How To Prepare Your Children For Their Inheritance

  • Estate Planning
How To Prepare Your Children For Their Inheritance | Mario Godoy | Lombard Estate Planning Lawyer

Often parents and grandparents work hard for many years to build a successful business and accumulate valuable assets such as a primary home and vacation home. Other parents spend years accumulating a small nest egg to leave to their children for education or to get a jump-start on their own home or business. Whether you plan to leave your children thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars as their inheritance, you want to make sure your hard work is appreciated and protected – and not squandered away.

While many families are uncomfortable discussing estate planning, the best way to prepare your children or grandchildren for their inheritance is to discuss it with them. An experienced estate planning attorney can advise you on how to prepare your children for their inheritance with life skills to manage inherited wealth.

3 Tips to Prepare Your Children for Their Inheritance

Managing an inheritance is a big responsibility, whether it is a large or relatively small amount of money. Money management is typically not taught in school but instead is learned through trial and error.

1. Tell Your Children They Will Be Inheriting Money or Property
Not every child, even an adult child, needs to know exactly how much money they will be inheriting. But by preparing them early on that they will be inheriting responsibility in addition to money by discussing it with them openly and honestly, they will not be overwhelmed if they inherit at a young age.

2. Teach Them Financial Responsibility
Model responsible wealth management through charitable giving. Whether your financial assets are large or small, you can educate your heirs about the importance of giving back and using their money for the benefit of others. Let them research and choose a charitable organization to donate to at an early age, and encourage them to follow how their donation is used.

3. Provide a Finance Education
Writing a check, balancing a checking account, shopping for interest rates, compound interest – these subjects aren’t taught in grade school or high school. The more your children understand how our financial system works, the better prepared they will be to manage their inheritance.

It takes time to create and execute an estate plan that protects and transfers wealth to the next generation. Your heirs deserve to be educated on how to manage their inheritance. An experienced estate planning attorney can advise you on the best ways to provide your children and grandchildren with the life skills needed to manage and sustain inherited wealth.

Contact the experienced estate planning attorneys at Estate and Probate Legal Group in Dupage County, Illinois, to discuss how to preserve your wealth for the next generation. Call us today at 630-800-0112.