If money talk is taboo in your family, you—and the kids—might pay later

Four advisors offer practical ways for wealthy parents to coach children, demonstrate responsible behaviour and transmit the right values

Diane Jermyn, Canadian Family Offices
Published January 22, 2025

Many affluent parents and grandparents try to hide their wealth from their kids, believing this will help prevent them from becoming spoiled or unmotivated to work hard. Given the Internet, that’s a bit naive today. Often people are just uncomfortable talking about money with their kids or simply don’t know when or how to begin.
But if you want your children to have a healthy relationship with the wealth they will inherit, you need to start the conversation.

Jeff Savlov, a family business and wealth consultant at Blum & Savlov LLP in Highland Park, N.J., suggests couples start talking before they have kids, so they know where they stand on values and material possessions, such as fancy cars or simple cars, big houses or modest ones. The first family discussions can begin when the children are preschoolers, by sharing stories about how the family’s wealth was built and emphasizing the hard work and values behind it.
“You can talk about family wealth without talking about money, and you can talk about money without using numbers, and that’s all part of this developmental process,” says Savlov.

Claire Sutton
“You start with the story about grandpa and the truck and how he was eventually able to hire people and that it was important to treat those people well, so you’re integrating values. As they get older, you can add to that story about how the business grew and grew so there was more than enough for the family’s needs,” he adds.
“It’s critical to do it right from the beginning and then work your way up into specifics and numbers as they’re ready,” he says. “I’ve seen parents do a really good job and have middle schoolers who were responsible and able to attend meetings with financial advisors because the parents were open.”
Claire Sutton, founder of Claire Sutton Consulting Inc. in Vancouver, suggests taking children to visit the family business to learn how it operates, if applicable, to help them understand the origins of the family’s wealth.
The key is making it an active, participatory process for children rather than just lecturing them, she says.

“There’s no such thing as a stupid question. You have to give the age-appropriate answer and you can also do that by sharing stories—about the origins of the family’s wealth, what the meaning of wealth is for their family and how they’re in a privileged position to give back,” Sutton adds.

Teaching children business skills can also be as simple as child’s play. Cindy Radu, founder of Cindy Radu Advisory Ltd. in Calgary, did just that with her friend’s two young granddaughters, ages four and six, by helping them set up a pretend company involving their Barbie dolls and stickers. That included having them come up with a business name, assigning roles and even creating a share register and holding a board meeting.

Cindy Radu
“One was the CEO while the younger was in charge of catering, making tea with her little Disney teapot,” she recalled. “We collected money from the shareholders, so we got quarters and created a share register, taping the quarters down. The girls loved it and kept asking for me to come back to help them create another company.”
Be transparent, not secretive.

Parents should focus on normalizing the family’s wealth rather than keeping it secret, says Steve Legler, a family business advisor based in Montreal. The problem with hiding it is that when the kid goes to school, the wealth can be revealed in a very damaging way for the child who feels singled out from his peers.
“They see their friends whispering and pointing because somebody Googled it,” says Legler. “So the kid comes home and asks, ‘Are we rich?’ Now the elephant just walked into the room and you’ve got to deal with it—and that’s happening at increasingly younger ages.”

Legler says parents need to trust themselves to start the conversation and make money a topic they’re allowed to discuss.

“It’s not about one 100-minute conversation,” he says. “It’s about 100 one-minute conversations. The more you can throw in something about money or philanthropy, the better, so it’s not a taboo thing.”

The longer the secret is kept, the more damaging it can be to the parent-child relationship, Legler says. Sometimes people are in their 20s and 30s before they learn about the wealth and then feel betrayed and wonder why they weren’t trusted with the information sooner.

Steve Legler
“When families finally realize they have to tell, what often happens is they want to have one big meeting where they share everything with everyone,” says Legler. “Mom and Dad are relieved, but now you’ve flipped on all these floodlights, and the kids are blinded. To me, it’s about the dimmer switch, turning on a little light, sharing a bit, then a bit more, so they can understand what this means.”
Let them earn it.

With a life of privilege, there must be expectations. Sutton suggests providing children with an allowance, but to tie it to completing chores or other responsibilities to teach them the concept of earning money.

“Encourage children to develop their own sense of purpose,” Sutton advises. “Support them in finding meaningful work and ways to contribute to society, rather than just living off the family wealth. For instance, if they want a new bike, they’ve got to save a portion of their allowance to get it.

“I think parents want their kids to be functioning citizens of society and financially independent, not going to the ‘bank of mom and dad’ all the time.”

Share the wealth

Engaging children in philanthropy from an early age helps them understand the value of giving back to the community.

Radu suggests creating a family foundation that the rising generations can participate in managing, such as by serving on an investment committee or deciding on grant recipients. Another idea comes from a family where the grandparents gave each of their three grandkids $1,000 to donate.

“The youngest was three, so her older brother, who was five, helped choose on her behalf,” Radu says. “Then the really cool causes they had decided on were all talked about at the family’s next annual assembly.”

Another way to interest the children in philanthropy is through sports or music heroes that they admire who are involved with charities. “Celebrities can be really good role models,” says Legler.

Spoiled kids? It’s not too late

Legler says parents should remember that “you don’t teach your kids values. Values are ‘caught.’ So if parents are modelling the right values around how they deal with their wealth, the kids will catch that. But if they’re throwing the money away, then don’t be surprised if the kids act the same way.”
In that situation, Savlov says, “the parents need to fall on their sword, sit the kids down and say, ‘Hey, we want to have a family conversation. We’ve made some mistakes and feel we could have done a better job integrating values around money. We’re seeing some things that are concerning, and it’s our fault.’”

If the parents haven’t been walking the walk, they might have to make some real changes, he adds, and that’s hard.

“It’s common, and it’s difficult, and families really have to be motivated to take that on. Often there needs to be professional help to guide the process.”

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