Inheriting Wealth: What Is Its Intended Purpose?

“It's all about the money,” one family leader observes. While this view is held by many family elders, generative families for the most part view this notion as limited and short-sighted. Although money looms large in the life choices of a next-generation family member, continuity depends as well on developing all forms of family capital. Money alone is not a strong enough glue to compel family members to dedicate themselves to each other. They need a compelling purpose to pull themselves from their individual lives to commit to the family enterprise.

Financial rewards are not just for immediate enjoyment but are also to be sustained for future generations and used for values-based endeavors. Family members must develop a balance between current and future needs and between consumption and service.

By remaining united across generations and reinvesting profits, the family enterprise can remain large and profitable. Wealth is not a goal in itself. Its value lies in what it allows individuals and the family to do and in how it is used. This is something that the family determines together. At some point, often at the initiative of the emerging generation, the family begins to ask each other what all this family wealth is to be used for.

This young successor in a hundred-year-old South Asian family with 450 family members observes:

The first eighty years were basically surviving and building up wealth; we reached the point where we're doing very well—more cash flow, higher dividends. With more wealth, there could be a change in behavior with the way the younger generation deals with it, so we have to be very conscious about how this wealth is deployed and how we manage to keep our values in the midst of all of this seeming success.

With the growing family infrastructure of shared activities and practices, a young person growing up in a wealthy household can't help but wonder about the family wealth. Young people in such families wonder about:

• What they can expect in their lives
• The rules for using and benefiting from the family resources
• What the family enterprise contains and how it works
• Roles they might look forward to in the business and family
• What they have to do to attain them

The family can constructively engage this curiosity and offer answers so that its young heirs can move forward with their lives and make thoughtful and relevant decisions.

Family wealth, as noted in Chapter 2, also includes human, relationship, social, and spiritual “capital.” These forms of capital can endure longer than the original financial wealth. In addition, developing non-financial capital adds meaning and shared purpose to the family.

One of the most important practices for a generative family to develop and affirm values and purposes for its various family ventures and its wealth. The family struggles with the question “What is our financial wealth for?' in a way that engages the members of the rising generation. The presence of shared values and mission is necessary so that the family, with new members entering regularly by birth and marriage, agrees with or modifies what it is doing together.

With so many family members, the expectation of living a life of ease may no longer be realistic. But the children should not be the last to learn this. Aside from a very few (but highly visible) members of the global leisure class, fourth- or fifth-generation family heirs can look forward to a nice “lifestyle supplement” to their income, enabling them, for example, to work for a lower salary in a rewarding career but not enough not to work at all:

Family wealth enabled me to live comfortably and put my kids through college. My kids definitely see it in the same way. My son owns his own business. I have given him a lot of support, but he knows it comes from our family business. The family definitely sees that. And that is our success. Not only that, but the family stories are continuing.

Young children growing up in a wealthy environment cannot be expected to understand these limits; the family has to help them overcome unrealistic underestimates or overestimates of family financial wealth. These children may not respond well to an ultimatum. They need warning and active guidance from their parents to prepare them for their future role as stewards.

Families have different ways of distributing wealth. Each approach deeply influences the mindset, motivation, and development of the rising generation. Traditional cultures, spanning regions such as southern Europe, the Middle East, and South America, offer an allowance or regular distribution to each family member, usually allocated by age. Only a handful of the legacy families in this study operated this way, and they all reported finding this approach counterproductive. When income is not connected to ownership or family engagement, its presence gives the message that there is nothing the rising generation needs to do to qualify for it. It makes family organization more difficult. The majority of generative families pass inheritance to individual households, even if it is owned by a trust; each household or family branch allocates inheritance in its own way. One legacy family can therefore have several approaches to inheritance.

G1 wealth creators usually create a complex set of financial structures—trusts, holding companies, and a foundation—which form the reality for each successive generation. As one sociological researcher observes:

In generational aging and transition, a family must create a transcendent, controlling version of itself in the organization of its property to achieve a coherence of organization that can preserve the mystique of its name and ensure its continuing exercise of patrician functions in its social environment. This coherence does not come as much from commitments made by its members to their common lineage, as from the application of law and the work of fiduciaries whose primary responsibility is to protect the founder's legacy from divisive family quarrels.³

These arrangements can be seen on a continuum of tighter to looser control. On one end are purpose trusts that use resources only in clearly defined ways. In the middle are pools that can be accessed, with rules and limits and often a nonfamily trustee. Then there are inheritances that are more loosely controlled but with voting control of the asset assigned to a single family leader. And finally, there is no control, where the family owners are free to decide together how to use their wealth. Each family must teach and come to terms with the degrees of freedom handed over to the new generation.

