“The best time to learn to have conversations about money with your children is when they are small,” he says. “The second-best time is now. You’ve just got to have these conversations — and they will be tough.” says Carl Richards in the FT
The FT says “Some financial responsibility can be encouraged in young children. May, at Coutts, suggests encouraging them to divide their pocket money into three pots: one for spending, the second to save for a bigger item and the third for charity, which can help parents and children talk about values. Janet Hibbs, a family therapist and psychologist, says children need to be allowed to make mistakes with money when they are young. “If you don’t let a child learn until they are an adult, their bad choices will be more consequential.” Otherwise, children have “unrealistic expectations of what lies ahead in terms of essentially being financially kept for life”, says Bryony Cove, a partner in law firm Farrer & Co’s private wealth practice.”
If you get a chance to read this article, it will help you ask more questions about the decisions you make with your children. In fact, whilst the focus of the article is excess wealth held by families, the fundamentals are relevant to anyone who wants to pass wealth to their children.
The key thing to remember is money doesn’t care who it belongs to. It has no virtue. No morals. No integrity. It can equally belong to a ‘good’ person or a ‘bad ‘person. Therefore it’s not about money, it’s how you help your children manage money in their lives.
In our experience, it’s having great conversations about money and how everyone in your family has the right moral compass to make the best of money.