THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FAMILY MONEY by Dr. Gary Buffone

The Importance of "No"

2010-06-30T01:35:00.000-07:00

Love and Limits: The Importance of "No" in Effective Parenting

By Dr. Gary Buffone

K

ids need nurturing from their parents to thrive, Just as much as they need oxygen to live. And nurturing, like oxygen, is comprised of two essential elements, love and discipline. Take either away and the child suffers. Now parents can err either way by giving too much or too little love or discipline to their kids, and I believe gender plays a role here. Moms are trained to be specialists in the nurturing side but often have a tough time applying discipline or laying down the law, saying "No." Moms are notoriously seen as "softees" or pushovers in the parental dyad. On the other hand, Dads traditionally play the role of heavy disciplinarians whose specialty is setting limits or being the "bad cop" with the kids. How many of us have memories of out Moms warning us, "You just wait to your father gets home," when we got out of line. But regardless of gender, many parents would rather pass when it comes to telling their kids "No." Why? Because they're either lazy or chicken! Some parents just don't want to take on the tough job of disciplining their kids. Other parents fail to discipline children because they're afraid, they don't want to deal with the child's rage, for fear that the child will not like them, or out of guilt that they are not spending enough time with them. And worst case is when they buy out of disciplining and give their kids things instead of themselves. Then they're planting the seeds for the Silver Spoon syndrome.

I talk about the importance of No's in what I call the Law of Loving Limits: Fulfill Their Nonmaterial Needs-Including Their Need for "No." "No's" are like vitamins to kids and should be given daily Regular doses of the "No" vitamin can cure kids of fits and those "fall on the floor kicking and screaming" tantrums and help children that are easily annoyed by obstacles, quit easily when faced with adversity, and can't delay gratification. In other words, training our kids to deal well with limits and obstacles build their emotional muscle and resilience.

Choking Press Release

2010-06-30T01:30:00.000-07:00

CHOKING ON THE SILVER SPOON Contact: name

Keeping Your Kids Healthy, Wealthy number

And Wise in a Land of Plenty e-mail

By Gary Buffone, Ph.D.

Publisher: Simplon Press

Publication date: February 2004

Price: $19.95/trade paper

ISBN:

Simple and Effective Financial Parenting

In “CHOKING ON THE SILVER SPOON” Psychologist Gary Buffone

Shares His Understanding How Parents Can Help Children of All Ages Maintain Healthy Lives in a Land of Abundance

Bill and Joan were at their wit’s end, caught between the constant whining and demands of their 7 year-old daughter and a brilliant son flunking out of college. Though busy with their careers while the kids were growing up, they had always worked hard to give them their children the very best. They now realized that something was terribly wrong, but what?

Living in a country filled with economic and material abundance, how have so many advantaged children’s lives become a slippery downhill slope to boredom, financial irresponsibility, dependency, narcissistic entitlement, depression, and abject failure? And more importantly, how can parents deal with the very real and complex issues surrounding their money and kids.

Many parents find themselves asking these very same questions.. In a recent survey conducted by U.S. Trust, parents number one concern is how their success will negatively impact their children. “Clearly, affluent parents are conflicted,” says Jeffrey Maurer, president of U.S. Trust, “On the one hand, like all parents, they want to give their child the advantages they can afford. On the other hand, they don’t want to undermine their children’s initiative and ability to succeed on their own.”

Gary W. Buffone, Ph.D., in his new book CHOKING ON THE SILVER SPOON (Simplon Press, ISBN, $19.95) presents no-nonsense answers to just these questions. .

The book provides sound, practical advice to help parents apply the Five immutable Laws of Financial Laws of Financial Parenting throughout the family life cycle. From teaching youngsters about money, to dealing with the entitled teen, to fostering healthy ambition and a strong work ethic, to tips on when and how to best transfer assets to adult children.

CHOKING ON THE SILVER SPOON has received endorsements from Steven Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Jessie O'Neill, author of The Golden Ghetto: The Psychology of Affluence, and Founder/Director of the Affluenza Project,

"Gary Buffone has come up with an effective inoculation to prevent affluenza! Bravo! Using Gary's tools will help parents and affluent children of all ages learn emotional literacy and health around financial matters. A must read for anyone interested in finding out how money can buy happiness!"

“Wealth is a double edged sword. Its unique challenges can be mastered, but where they are not handled adeptly, the damage is devastating. And no one pays a greater price than our children,” writes Dr. Buffone in his new book.