Between the heir and the family wealth, then, lie trusts and financial entities, as well as family advisors, all of which inheritors must understand, accept, navigate, and eventually oversee. Learning about this legal structure, young people can feel devalued or distrusted if, for example, they are offered a beneficiary role with limited power or influence. The successful family must provide the training to make this relationship harmonious and satisfying and may also look for ways to allow more flexibility. Each young family member must understand these options and learn how to relate to them in a mutually beneficial manner that may not be immediately clear. By understanding, negotiating, and engaging, these young family members may discover areas of flexibility not initially apparent. To avoid acrimony and conflict, the family must develop caring relationships and commitment to work together so that the family wealth serves the family goals.⁴

Parenting and Developing Character in the Wealthy Household

The primary responsibility of parents is to raise productive adults. If the family is also an economic unit, the family usually prepares its children to fulfill their responsibilities in the family ventures. Generative families report that this task is made more difficult when the family has substantial wealth. Wealth can be seductive; it deeply affects the reality of how children grow up and how they learn that the wealth is not just something to make them special and comfortable. The family has to teach values about children's responsibility to be stewards of the wealth, ensuring it will be wisely used.

An added challenge is that wealthy children grow up with a sense of specialness that sometimes translates into feeling that wealth makes them better than other people. This is called entitlement; its opposite, a sense of service and responsibility to sustain the wealth and add to it, is called stewardship. The goal of the privileged household is to help its children move from entitlement to stewardship. This chapter explores two facets of this endeavor: first, the active role of parents before their children begin university, and second, the journey of the young adult to develop a personal identity. The first stage is the prime time for active family engagement, teaching, and learning; this time is followed by a period of gradually letting go as young adults find their way through higher education and into their first work experiences.

Parents set examples about values and teach responsibility even when they are not conscious they are doing so. “Messages” are passed in family conversations about what is and is not important about wealth and in life. For example, one young woman proudly showed her father her first paycheck, earned from working in a service project. Her father's response was, “Why are you working? You don't have to work.” The effect of this message was that she always felt vaguely guilty about working because she was taking money away from people who needed it.

Most generative families report that they are successful in sending the message to many, if not most, of their rising generations that they must develop a work ethic, and an ability to take care of themselves if the “golden goose” stops producing:

We are focusing on what the family members want to do. We're encouraging the family members, by saying clearly, “Look, you're getting a check from the business and if you don't want to be in the business, it's fine. But go do something. Learn what you want to do and pursue it.” That way they learn the skills of how to survive because we don't know what happens if the wealth supply runs out.

Young people develop values from their parents' indirect messages and examples. They may learn that a person's worth is measured by how much money they have or that people who have money do or do not do certain things. These messages can be conscious or unconscious.

Money has many meanings for a young person. Children are especially curious about where money comes from, as it is very abstract and almost magical. They have to learn that some people do not have nice houses and schools. Their experience may be that when you want money, you just stop at an ATM and get some. Parents may use money as a reward or give children gifts when they leave for work or a vacation on their own, leaving their children to learn that money can be a barely adequate substitute for love and engagement.

Values about wealth, the families in this study report, arise from engagement and example within the family, rather than policies and rules. Here is an account by a South American family of how one parent influenced his children:

I raised my children to be leaders and live by the family values. We started working with the children when they were very young. We went with them to sports activities, and every single day of my life, I talked to every single child. Every night, we'd have a little chat. Two very important things came out. One was the ability to communicate. We have excellent communication skills among ourselves. Communication didn't start when they started in the business. It started when they were four or five at the breakfast table or basketball court. We try to have dinner together every night. Every Sunday, we would go to church. I think that strengthened family values. My wife is great. She's the chief emotional officer. When you give people security and enough love to go around and respect them, they are secure. When people are anxious or nervous or worried, they are that way because they're not given enough love.

Those values were transmitted to the children. My wife and I insisted on excellence in education. I guess if we had had a child that didn't want to study, we would have had to force them. But we really tried to mold them to do well in school. They went to the best schools here, but every summer we sent them to the US for summer programs. Since my grandfather never had an opportunity to have a good education, he used to tell me, “I told your father that I'm not going to give him that inheritance from me. The only thing I'm going to leave him and your uncles and aunts is an education. That's the only inheritance that no one can take away from you.” That was a very nice message.

