Are Your Children Ready for What’s Next?

  • What level of financial conversations are you having with your children?
  • Broaching financial discussions in a way that is comfortable for everyone
  • Ideas for getting the next generation involved if that’s important to you
Are your Children Ready for What’s Next? Have you shied away from conversations with your children about money? You are not alone, most of us were raised not to speak about our income, how much we paid for our house or even high-level discussions around money for fear of sounding boastful. We might be afraid that our kids will lose their drive or motivation to be successful in their own right. The truth of the matter is, we live in a world where anyone can find out how much you paid for your house, know the price of your cars, and if you are an executive for a public company, how much money you make on a yearly basis. Children are not blind to their surroundings, and chances are they have already made assumptions about what their parents are worth; not to say that might be wildly too high or conservatively much less. The point of this blog isn’t to tell you to pull out your financial statements tonight at dinner and go line by line, but to start having qualitative conversations around the opportunities or the responsibilities and challenges that come with having money. This can be a chance to discuss the sacrifices you have made to get where you are, goals that you have set for yourself or even explain that not all things that make us “rich” are money and what else is valuable in life. It isn’t uncommon for your kids to have a different set of goals and priorities than yours, maybe they are passionate about global warming and being green. What a great opportunity to talk with them about sustainable investing, a way to take resources they will get one day and channel those into areas they believe in. Want to take this a step further? Start an investment account for them where they ultimately have responsibility, they can work in collaboration with your advisor. If they aren’t ready for that step, it is never to early to start involving your children with charitable causes and programs that you yourself are involved with. There can be a number of benefits your children gain from this:
  • Learn to work effectively with people of all ages, backgrounds, and beliefs
  • Become more effective at collaboration, decision making, and budgeting
  • Turn into advocates for philanthropy
Every family is different, and each of your children are different, each conversation can be unique to them, and you might find that they learn at different paces or maybe one is more interested than the others. The idea is to start having conversations around money, you know how important financial literacy is and there is no time like the present to start laying that foundation. For more than 30 years we have worked with grandparents, parents, and their children to ensure a family legacy lives on. If you are having trouble finding ways to discuss financial literacy with your kids, or ready to involve them more with what goes on “behind the scenes”, we are standing bye ready to be a part of the process.  
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All index and market data from FactSet and MarketWatch.
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