they are, are back to being like little kids at the dinner table, being told what to do and not having a voice. Of course, they acknowledge, some children can be challenging. “The combination of a very entitled child or a very troubled child and you have parents where the heartstrings are pulled… if you don’t say no now, it’s only going to get worse. So that’s where the psychology comes in. It isn’t just about the money; it’s the psychological vicissitudes of all the people in the family,” DiFuria says. “It all comes down to parents who set boundaries that are reasonable but enforceable.” Still, high-wealth people raising children in high- wealth areas, as most do, may have to fight community standards. “The question becomes, in your family, what kind of decisions do you want to
family. That was uncomfortable,” she says. She became a psychotherapist and certified coach after years in the health-care industry. She knew she wanted to work at the intersection of wealth and psychology when she was getting her second master’s degree and her psychology professors knew little to nothing about the impact of money on people’s mental health despite money being a huge stressor, according to studies by the American Psychological Association over the years. Regardless of what brought them to the field, their work is similar—helping people figure out what are the issues that keep them up at night, what concerns they have about transferring their wealth, and identifying their values. Once they get a sense of their clients and what they want to have happen with their wealth, they develop a plan to help them get there. That can happen relatively quickly for some, over a matter of months, while others may require decades. Adult children may be hesitant to bring up money with their parents because they don’t want to seem greedy. So DiFuria, Goldbart and the Jansens bring them into family meetings so everyone gets to be heard and understood. Overwhelmingly, the parents they work with want to raise children who are grounded, not spoiled. "The most common reason they come to us is their concern for the next generation,” Goldbart says. The only way for parents to at least attempt to avoid things going awry is to be strategic, they say, and to start that process earlier than later. “Trust funds can breed entitlement, period,” DiFuria says. “If you just set up a trust fund for a kid with no governance, no values, no operating principals, you breed entitlement.” And without a facilitator to help guide the conversations, they say, it can end up feeling like the children, no matter how old
Joan DiFuria
Stephen Goldbart
WE CAN’T CONTROL INFLATION
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YOUR PARTNER THROUGH UNCERTAIN TIMES
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September 2024
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