He helped his children see that despite living in a highly affluent community, they would not have everything other kids had. While they were richer than most of their peer families, his children were taught to be thoughtful about their spending.

Young children learn about work by doing chores and helping around the house. If there is a family business or family office, they may experience work by helping there. This may also be the first time they get paid. By visiting the family business and seeing how work is done, they directly view the source of the family legacy and imagine their own possible future. Similarly, if a family engages together in community service work, children learn about other cultures and the challenges of a world where some have and others do not. This is a difficult moral lesson.

“We know what a drug money can be as it stopped children from becoming the best they could be. I didn't want that for our children,” says a matriarch of one branch of a large multigeneration family. “I was very conscious that I wanted my children to make it on their own.” This desire in turn led her and her husband to work actively with their own family branch, developing a strong family organization to introduce a contrasting culture of excellence for their children.

Sharing family values and discussion about money and wealth is a critical task for a wealthy family. One South American family heir reports how the family established a “counterculture” that challenged the prevailing materialism seen in their peers, a difficult lesson for them to learn:

I noticed a lot of children are given polo lessons, yachts, sports cars very early. We have stayed away from that. The first car they got was a Volvo. No yachts, no polo. It's about work and helping your neighbor, loving your family. When our friends at school would get something like a fancy new bike, my mother would say, “Well, that's not necessary. You can have a simple bicycle. It will do the same thing.” They never tried to match up to the advantages of other people. So if somebody had a car, we had a bicycle. Or if somebody had Nike, we had Converse. In that sense, money was not important. It was never discussed until we were older. We learned to be moderate with money, have control over it. Don't overextend yourself.

I remember I had a savings box made out of paper-mâché. Every day, they gave us seventy-five cents or a dollar to buy a coke or candy. I never bought the coke or candy. I saved the money and put it in my savings box every day for I don't know how many years. I saved almost $2,000 like that. Then I bought stocks. I was about fourteen or fifteen, and I said to my dad, “Why don't you buy some stocks for me?” So he bought me some stock that I still have. I also collected auto stickers and sold them at school. With that money, I bought a croquet game with my neighbors, and we formed a croquet league.

One challenge of long-standing family wealth is a by-product of its success. Over generations, the family establishes a public image of values and service to the community as well as a vibrant and successful business. The outside view is of prosperity and service. The next-generation family members benefit from this perception by experiencing respect and community status but also sometimes envy and jealousy.

Young family members may need help to respond to this public perception:

In terms of values, I keep stressing why we want to stay together. Very few people in my family have anybody to relate to with this wealth other than ourselves. We're not the Rockefellers. We all live with the fact that people assume that we have private jets and live this grand life, which we don't. But we're much better off than most of our friends, so we're very fortunate. Nobody wants to complain about having money or the issues that come with it, so there is a big void of how you discuss this or who you discuss it with. By getting together, we earn a comfort zone that we can talk about it. We need to rely on each other that way. Share experiences, thoughts. How do we deal with that as it goes to our kids? We all are guinea pigs.

While the “family” is wealthy, individual members may have no control over or access to that wealth. The outside community may regard them as rich, but as individuals they feel constrained and of limited means. This may make them anxious and uncomfortable. How do they react when someone asks for a loan or expects them to always pick up the check at dinner? Several heirs mentioned the importance of not having their family wealth known to their peers; one family member changed his name when he entered college so that he would not be associated with his parents' generous endowments.

Families all over the world share one quality in relation to wealth: they don't talk about it or do so with great difficulty. Many generative families experienced the distrust and incapacity that came from keeping it secret from their children. They came to learn (often after a struggle) how to talk with their children about money, wealth, and inheritance. Rarely does a family do this from the start. A second- or third-generation leader, nonfamily leader, or advisor can guide the family to this conversation. One family in this study had difficulty with its first attempt at a family discussion. But the family tried again and was more successful.

If the family does not allow the children to talk about money and wealth, the children's feelings and struggle will have no outlet, and they may make self-defeating life choices. Several family members talked about feeling a vague sense of guilt about having money. “I didn't earn it,” said one family member, “so I didn't feel it was really mine.” While family wealth provides many benefits, members of wealthy families are always aware of the double-edged nature of inherited wealth. Young people need guidance to deal with these mixed feelings, and this guidance is best delivered in personal discussions.

