Why Our Kids Should Take Risks
Yes, we should encourage our kids to take risks. Of course I don’t mean foolish or dangerous risks, but those that will help them succeed in life. In our contemporary world, it’s the risk-takers who will succeed. Too many kids feel entitled, have been pampered or helicoptered, and the idea…
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The One Thing We All Want to Know
I recently attended an informational meeting for fifth grade parents at the middle school my daughter will be attending this fall. After swallowing the lump in my throat caused by the undeniable reality of why I was sitting there, I settled in to absorb everything the staff had to offer…
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Ben Franklin’s Biggest Regret
In 1736 the unthinkable happened. Ben Franklin, long an opponent of inoculating children against Smallpox, lost his son Franky to the disease. Losing a child must be the greatest burden a parent could bear, but to do so in this manner surely yielded extra heartache to Franklin and his wife…
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The Day I Stopped Saying ‘Hurry Up’
When you’re living a distracted life, every minute must be accounted for. You feel like you must be checking something off the list, staring at a screen, or rushing off to the next destination. And no matter how many ways you divide your time and attention, no matter how many…
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How to Fix Your Family
Parents and engineers have at least one thing in common. They both like to find solutions. They like to fix things. When I’m consulting with a family, it’s obvious to me when parents give unwanted advice to their kids. But when I go home, I fall prey to the same temptations…
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The Most Important Lesson From My Parents
Did you hear the one about CNN host Anderson Cooper losing out on $200 million? It sounds like the start of a bad joke… but there’s no punch line. Cooper, the son of heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, was disinherited from the family fortune. But there’s no bad blood. His mother planned…
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If You’re Not a Good Listener… You May Have a Big Problem
The tension in the room was palpable… The members of the Olander family sat in a circle of chairs. All except the oldest son, Adam. He was conspicuously absent. The family members and I were gathered because there were problems in the family business… and they were spilling over into…
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The Greatest Gift to Leave Your Grandchildren
You’ve probably heard the phrase “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” It describes how wealth earned in one generation tends to be lost by the third. This is a common phenomenon. Avoiding this fate is a core theme in the Bonner & Partners Family Office newsletter. How do you hold…
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Are You Guilty of Thinking This Way
Most people are prone to the Golden Age Fallacy. This is the feeling that earlier times, often our childhoods, were simpler, safer, and happier. Today, fundamentalist terrorists threaten violence to Western cultures… ethnic cleansing has devastated African communities… financial markets seem shaky… governments are paralyzed by political gridlock… We could…
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How to Talk About Touchy Subjects with Adult Children
What would you do if your son were about to marry a woman who was a bad fit for him and your family? That’s the dilemma Ted and Marta faced. Their 25-year-old son, Jake, was going to ask his girlfriend to marry him… and they didn’t approve. Sure, Jake’s girlfriend was pretty, educated…
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Who is in Your Scene?
My wife Claudia asked me, “What took you the longest in your life to understand?” I don’t know if I understand anything in my life. I don’t say this with self-modesty. Every day I learn something where I say to myself, “why didn’t I learn that before?” But I know…
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How to Protect Your Kids from “Affluenza”
I attended an interesting dinner party a few years ago… Seated at the head of an elegantly set table for 10, the host dominated the dinner conversation with stories of his favorite subject: himself. He bragged about going to Formula One races in France. He name-dropped when talking about his celebrity neighbors…
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