This piece was originally published in Trusts & Estates on March 11, 2026.
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“Money will only make you more of what you already are.” as T. Harv Eker observed. While wealth can empower a healthy family, it acts as a high-definition lens for those with strained relationships, magnifying existing tensions. Too often, parents attempt to manage this risk through rigid legal constraints and “dead-hand” trusts that attempt to dictate behavior from the grave. Rather than fostering unity, these commands often treat adult children like subordinates, triggering a cycle of anger and resentment that ripples across generations. Without a productive communication cadence, siblings may find themselves competing for control rather than collaborating, leaving the family legacy vulnerable to the very friction the parents were trying to avoid.
Many parents try to fix this with strict legal rules. They set up trusts that try to control their children’s behavior from the grave. They might say, “You only get this money if you finish college” or “You must keep the family business running.” But this approach often backfires. It treats adult children like little kids, which can cause anger and resentment. Worst of all, it doesn’t teach them how to make good decisions on their own.
There’s a better way. Instead of handing down orders, some families are handing down responsibility by creating a “Family Board” to practice what’s called “shared governance.”
Imagine a family where the parents don’t just decide everything behind closed doors. Instead, they invite their adult children to the table to manage the family’s future together.
My wife and I have done this with our own family. We realized that if we kept managing all the money ourselves until we died, our children would never learn the skills needed to handle it, including communication skills. We didn’t want our kids to just wait for an inheritance; we want them to be partners.
A powerful example of how this works happened recently when one of our children got into some trouble. In a typical family, the parents might stress out, argue privately and then decide whether to bail the kid out or let them suffer the consequences. If they helped, the other siblings might get jealous. If they didn’t, the parents might feel guilty.
Instead, we called a meeting of our Family Board. The board includes our adult children and us. For 45 minutes, we talked through the problem together. It wasn’t just Mom and Dad lecturing. The siblings spoke up, too. They offered insights that we hadn’t thought of. They helped look at the situation from the sibling in trouble’s perspective, while also considering what was fair for everyone else. They debated the difference between helping someone up and “enabling” bad behavior.
By the end of the meeting, the solution wasn’t just mom and dad’s—it was the family’s decision. Because everyone had a voice, there was no secret resentment. The siblings understood why the choice was made because they helped make it. I felt a huge relief knowing I wasn’t making the decision in a vacuum. The family grew closer instead of being torn apart by the crisis.
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