By Dr. Paris Woods, Ed.D.

One of the most common questions I get asked is how to pass along valuable lessons about managing money and building wealth to the next generation.

It usually sounds something like this:

Should I invest in my 401(k) at work or a 529 for my kids?

How do I get my kids to care about saving for the future when they’re focused on today?

How do I help my young adult child become financially independent? (Or, more bluntly, get them out of my basement?)

These questions all assume the same thing: that wealth is built by making the “right” choices early. But that’s not how wealth or fulfillment actually works. Instead of trying to change how our kids’ brains work by pushing them to plan, optimize, and think decades ahead before they’re ready, we need a different approach.

Much of what I’ve learned, both as an educator and as the author of The Student’s Guide to Financial Freedom, comes from watching what actually helps young people build confidence and stability as they step into adulthood.

As a 20-year educator who has watched multiple generations transition into adulthood, an aunt and bonus mom to three Black boys, and a formerly poor child who took the long route to financial freedom, here’s what I know:

The real secret to raising wealthy Black kids isn’t choosing the perfect savings vehicle. It’s helping them build agency, confidence, and adaptability by watching us live full, self-directed lives. For Black families, that kind of freedom represents something our ancestors could only imagine, and something we now have the opportunity to make real for our own kids.

When I use the word wealth, I’m not just talking about money in the bank or assets on a balance sheet. I’m talking about financial freedom: the ability to make choices, adapt to change, and live with agency over time.

Encourage and Support Their Exploration

A different approach starts with how we relate to our kids’ interests. The saying goes that hindsight is 20/20. That’s why we can sit from our adult stance and say that students should be more future-oriented. It’s because we reflect back on our younger selves and can see the decisions we wish we’d made differently. And then we predict what decisions we would make on their behalf as a result. 

Here’s the problem. Kids aren’t wired for long-term planning, a reality well documented by developmental psychologists. While young people can imagine the future, the brain systems that prioritize distant outcomes over immediate rewards and social influences are still developing, making future-based decision-making far less influential at this stage.

At the same time, we’re living in a rapidly changing world where new roles and industries are constantly emerging. Careers today are less linear than they were for prior generations, requiring people to adapt, reskill, and reinvent how they work over longer working lives.

So instead of trying to change how kids’ brains work, or asking them to plan for a future that’s inherently uncertain, we need a different approach.

This is the same approach I take with students themselves, meeting them where they are developmentally and helping them understand money as a tool for freedom, not fear.

The goal isn’t to help young people predict their future. The goal is to help them build the capacity to choose again later. That’s where financial freedom really comes from.

When young people are encouraged to go hard and deep on what they care about right now – whether that’s art, sports, science, business, or activism – they’re building the foundation for freedom and financial well-being over time. This isn’t “follow your passion” advice. I don’t mean a lifelong calling or a perfectly formed dream. I mean sustained curiosity, effort, and engagement with something, even if that interest changes over time. 

Here’s what they learn: I can do hard things. I can get good at something. I can turn my effort into results. AND, I can change my mind and repeat the process all over again.

For young people navigating instability or chronic stress, this kind of agency-building can be especially important, offering a counterweight to circumstances that too often tell them they have little control.

The next layer is helping them understand that their future self will want the same freedom they have today: the freedom to explore, pivot, and pursue what matters. And that freedom is protected not by passion, but by smart money choices.

This is where financial education comes in. Not as dry financial concepts, but as tools for protecting agency.

This works because passion fuels effort, smart money choices protect flexibility, and investing expands future options. We know the long game. The importance of saving and investing for the future. But for them, the framing around such choices is most powerful when it’s about protecting their sense of agency and choice. 

Saving, investing, and avoiding crippling debt aren’t about sacrificing joy today. They’re about making sure your future self isn’t trapped by yesterday’s decisions. They’re about preserving choice. This isn’t an argument against planning or discipline. It’s an argument for timing them in ways that align with how young people actually develop and make meaning.

When framed this way, financial responsibility becomes much easier for young people to grasp. They may not care about retirement accounts yet, but they do care about having options. They care about not being stuck. They care about being able to change their minds.

As parents and caregivers, our role isn’t to dictate their passions or force them into rigid plans. We don’t direct their passion. We fund experimentation and prevent harm. That support doesn’t have to be large or perfect. Even small, intentional choices over time, with encouragement or modest financial guardrails, can meaningfully shape a young person’s sense of possibility.

Get Your Own House in Order

A different approach also requires us to look honestly at our own lives. When we talk about getting our house in order, I’m not just talking financially. We’ve all heard the advice. And we all know why – because you can’t help anyone when you’re incapacitated.

