Kids, Wealth, and Consequences

FOR WEALTHY FAMILIES, THE STAKES ARE HIGH Inherited wealth can be a blessing or a burden. Money can provide education, comfort, travel, and culture; or it can drain ambition and meaning, cause guilt, or instill a toxic sense of entitlement. The question becomes how to raise children with a sense of reality and balance. Kids, Wealth, and Consequences shows high-net-worth parents how to provide their children with the monetary and psychological skills needed in today's complex world and to instill a strong work and philanthropic ethic. At the same time, parents will discover how their own choices and attitudes about money affect their children's ambition, motivation, and values. The book covers not only the financial issues but also parents' intellectual and emotional challenges, as well as how all three relate to and affect each other. In the end the goal is to help high-net-worth children become responsible, well-adjusted stewards of family wealth. A much needed addition to the field. The authors explore some of the unintended consequences, often ignored in other books, that wealth may have on children-such as unrealistic expectations, failure to become producers of new wealth, or a lack of skills and confidence needed to become productive and independent. - Judy Green, Executive Director, Family Firm Institute, Inc.