This month, we celebrate Purposeful Parenting Month, a time to focus on our parent/child relationships backed by intention. Parenting doesn’t come with a rule book. Sure, we have influences, suggestions, tips, and recommendations, but when it comes down to it, children are blank slates, and it’s up to us, as parents, to do our best to raise our children. We don’t accomplish this by being perfect but rather by being purposeful in our thoughts, actions, and intentions.
As a mom, one thing I have strived to be purposeful about is really listening to my children. Listening to your kids and giving them room to express themselves is just as important as instructing them. Allowing them to come to a conclusion on their own while you ask thoughtful, open-ended questions always turns out better. I’ve found that even if I don’t agree with their thought or plan, by asking them questions, and listening to their needs, desires, and concerns, I can help them to talk their way to a resolution.
As parents, we already have life experiences, but kids don’t want mom and dad to tell them everything — they want to discover it themselves.
As I was growing up, my parents were particularly purposeful in many of their lessons. After I started working at my very first job, my dad drove me to the post office to pick up tax forms and instructions for filing a tax return. He sat with me as I read them over to determine whether or not I needed to file that year. He answered all of my questions but prompted me to figure it out for myself, a lesson that applies to many things in life. Similarly, when I wanted my own car, I worked to save up half of needed funds, and they agreed to match what I earned for the other half. This taught me responsibility, the value of a dollar, passion, and purpose.
Today, with some of my high net-worth clients, I see examples of just how detrimental money can be if it allows important lessons like these to fall by the wayside. When people have everything handed to them, they don’t know or understand work ethic, and they often lack the desire to be productive and may never discover their gift that they are meant to contribute to the world. Life goes far beyond just enjoying things that money can buy, it’s about having a purpose.
Purposeful parenting goes beyond how you raise your children — it continues on through estate planning. If you just leave your estate outright to your children, this can cause confusion and complications, especially if the children are too young to manage the funds. That’s why we have trusts to help to manage the distribution or can assign a third party to manage the money for them. Trusts can be set up where the money stays in the trust for a lifetime, but once they reach a certain age, they can become their own trustee and make decisions about the assets and expenditures on their own. Through family meetings in our office, parents can include their children in their goals and plans to make sure their children understand why an estate plan is structured a certain way.
If you’re anything in life, when it comes to parenting, be purposeful, be intentional, be loving, and be present!