money and family life

Money and Family Life Project: Exploring the Relational Side of Wealth

Director: Judith Stern Peck, LCSW

This program helps build strategies and skills for addressing the challenges that wealth poses for families. As a premiere not-for-profit Institute whose focus is the research and study of family, Ackerman is uniquely prepared to facilitate conversations about money and relationships. Consultation services are available with senior faculty members.

For fifty years, The Ackerman Institute has played a pioneering role in developing innovative programs for families. Though many advisers and therapists are eager to address the needs of the families they work with, the Ackerman resources are unique. Our approach deals with the emotional and psychological issues as they relate to financial concerns. Money is a complex and complicated issue for everyone.

You may be a clinician who struggles with difficulty talking about financial issues with your clients or a financial adviser who avoids talking to your clients about family emotional issues or a family member who wants to examine the impact of their financial plan on family relationships. Relational dilemmas can seriously impact financial decisions that families make. Our objective is to create a safe environment for the family to work through dilemmas that often arise in that intersection of money and family life. In any difficult situation, our interventions can help. The following examples are quite common:

• Money and marriage-managing imbalances between partners; understanding different contributions to business and wealth accumulation; maintaining business and value systems while building relationships.
• Money and children-teaching children personal responsibility and guiding principles; structuring money as a resource for children, rather than a corrupting force.
• Money and cooperation-surviving the challenges of family-owned business; achieving harmony among family shareholders with different needs.
• Money and philanthropy-nurturing philanthropy as an extension of family values; identifying family priorities and maximizing effect.
• Money and values-transmitting attitudes about money and responsibility across generations.

What we can do:

• Consult with you
• Facilitate family meetings and retreats
• Consult with your advisers
• Resolve relational impasses