Children who grow up in financially comfortable households are not destined for entitlement, but how their parents talk to them about money along the way makes a measurable difference.
That is the view of Andrew Lendnal, Head of Financial Wellness at Wealthspire, whose book, How I Turned My Kids into Financially Entitled Monsters, draws on his own experience raising two daughters to make the case for hands-on financial education at home. He’s been speaking with InvestmentNews.
"Most financially entitled monsters are raised by loving, generous, and well-intentioned parents. I'd know. I raised a couple. One of my daughters asked for a Tesla at 11. Another felt she'd earned an iPhone upgrade for doing her homework," Lendnal says.
He said the mistakes that lead there are usually small and well-meaning.
"We pay kids for things that should just be expected of a family member. We say yes to the upgrade without asking them to put in a dollar or an hour toward it. And we work hard to shield them from ever hearing 'no, we're not buying that this month,' which is the exact moment a kid learns money runs out. None of that comes from bad parenting. It comes from confusing giving our kids opportunities with removing their responsibility, and over enough time, the opportunities quietly turn into expectations," he said.
"The goal is to help them understand that money, like most good things in life, is connected to effort, choices, and gratitude," Lendnal adds.
Many advisors focus on wealth transfer and estate planning but spend less time preparing the next generation to actually manage money.
But Lendnal stresses that there is no minimum age requirement for starting that education, pointing to his own upbringing in New Zealand as an example of how early money lessons take hold.
"The minute a child starts asking for things, they're old enough to start learning," he notes. "Growing up in New Zealand, I figured out pretty fast that if you wanted something, you usually had to work for it, and that stuck with me long before I knew what a 401(k) was in the United States."
His approach shifts as children get older, so with young kids, he keeps it to the basics, the difference between needs and wants and the idea that money represents somebody's effort. Tweens and teens get a small budget they are allowed to overspend, so they feel what running out of money actually means, along with conversations about what a paycheck looks like after taxes.
The move into adulthood brings credit, debt and workplace benefits into the picture, although Lendnal said that by then, "the foundation was poured years earlier at the grocery store."
Advisors often work with affluent families trying to give their children opportunities without removing the motivation to work and achieve. Lendnal says that the size of a family's bank account is not what determines how kids turn out.
"When I was an investment advisor in a previous career, I met families worth millions whose kids were completely grounded, and families with far less whose kids struggled with entitlement. The size of the bank account almost never predicted it," he says.
And he says that the practical version of balance comes down to making children participants rather than spectators.
"When my daughters wanted something big, the answer wasn't a flat yes or no - it was 'okay, here's the part you're covering.' Some of it, some of the time. The moment a kid contributes their own money or effort, they start weighing whether they actually want the thing," he says. "I look at it like this: support pays for the opportunity, accountability asks them to carry a piece of it, and dependency is what you get when you skip that second step. This is one of the key reasons we created the Rising Gen program at Wealthspire to address this challenge."
Lendnal has argued that financial education starts at the dinner table, and he points to ordinary daily moments rather than formal lessons as the most effective teaching tool.
"The best money lessons rarely happen in a classroom. They often happen while pushing a cart down the cereal aisle or driving to soccer practice. I used to say things to my daughters like, 'this week's groceries ran about $200,' or 'that Lego set would've cost me most of a day's pay when I was starting out.' I'm not trying to lecture them. They're little stories that connect money to effort without anyone's eyes glazing over," he says.
"The trick is just to stop treating money like an adults-only secret. Talk about trade-offs out loud. Let them hear you decide not to buy something. Kids who grow up around normal, unembarrassed money conversations turn into adults who can have them too," Lendnal says.
When advisors meet with clients, raising the subject of financial literacy for children can feel risky if parents take it as criticism. Lendnal says the fix is to lead with curiosity rather than evaluation.
"Always lead with curiosity. The question I keep coming back to is, 'what financial values do you hope your kids inherit?' Parents light up at that one. They almost never say 'compound interest,' they say responsibility, gratitude and knowing the value of work. And just like that you've moved the conversation off of money and onto the legacy they actually care about. Nobody feels graded, because you're not asking what they've done wrong. You're asking what they're hoping for," he says.
Through his board role with the National Financial Educators Council, Lendnal has a window into where young adults' financial skills tend to break down.
He believes it is not a knowledge problem so much as a confidence one, people can define financial terms without being able to apply them to real decisions about debt, benefits enrollment or long-term saving.
"Knowing the vocabulary and being able to act on it are two different muscles, and we've trained one and not the other," he says.
He sees the consequences extending well beyond a balance sheet.
"Money pressure shows up in your sleep, your stress, your relationships, and how you show up at work. A young adult who feels capable with money is carrying a lot less weight than one who doesn't," Lendnal says.
Asked for the single piece of guidance he would give advisors helping clients raise financially capable children, Lendnal points to where families tend to focus their effort, and where they don't.
"Spend as much time preparing the inheritor as you do prepare the inheritance," he says. "I've sat with families who had beautifully built estate plans and almost no conversations with their kids about money, responsibility, or what any of it is for. The plan was airtight. The next generation wasn't ready. Financial capability doesn't pass down through a trust document - it gets built, one conversation at a time. In my experience, preparing the person who inherits the money matters even more than preparing the money itself."
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