About the Author

Gary Buffone, Ph.D. is a leading advisor to the affluent and has been cited on money-psychology issues in Money, Worth, The Business Journal, CBSMarketWatch and MSN Money and has authored more than 25 publications, including his most recent book, The Myth of Tomorrow (McGraw-Hill/ September 2002). His Psychology of Prosperity Series is to be released by Simplon Press in Summer 2004. Dr. Buffone is married with two children and lives and works in Jacksonville, Florida. He can be contacted at www.thefamilywealthresource.com

2010-06-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

Curing the Silver Spoon Syndrome

Five Laws to Protect Your Children

Gary W. Buffone

Bob and Joanna Gray love their life. But that hasn’t always been the case. Bob is well into recovery from what most would consider the ultimate dream, having inherited a hefty sum from his grandmother at the tender age of 18.

“My dad fought with my grandmother over her giving us kids all this money. At the time I really didn’t see what the big deal was at the time. But I learned having too much money handicaps motivation. I never had to work out of necessity and dropped out whenever things got tough. Its taken these experiences and having my own kids to really understand why my father was so worried. I want to make sure what we have enriches our children’s lives and doesn’t hurt them.”

Now a parent himself, Bob has come to know all too well the risks and responsibilities that come with wealth. And like so many other fortunate parents, he and Joanna question how affluence will affect their own kids. Are our children, who seem to have everything, happy and building positive values and self-esteem? Do they have a healthy appreciation for money and “things” and will they willing to work hard to earn them? Will they handle money responsibly and will they be able to stand on their own two feet economically one day?

The Gray’s are not alone in their concern. In a recent survey conducted by U.S. Trust, parents number one concern is how their affluence will negatively impact their children. “Clearly, affluent parents are conflicted,” says Jeffrey Maurer, president of U.S. Trust, “On the one hand, like all parents, they want to give their child the advantages they can afford. On the other hand, they don’t want to undermine their children’s initiative and ability to succeed on their own.” And more and more parents will face this concern as it is predicted that the affluent population in America will increase at a rate five to seven times faster than the household population in general.

People like Bob remind us that money is not an instant recipe for happiness, and in fact, it generates special challenges all its own. His story represents just one example of a how such a group of seemingly “advantaged” kids can become cut-off from life’s traditional responsibilities and rewards. Lacking conventional ambition and having not yet developed a core identity or purpose, these children of affluence can find themselves lost and disoriented. Without normal goals and productive work as anchors, they run the risk of drifting into a special, yet twisted view of reality, and then into despair.

At what point should parents become truly concerned?

IN WEALTH’S SHADOW: SPOTTING THE SILVER SPOON SYNDROME

If you’re like many parents today, the odds are that you’ve recognized some of the warning signs of “affluenza” in your own kids. Is your brilliant young son inexplicably flunking out of school? Has your teenage daughter tearfully demanded you buy her a new BMW convertible so she won’t be embarrassed driving your car to school? Perhaps your grown child doesn’t call anymore because he’s angry that he’s not receiving what he feels he “deserves” from your estate. Or were your hopes dashed when your grown daughter spent your last cash gift on drugs and clothes?

These are all children infected with affluenza. So just what is the “Silver Spoon Syndrome” and how can parents spot it?

The Silver Spoon Syndrome is all about kids raised by parents who have used more dollars than they have good sense. Often well intentioned in trying to give their children the best, parents mistakenly focus on providing them a materially good lifestyle while shortchanging them on their time and nurturing. In today’s frenetic, Madison-Have-A-New oriented culture, it’s a trap parents can fall into before they even realize it.

To check whether your kids may suffer from the Silver Spoon Syndrome, answer these five questions.

1. Have you found yourself concerned that your kids lack any real motivation, ambition, and drive?

2. Does your child pout, throw tantrums, or quit when they don’t get their way?

3. Are you ever annoyed by your child’s demands and their “the world owes me” attitude?

4. Have you run into your kids bounced checks, burned-out credit cards, bad credit histories or pleas for the next big bailout?

5. Are your kids stuck on the most expensive designer labels, latest electronics, newest car, as if the “best off everything” is the only thing that can make them happy?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, then you likely have cause to worry, for these are the five cardinal signs of the Silver Spoon Syndrome: persistent underachievement, low frustration tolerance, narcissistic entitlement, financial irresponsibility, and distorted values.

Sound familiar? Fortunately, all of these dysfunctional behaviors and beliefs about money are learned, and therefore can be either prevented or corrected, no matter what your child’s age or stage in life.

So how can parents protect their kids from the scourge of the Silver Spoon Syndrome?

PRESCRIPTIONS FOR ALL AGES

Start Early

“The best advice I can give parents is to start teaching kids about money early,” offers Kristin McLauchlan, President and CEO of Legacy Trust Company located in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. “Many children today have little understanding of the value of money or what parents do to earn it. I believe parents need to immerse their children in money matters from a very young age.”

