Give your kids enough that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing. That Warren Buffett line is where this one starts. You worked hard so your family could have a good life, so how do you keep the life you built from softening the kids you love? Four dads take this on: Mike McCarthy on being honest with your kids about your wealth, Chad Willardson on raising abundance-minded kids, Scott Donnell on why you should let them waste some of their own money, and Dan Miller on how early kids should start working.

Four dads, four answers

• Mike McCarthy: be honest that the wealth exists, but make clear nothing is handed over. The trust gates access, it doesn’t gift it.
• Chad Willardson: raise abundance-minded kids, not scarcity-minded ones, by overpaying them for the right things and helping them find their own ways to earn.
• Scott Donnell: let them buy the Mountain Dew. A wasted $30 now teaches more than a wasted $3,000 later.
• Dan Miller: kids can start working as soon as they can talk and walk, as long as it’s tied to something they actually want.

Enough to do anything, not so much they do nothing

McCarthy is direct with his kids about the wealth he’s built. They know it exists. What they also know is that none of it is simply handed over. The trust he’s building isn’t a lump sum waiting for them, it’s a set of gates: they can borrow to start a business he approves, use funds for education, or a down payment on a home. Beyond that, they earn control the same way he did, by proving they can build something real. As he puts it, quoting Buffett:

“You’ve got to give your kids enough so that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing.”

Let them buy the Mountain Dew

Donnell’s system has kids saving and investing first, then sharing, then spending on needs, and only after all of that, wants. But once a kid has earned the money and covered the basics, he’s clear about what happens next:

“Let them buy a Mountain Dew… I would rather my kid learn that with a dumb $30 purchase than a $3,000 purchase out in the real world later.”

The lesson isn’t in preventing a bad purchase. It’s in letting the regret, when it comes, be cheap enough now that it actually teaches something.

The $410 motorcycle

Dan Miller’s answer is a story, not a rule. When his son Kevin was 10 and wanted the same $400 bike a neighbor’s parents had simply bought, Miller instead bought a broken motorcycle for parts, spent six weeks rebuilding it with Kevin, sold it, and handed him the $410 profit to buy the bike himself. The neighbor’s bike sat out in the rain all weekend. Kevin’s bike lived in his bedroom, immaculate, because he’d earned it and understood exactly what it cost.

• Hear Dan Miller’s full conversation: “Raising Kids Who Love What They Do”.
• The McCarthy, Willardson, and Donnell answers come from member-exclusive sessions inside the Front Row Dads brotherhood.
• For the full list of books this community keeps recommending, click here.