For a moment, I want to speak directly to Black moms.

As Black women, we’re often the ones holding much of the labor in society. We’re earning degrees, landing big jobs, managing stress at work and at home, and supporting our churches, friends, and extended families to boot.

Many of us are living lives our mothers and grandmothers worked tirelessly to make possible. Honoring that legacy doesn’t mean grinding ourselves into exhaustion. It means finally claiming the fullness they hoped for us. 

In the aftermath of the Trump era, and in a moment when Black women have once again shouldered the emotional, political, and civic weight of this country, many of us are being called into a different season. One that honors rest not as indulgence, but as strategy.

How might rest support our children’s future freedom and financial well-being? 

So glad you asked!

As Audre Lorde reminded us, self-care is a revolutionary act in a system that was never designed for our thriving. When we allow ourselves rest, joy, and agency, we’re not stepping away from responsibility; we’re modeling a different way to live.

Yes, follow the age-old financial advice: make sure you have a budget, savings, money for retirement, and a solid financial foundation so that your first gift to your kids is not a financial burden for them later in life. (Because too often, financial freedom and wealth-building are interrupted when adult children must redirect their time and money toward caring for aging parents instead of investing in their own futures.)

But, moms and dads, listen closely. Not only is it impossible to pour into your kids from an empty cup, but what you’re pouring from that cup is just as valuable.

For many families, what gets passed down first isn’t money. It’s patterns, expectations, and beliefs about what kind of life is possible.

Here’s my challenge. Ask yourself what your greatest aspiration is for your kids – your definition of what wealth and financial freedom would mean for them – and then work on achieving that for yourself.

How can you experience more agency and choice? How might you incorporate joy into your everyday life? How can you start doing more of the things that light you up?

“Do what I say, not what I do” doesn’t work. The kids are watching us. Their nervous systems are incorporating the patterns they witness. Even as their brains are still developing executive functioning skills, the patterns they’ll ultimately follow are being laid. 

What children internalize here isn’t just behavior, but expectation; whether adulthood is defined by depletion or by sustainable agency. Kids who grow up seeing agency, rest, and intentionality don’t just inherit money; they inherit the confidence to multiply it.

And if you’re carrying regret about your own career, financial, or life choices, and wishing for better for your kids, let this be an invitation and not a judgment. A comeback story is often more powerful, if not moreso, than tales of self-perfection. (Do those really exist, anyway?) In fact, watching an adult course-correct can teach young people more about resilience and adaptability than getting everything right the first time.

So go ahead and tap into your deepest desires for a purpose-filled, joyful life, and live into it fully. It’s the best thing you can do to set your kids up for success on their own journeys and to achieve the same.

Practical Next Steps

Now that you know what actually builds wealth – understood as agency, adaptability, and modeled freedom – here are three ways to begin putting this philosophy into practice. These steps aren’t about controlling outcomes. They’re about creating conditions for choice.

1. Ask questions that build agency.

Instead of focusing on titles or credentials, invite your kids into curiosity about impact. With younger children, replace “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with questions like, “What do you like solving?” or “What do you enjoy learning more about?” With teens and young adults, try “What problems do you want to work on?” or “What gifts do you want to offer the world?”

2. Clarify your own definition of freedom.

Your children are learning what wealth looks like by watching you. Try journaling with the prompt: “What would I do if I didn’t have to work for money?” This isn’t about quitting your job. It’s about identifying the choices you want more of and beginning to move toward them intentionally. That kind of clarity helps you make smarter money decisions that support the life you actually want.

3. Automate protection for your future self AND theirs.

Pick one financial decision that protects future flexibility and put it on autopilot. That might look like a recurring transfer into savings or investments, setting clear boundaries around debt, or creating a small fund your child can use to experiment with interests and ideas. Automation preserves energy so you can focus on growth, exploration, and joy.

There are no guarantees in parenting or wealth-building, only choices that expand or narrow the range of possibilities over time. Trying to force the “right” outcomes early rarely works; choosing a different approach rooted in agency, adaptability, and modeled freedom gives our kids something far more durable.

Wealth, in the end, isn’t just about money. It’s about the ability to create, protect, and expand choice over a lifetime. If we are to truly live into the legacy of our ancestors’ wildest dreams, this is the life we owe it to ourselves, and the generations that follow, to create.

For parents looking for a way to continue these conversations with their teens and young adults, The Student’s Guide to Financial Freedom was written to give young people the language, tools, and confidence to start building that foundation for themselves. Available March 3, 2026, wherever books are sold.

Frequently Asked Questions From Black Parents