One of the greatest wealth-related concerns that keep parents up at night is how to ensure their wealth does not have a deleterious affect on their children (heirs). In some cases, no matter how hard the parents have tried to properly prepare their children, the children may still make irresponsible and sometimes destructive choices. For us parents, knowing when to let go and allow our children to learn from their decisions and actions is not always easy. In the Prodigal Son story, the father did just this; he gave one of his son’s his portion of his inheritance to have with it what he would. And the end result was the son spent it all and worst than this, he found himself hungry and feeding swine.

One of the most important lessons from this parable is the son’s response to his father after “blowing his inheritance.” He said, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.” HE TOOK PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS DECISIONS AND ACTIONS. He didn’t say to his father something like, “Because of the way you and mom treated me…” All to often “prodigal heirs” spend more time and energy making excuses for their actions and not taking full responsibility for them. When they do this, it only enhances the friction in the family and delays the healing that is necessary for the family to flourish.

In my book LEGACY, one of the chapters is focused on preparing the next generation and how the next generation can prepare themselves.