Generative families learn to meet regularly to talk about money and wealth; this stands in strong contrast to most families, even affluent ones, that do not talk about this. Parents recall conversations about the future. They try to take a light touch, making it possible for the next generation to become involved, but also establishing clear values and expectations for members of the next generation.

Explaining the meaning and use of family wealth is difficult. It demands a high level of engagement and give and take. Here is a creative example from a European family patriarch. He holds regular meetings with his two sons, who work with him in the business:

It's still small enough to do that on an informal basis, but we realize that in the future that's going to have to be more formal. Me and my sons (the third to fourth generation) have over the last ten years formalized meetings about transition. Twice a year, we sit together for twenty-four hours. We call this the “how are you meeting.” We exchange views of what kind of things we are going to work on for the next generation in a formal way. It's like a business family meeting. We do it here in my house.

The basic question is: How are things going in general, what are the top preoccupations in your head? What can make the other parties happier? We look at what do you like and what you don't like, what went wrong, or what can I do to make you happier? I make mistakes, and you make mistakes, and you are going to do that every week, and you have to accept the way you are. You cannot change that, but it's good that you know that so you will try to avoid these negative things.

What causes parents and children to start talking? It could be a crisis, a sudden or untimely death, or a financial windfall or loss. Or it can be a question voiced by a young family member. The parent can either open up or shut down the conversation.

It is difficult for parents and their offspring to talk freely and candidly. One reason is that young people feel that their parents are looking for specific responses and have a hidden purpose in what they are asking. So in order to have family conversation and to convey that they are open to hearing what their children think, parents have to ask more questions than state their opinions. Parents have to make it clear they want to hear the answer and not interrupt. If they get a one-word answer, they gently probe by asking further questions. This is called “having an attitude of inquiry rather than advocacy.” While parents do in fact have an agenda and opinions, waiting to learn from the young people what they think and feel first is a path to a successful family conversation.

Instilling values is rarely a formal process. Rather, through their own actions, parents set an example. However, several legacy families also initiate conversations with their children specifically about the meaning of family wealth. There seems to be no set age for doing this. Most families adopt a graduated method of conversation—sharing information and teaching skills at different ages as appropriate. “We've talked about where happiness comes from, having a good solid family, good solid friends, good food, a happy life at school. Things that are very tangible that you can call on all the time,” says an inheritor who is now chair of her family's council.

Most families who have been successful over multiple generations develop an ethic of thoughtful spending, setting limits on how much the family spends in an external environment that enshrines consumption. It takes the concerted effort of a parent to instill this sensitivity. This sixth-generation family, with a long history in several countries, embodies the following values:

Our values are focused on trying to live in a frugal way, trying not to abuse family wealth, and respect other people. We're distributing relatively modest amounts at a relatively young age. I've heard of other families where at age eighteen, they come into a trust fund where they're rolling in millions of dollars. It's important for us not to do that because that way, you're causing major issues for future generations.

The efforts described here are largely aimed at creating a family climate for these values to emerge. The founding generation's values are influential, as a third-generation family leader of a European family states:

The dividends are not something we've actually earned. Prior generations put together this company and did a lot of hard work, so we need to be responsible and wise with the money that we are given, not live extravagantly. We give a lot philanthropically and live modestly, like my grandfather and grandmother, who created the company. They chose to live in the same one-story brick house they've lived in for fifty years rather than deciding to upgrade to some kind of extravagant mansion. They were happy and content and satisfied with what they had and spent their money in other ways, whether it would be taking family and friends on trips to places or cultural things. There is an overriding mentality to not take for granted what you have and use it for education and long-term value.

Grandparents (elders) can be powerful teachers and models. Their venerated history and their special relationship with their grandchildren allow them to share their special family legacy:

We get together each summer for two weeks without the parents; it's our opportunity as grandparents to give back to the next generation some of our values, pass along some of our traditions, and nurture that history and those traditions. Every five years, our family has an important ceremony. We dress up. It starts at age five when the child is five years old; we plant a tree for them at our country house. At age ten, they get the treasure chest, filled with all of the history of the family and the DVDs and all the artifacts.

