Intro to Accounting and Market Expansion
When my 7 year-old daughter wanted to take money to buy stuff at the school canteen, I tried shooting it down pointing out that she didn’t know to subtract in her head. “How would you know how much they should return?”, I asked. “It’s OK if they don’t return the right amount,” she said. Seeing my jaw drop, she explained her stance, “It’s your money, I am fine if you spent a little extra”. Another time, she told me that giving extra money for something is better than giving the exact amount. “Why?”, I asked. “Simple,” she said, “That way they give you back some money. Imagine that: giving you money for buying something from them .” Patience, I reminded myself. She will learn when she is ready. Or even better, when she has an incentive to learn such things. I think that incentive driven moment to learn about subtraction and accounting has arrived. Of late, she has taken to growing plants. It soon became a group activity with her friends where they’d all plant seeds in cups,...