Bequeathing Your Values

Teach Your Children Well

If you want your children to learn responsible attitudes about money, teach them now. “You have to model good financial values from as early an age as you can, but at the same time, it’s never too late to start,” says Carol Clark, an investment principal at Minneapolis-based private wealth-management firm Lowry Hill.

Talk about your priorities, and walk the walk by keeping your own spending, saving, and investment habits in line with those priorities. Your children, even as teenagers and young adults, learn even more from what you do than from what you say.

Teach children responsible spending by helping them budget their expenses. That might be minimal when children are small—asking an eight-year-old to handle a day’s lunch money, for example—and can get more extensive as children get older. Clark, for instance, gives her teenage daughters money to buy clothing twice a year, and expects them to make the money stretch to include every garment, from socks to swimsuits. If they spend too much money on one item, they learn from that mistake by spending less on another item—or by going without.

Allow your children to find their way in their chosen careers. “You may want to protect your kids, but give them a chance to work and to fail when necessary,” Clark says. “It’s in the stumbling and striving and learning to set goals that kids learn to be adults.” Encourage them to get summer jobs. The lessons they learn will help them in their adult working lives—and they’ll learn them in situations where the stakes are much lower.

Additionally, let grown children cover their own expenses. Obligating kids to live within their means isn’t punishing them, points out Nate Wenner, a financial planner and investment consultant at St. Paul–based Wipfli Hewins Investment Advisors. Instead, it helps them learn the values of hard work and discipline.

Charity Begins at Home

Many successful people give back to the community through charitable work and bequests. If that’s you, get your children involved. “Choose charities that your kids can get into,” says John Provo, partner and head of estate planning at Minneapolis law firm Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand, LLP.

Involvement means explaining that with affluence comes responsibility, and that you use both your money and your time to benefit the community. Ask kids to join you in serving at a soup kitchen, walk dogs together at the local animal shelter, or make charity athletic events a family affair.

Children can also help give away money. “You could create donor-advised funds or a private foundation, and children can work collaboratively with parents and then ultimately take charge,” Provo says.