What Are We Going to Tell the Kids?

In 2008, I taught wealthy teenagers about risk management in a tent. They sobbed about their parents' struggles—the real estate crash, the fear, the angst. Joline Godfrey has spent decades helping families raise financially fit kids, and here's her insight: kids are ready to talk about money ten years before parents are. That's ten years of missed opportunities to talk about values, meaning, and how money is just part of the equation. Wealth makes some things easier and other things far more complex. Manage your affairs so you never have to say "What are we going to tell the kids?" Instead, aim for "the kids get it, we're good."