Developing Identity as a Child of Wealth

Even with parental support and engagement, a young person growing up in a wealthy household must develop a positive identity independent of the family.⁵ While there are many examples of materialistic, entitled, “spoiled,” even self-destructive and lost young people, the accounts by families in this study indicate that an engaged, values-based investment in the next generation by the family elders is a strong antidote to this tendency. Such an investment begins in the household and then expands to the extended family “community” of cousins growing up in the shadow of the family enterprise. The extended family reinforces the message by offering membership in a wonderful community that shares a business and commitment to positive social values. Membership has rewards but contains responsibility. To prepare to join the extended family enterprise as a steward, the young person first embarks on a journey to develop a personal sense of purpose and capability that in turn enables a positive role in the family enterprise.

The trappings of wealth are omnipresent for young people. This reinforces a sense that they are “special” in undefined ways, affecting expectations, questions, choices, and concerns about their future. This upbringing potentially provides inheritors an unusual amount of freedom to define themselves. But this same freedom and privilege also complicates making good choices and feeling good about their fortune in a world where people with inherited wealth may feel devalued by others with less who resent them. The way a young inheritor integrates the presence of money and wealth into his or her work, personal relationships, and life choices creates “wealth identity.”⁶

Knowing their life is subsidized, how do these young people motivate themselves among so many possibilities and choose what to do with their lives? Living in the outsize shadows of their parents, they wonder what they can do that will be significant and important. The opportunities of wealth can be lost if spent on meaningless, self-defeating, or destructive pursuits. Wealth can be a source of confusion if inheritors are not sure what it means to them, what they want to do with it, or how it fits into their lives. They find themselves doing a little of this, a little of that, and not having enough motivation to stick with anything.

Money alone is not the issue. It is also the status and recognition that comes with wealth, potentially leading to feelings of power and entitlement but also feelings of entrapment and isolation. Having and inheriting money has a marked impact on young people's core identity—on the beliefs and values that map how they view themselves as well as how others see them. Inheritors can experience guilt or feel that they do not deserve these gifts, complicating their ability to move forward with a positive relationship to their wealth. After learning from their parents, they have to work on their own to develop their own personal identity. Identity development does not emerge fully from parents' teaching. However, the experience of being part of an extended family community can aid their journey immeasurably.

Wealthy heirs nowadays grow up in a bubble, a “gilded ghetto”⁷ where they mostly meet others like themselves. Being protected, they do not experience diversity or have much opportunity to manage their own affairs. They do not go out or even play on their own. “Helicopter” parents watch and program their every activity, leaving little space for self-discovery.

With all of their wealth, their life experience is thus limited. Entering college may be one of the first times they are on their own, sharing space and getting to places on time without reminders. They may meet and learn from people different than them and may expand their horizons or remain secluded within a tight circle of other heirs. They need to be prepared and encouraged to take the first path—that of expanding their horizons.

This developmental journey can be described as a triangle, with contributions from both the parents and the young person. (See Figure 13.1.)

A young person begins by learning from parental example and teaching. There can also be contribution via extended family activities. But the young person must then go on a personal journey—college, travel, relationships, work—to develop a sense of personal identity, capabilities, self-confidence, and a personal mission. As this journey unfolds, the young person then returns to the family, entering the family assembly and other family activities, in a variety of ways. This inside/outside/return model needs support from the elder generation.

Several family practices help young people in generative families navigate this path. First, the elders let go and allow young adults to find their way. Young people are encouraged to set out on their own, with appropriate support for things like education or travel, but not so much that they don't have to do some things for themselves. Particularly important is getting their first job outside the family, which is not given to them, and at which they have to perform on their own. Parental expectations should be made explicit, and parents should try as much as they can not to give mixed messages that show disapproval of the young people's choices. This can be tough for parents who feel strongly about certain directions.

Young people want their families to be interested and supportive of what they do; they want their parents to limit criticism and control over their choices. As their kids move toward maturity, parents can be appreciative but should exercise less direct control. They should resist their desire to use money to control choices and behavior. Young people develop best when they feel that while there are resources behind them, they are also expected to be on their own, even self-supporting. The family should have a clear agreement about what can be expected from the family and what the young people are expected to do in return. The presence of trusts and money is a problem if the rules for what is theirs and what is not are unclear.

Many young people report difficult experiences that propel them to learn and grow. If they don't struggle, they cannot learn. So parents who are rescuers, or who support their children in avoiding the consequences of difficulties, prevent learning. When a crisis or difficulty leads the young person to struggle, a common developmental sequence of identity development emerges that follows the lines of the “hero's journey”⁸—a person sets out to find something, encounters setbacks and difficulties, and overcomes them with some help from outside, all to end up with the prize that includes a sense of achievement, personal identity, and life purpose. Identity development can be viewed as a personal journey of difficult lessons and obstacles overcome, leading to public achievement and recognition as the young person returns home.

