the same amount for both of them, each month. naturally due to their age difference and bank/investment interest rates, they did not end up having the same amount. The money was meant for their university years but when course fees went up to £9K plus maintenance costs per year, I did a lot of research (plus Money Saving Expert advice) and decided to take out student loans instead of using the savings. As such both my daughters have a very decent amount that they have used for buying their first house.

All I would say is since your son was rewarded for the accident, he should keep that money and you should save equally for all your children. Relationships (later on) could be an issue if he thought he was treated "unfairly" if you didn't treat him the same by saving the same amount as your other children.

double0

Not directly involving an accident as such, but in a similar vein, my older sister received an insurance payout which she was able to claim when she turned 18.  There's a big age gap between us and I knew about this when it happened (when still young).  Not once did I ever be-grudge her receiving the money or claim it wasn't fair, because I knew why she was getting the money.  Don't underestimate siblings being understanding about the circumstances, particularly if they are a bit older when you tell them.

soniakingscott

Hi. I’m going to disagree with most. I assume your son is now ok as if they had life long changes it would have been a lot more than 20k. 

He will never know he had this money at such a young age and so I would it differently and I would give each child 6666 pound each.

then save for the three as normal.

think at age 18 or 21 when yiu had over the money to all three and one gets 20k more for something that happened 16 ish years ago. If I were the other two I would feel really hard done by.

my friend had this with her daughter as she had bad food poisoning as a child and got 10k. She s0lit it equally between the two girls and she is so glad she did.

def split it for me.