When should I talk to my child about their inheritance?

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Transcription:

The question of how much we should make our children aware of our financial status has a lot to depend upon the age of the child. Now, you cannot fool a child into thinking you are poor, when you are not poor. The comment that, "We can't afford it," when a child asks for something that they know you can is disingenuous. The better answer to that is, "We're not choosing to spend our money that way." To say, "We can't afford it," is not a real answer. I don't ever advise the parents to give numbers to our young children or even adolescent or teenage children. It's not about the number when you are trying to teach responsible use of money. They need to be responsible with money regardless of how much they may eventually inherit. The time when a number may be appropriate is when your child are doing their own estate planning. In order to make decisions about their estate planning, they may have to have some factual information about what you've decided to do in your estate plan. That usually occurs when a child is much older, when a child already has had some sense of career development. To tell a teenager a number can be very distracting in terms of the child's goals and their ability to work towards those goals, whatever they might be.

Video Categories: ALL PARENTS, Financial Planning and Budgeting, Guardianship, Wills and Trusts

Clinical Psychologist & Author, Lee Hausner, PhD shares advice for parents on when the best time to talk to children about their inheritance is

Transcript

Expert Bio

Lee Hausner, PhD

Clinical Psychologist & Author

Dr. Lee Hausner is an internationally recognized clinical psychologist, business consultant and family wealth advisor. She served as the senior psychologist for the Beverly Hills Unified School District for 19 years. She is currently the Senior Managing Director for First Foundation Advisors. An acknowledged expert on psychological issues involving wealth and wealth transfer, she was a presenter at the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, and is a frequent participant at the high wealth/private client conferences for major financial institutions. She is a frequent guest on national radio and television and a quoted expert in national publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Times, Forbes, Fortune, Privilege, Town and Country and Worth Magazine.

Dr. Hausner is the co-author with Doug Freeman of A Founder's Guide to the Family Foundation, published by the Council on Foundations and is the author of the seminal work regarding wealth and the family; Children of Paradise: Successful Parenting for Prosperous Families. In addition, Dr. Hausner incorporated her unique six-step transition model for succession in family business in the critically acclaimed family business resource book Hats Off to You 2: Balancing Roles and Creating Success in Family Business, of which she was a co-author.

Dr. Hausner is a graduate of Northwestern University (BA, Psychology), San Francisco State University (MA, Psychology), and Kensington University (PhD, Psychology).

Parenting expert on: Building Self-Esteem, Money Management for Kids, Allowance, Money Management

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