Book Summary
Parents who leave behind substantial money to their children do not guarantee their children’s happiness. In many cases it has the opposite effect. However, by thinking deeply about how you discuss money with and in front of children, how you spend and manage it, you can greatly enhance the odds that wealth will enhance, not hinder children’s happiness.
Providing children with a financial education is an important responsibility for any parent in today’s complex economic world. But for wealthy families, the stakes are much higher – not just because there’s more money to squander, but also because wealth can fuel dysfunction. Money can provide education, comfort, travel and exposure to high culture, couture and cuisine. But money can also paralyze people and rob them of ambition and meaning. Some children suffer feelings of guilt over not having earned any of what they inherit, others find themselves mired in a toxic sense of entitlement and numbing ennui.
Kids, Wealth and Consequences covers how to:
- Leave behind intergenerational equity and a legacy of your values,
- Educate your children about finance
- Raise children with a sense of reality and balance
- Impart a strong work ethic
- Counter their sense of entitlement
- Prevent them from being dependent
- Help them separate their identity from their wealth
- Empower them with self-confidence
- Instill in them a desire to give back to society
- Help them become good stewards of their wealth for future generations.
There are many choices that determine how wealth will affect your children. The book arranges these choices into three categories. Each of these categories of choices comprises one section of the book, with a fourth section focused on integrating the different types of choices into an action plan.
Section One: Financial Choices. Our decisions about spending, estate planning and portfolio management dramatically affect our own future, as well as that of our children.
Section Two: Intellectual Choices. Providing children with financial education is an important responsibility for any parent in today’s complex economic world. But for wealthy families, the stakes are much higher—not just because there’s more money to squander, but also because wealth can fuel dysfunction and at-risk behaviors such as substance abuse.
Section Three: Spiritual/Emotional Choices. Among the many concerns of wealthy parents are: how to raise children with a sense of reality and balance, how to prevent them from being dependent, how to help them separate their identity from their wealth, how to help them develop confidence in themselves, how to instill a desire to give back to society, and how to be good stewards of their future wealth for later generations. Parents want their children to develop the capacity to engage in meaningful friendships, to love and to be open to others loving them—for who they are, not their family’s balance sheet. In this section we will see how parents can enhance the values they hold close and discourage values that may impede living a happy and productive life.
Section Four: Integrating Your Choices. By examining the unintended consequences of your lifestyle, you can figure out how you can best match your lifestyle choices with your life values. By integrating the strategies and techniques we have presented in the first three sections: Financial Choices, Intellectual Choices and Spiritual/Emotional Choices, you can greatly increase the chances of raising happy, well-adjusted children who appreciate and know how to manage the wealth they will one day inherit.