It’s been said that the time to start teaching kids about money is the day that they stop eating it. A good time to start is around age three, as long as you keep the lessons fun and short. Play money recognition games, set up a pretend toy or candy store and switch playing customer and shop owner, explain your transactions at the store or ATM. As soon as your child can count to ten, start an allowance and begin teaching responsible spending by having them split their earnings evenly between savings, spending for things they want, and charitable giving of their choosing.

Habits, good or bad, begin early. So start your children on the road to fiscal literacy as soon as you can.

Make Them Earn

If your child acts as though the world owes them, without any reciprocity on their part, they’ve developed this classic Silver Spooner trait. Children who exhibit this symptom are commonly called “spoiled.”

Psychiatrist Robert Coles, in his book Children of Crisis: The Privileged Ones, found that virtually all wealthy families communicate a message of entitlement to their offspring, conveying that they have a right to money, power, and status purely by virtue of their birth, rather than by their achievement. This same privileged upbringing often shelters affluent children from real-world consequences, with their behaviors seldom challenged or shaped by the real world.

To combat this, parents must make their kids earn whatever they receive, particularly all the extra goodies and privileges kids may have come to expect and think they deserve. Although young children do deserve a parent’s love and attention, good medical care, reasonable limits, and food and shelter to age 18; beyond that, everything else is gravy.

Parents must also reinforce the effort-reward connection at every opportunity. Build an atmosphere of absolute real-world accountability and make your kids be responsible for their behavior, no matter what the consequence. Save the sermons and let their experience become their guide.

Encourage Independence

Owen and Pam Margate were fed up. Their son Brad, 24, was still living at home with no plans, direction or savings. Owen, a corporate attorney, and Pam, a family physician, both from middle class backgrounds, had worked hard to give Brad the best. Two failed colleges, three totaled cars, and one DWI arrest later, the Margate’s had finally realized maybe the “best” just wasn’t good enough.

We were at our wits end,” shared Owen. “After talking to a professional, we decided to try some financial shock therapy. No more handouts or bailouts. He’ll have to get a full-time job and start paying rent or make plans to move out.”

After some fussing over the new arrangement, Brad found a job and got out on his own. “He didn’t believe us since we’d threatened him many times before, but we’ve stuck to our guns and now he’s working and starting to talk about going back to school. Maybe there’s hope after all.”

If you find your young adult stalled on the launch pad of life, begin realigning incentives to encourage them to take on greater responsibility and independence. Do yourself and your kids a real favor by turning that cozy nest into an empty nest.

Give Well

As we saw in Bob’s case, a gift is only a gift if given responsibly. Responsible parents and grandparents carefully plan their giving to make sure their gifts are tailored to the specific needs of their offspring. “Parents need to be objective in looking at their children and plan accordingly,” says Anne Buzby, Trust and Estate attorney at the law firm of Rogers Towers in Jacksonville, Florida. “Honestly assess your children’s maturity level, their financial savvy, and any personal vulnerabilities or problems before you make any major decisions about passing on your estate.”

Try to avoid the four biggest mistakes parents make in wealth transfers to children; too soon, too late, too tight and too much. Too soon means giving large cash gifts to children before they’re psychologically ready to handle them. Too late means putting off estate planning until the parents die or are disabled, leaving the kids to settle complex and often contentious issues as they are awash in grief. Too tight means trying to control kids by conditioning their gifts on a host of unreasonable demands. Too much involves giving gifts independently of the children’s true need or true character.

Give wisely and leave your children a legacy that money alone can never buy.

The Gray’s are living proof that wealth can be handled responsibly. We can learn from their experience that even when mistakes are made, growth and change are possible. “Even though we’ve certainly learned quite a bit from our experience so far,” says Joanna, “we’re still a work in progress. There’s still a lot we can learn that we want to pass on to our own kids”

SIDE PANEL

The Five Immutable Laws of Financial Parenting

Parents need to recognize that they have just as much of a duty to fulfill their children’s non-material needs—for love, discipline, guidance and belonging--as we do to fulfill their needs for food, medicine and shelter, and certainly anything beyond. For it is by these non-material gifts that we grant them safe passage into adulthood.

These five laws can serve as reliable guides for every decision about kids and money.

#1: The Law of Necessity

DON’T give them more material comfort than they absolutely need!

#2: The Law of Loving Limits

DO fulfill these nonmaterial needs—especially their need for “no.”

#3: The Law of Reciprocity

DO insist that they earn what they receive.

#4: The Law of Fiscal Responsibility:

DO teach them money management!

#5: The Law of Example:

DO practice what you preach!

From Dr. Buffone’s book, Choking on the Silver Spoon: Keeping Your Kids Healthy, Wealthy and Wise in a Land of Plenty, Simplon Press, 2004.