Young people who grow up with wealth inhabit a cocoon of safety, protection, plenty, and attention that has been called a state of “innocence”⁹—where they feel special and omnipotent, as if nothing can happen to them. Then, maybe on their initial journey outside the family something happens—a personal failure, a difficult relationship, or a challenge—that signals they can't rely on their parents or their money but have to fix it on their own. They are hurt and troubled, and this sets them to learn, reflect on, and come to terms with what they want to do with their lives. They may have to overcome bad judgment or habits. Doing so, they develop on their own some confidence, self-acceptance, and sense of purpose.

For parents, anxiety and desire for the best for their children can lead to rescuing them from any nascent difficulty, setting up a cycle of codependency where the child knows parents will always be there to take care of them. Parents who find their young adult children in trouble or hurting have to be able to apply positive tough love—emotional support along with the message that they have to solve their problems without unlimited parental resources. This lesson must first be learned by the parent.

Parental engagement is tricky at this stage. A parent should find a way to be in regular contact, as a sounding board for some (not all) experiences but taking care to be supportive and ask questions rather than preach or tell the young person what to do. Support does not have to mean solving a problem or intervening. Using one's means to smooth a path to college or a job is almost always counterproductive. For a parent used to having direct impact and taking action, this stage of support can be difficult to learn. Such a parent is not used to such an indirect role.

Young people who emerge from their own journey develop a sense of self strong enough to be ready to become involved in family ventures. They return home with their own success at doing something well and a set of skills they are ready to offer to the family.

Developing a Personal Development Plan

As young family members complete college and graduate school and prepare for their careers, it is helpful to develop a plan for personal and career development. Many books and resources can help with this. One way to focus your growth is to create and manage a Personal Development Plan. To take personal responsibility for your future, it should have the following elements:

• Assess Your Skills and Capabilities
  • What do you want/need to learn?
  • How will you learn it?
  • What preparation and experiences do you need to develop your capability?
  • How will you assess yourself in these areas?
• Move Out of the “Bubble” of Family Privilege
  • Leave home and discover the wider world through work, travel, and education
  • Support yourself
  • Take risks and try to learn about overcoming adversity
• Find a Mentor, Guide, or Coach
  • Elder who has been there and can support and guide you
  • Who are the best mentors? Where do you find them?
• Develop Credibility
  • What is most important in your message to the family?
  • What is the difference between interest, capability, and credibility?
  • How do others know what you can do, how you can add value?
  • How do you develop your credibility in the family and the family business?
  • What is your plan for learning and developing your role?
  • What do I have to learn in order to be ready for this role?

Wealth Messages

We earlier offered tools for having a family conversation about money and wealth. This conversation can take place one-to-one between each set of parents and each child, not as a single event but as an ongoing process. When a young person is choosing college or looking at a first job, family conversations can be helpful. When they are away at college, regular family phone calls or visits can offer a young person support while still allowing privacy for them to manage their own lives. Family agreements about support and help can be part of these talks.

What Is the Family “Deal”?

A key question for every young family member, and one that often is left unstated, is “What can I expect from the family in terms of resources, support, and aid just because I was born into this family?” This support may also be conditional on taking up certain responsibilities, having certain values, or behaving in a certain way. As a whole family, or in individual conversations, each young family member should be able to learn what he or she can expect and what the conditions are.

In this conversation there must be some exchange. Often young people grow up with certain expectations about fairness and what they were told. The family has to make the reality clear but also be willing to listen to the situation from the young person's perspective.

Often this can be done with a cross-generational family meeting, rather than individual ones, so that it can be clear how the expectations are similar or different for each person.

Assessing Basic Money and Wealth Management Skills¹⁰

Family education programs often teach young people core money management skills. These skills are important to all young people, but because these young people are expected to become stewards of family wealth, the family teaches these skills to the family together. These skills include how to:

• Feel comfortable with wealth.
• Talk about wealth in personal relationships.
• Manage personal wealth.
• Work with advisors.
• Save.
• Keep track of money.
• Get paid what you are worth.
• Spend wisely.
• Live on a budget.
• Invest.
• Handle credit.
• Use money to change the world.

Each young family member can respond to this list by checking the skills they have learned and those they want further help to learn. This can be done together as a family and the results used to develop family education programs and offer coaching to individuals.