The Wealth Holder's Dilemma: To Help or Not Help Children Financially?

One of the most difficult challenges for wealth holders is whether and how to use wealth to help their children. Answering that question raises a number of always-sensitive questions. How should love and caring be translated financially? How much is enough help? Perhaps most importantly, when is it too much? And what about assisting your children’s children and future generations? How much help might they need? 

If your goal is to create functional children who can become all they can be – to fully self- actualize and chase their dreams, as academic and author Mark Rank notes – financial security is a critical underpinning. Those of us advising families of significant wealth have long known that financial certainty, not deprivation or drowning your offspring in money, leads to secure, well-balanced children of wealth. 

What Are My Options? 

All of this begs the question about the best way to help children. 

But before you think about whether you’re giving them too much or not enough, it’s important to focus on the first order of business: Yourself. What might you need to live your golden years on your own terms? 

That is not an easy question and, in our experience, many people underestimate the costs of living too long. If your choice is between having too much money because you die relatively young or too little because you live too long, plan on ending up with more money than you need. 

What is the right approach? 

Download our full white paper to help determine the right approach for you and your family.