Investment Updates
How Can Wealthy Parents Avoid Spoiling Their Kids?
Published Tuesday, April 3, 2007 at: 7:00 AM EDT
It’s a natural impulse. You want what’s best for your kids, and you have the means to ensure they want for nothing. But shielding your children from financial realities—spoiling them, in other words—can have unintended consequences. “You’re neglecting the preparation for adulthood every child needs,” says Thayer Willis, a licensed clinical social worker who counsels affluent families and their advisors on the impact of wealth. The right kind of financial grounding, on the other hand, can help kids develop financial literacy, and along with it, a meaningful life, Willis says.
The author of Navigating the Dark Side of Wealth: A Life Guide for Inheritors, Willis knows first-hand the challenges family wealth can present. An heir to the multi-billion-dollar Georgia Pacific Corp. fortune, she helped pioneer a career niche counseling the wealthy about the meaning of their lives—and their money.
“What no one can inherit is a meaningful life,” Willis says. “We must all create that for ourselves. Our wealth is a great resource for creating meaning, but wealth itself does not deliver meaning or purpose. The greatest gift you can give your children is to facilitate the discipline, focus, and initiative to help them make their own way.”
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