Should you tell your children their inheritances?

So, as you approach the New Year, you decided to take out your old wills which were drafted when your children were toddlers, and then to add to that, new financial and health care powers of attorney and living wills or advance health care directives. You make arrangements to visit your attorney and you decide how your estate should go — a decision, which, by the way involves much more than wills.

It also involves, at minimum, beneficiary designations for IRAs and life insurance and current titling of assets. You also decide who will make decisions for you if you become ill or are unable to handle your affairs on your own. You have named backups in case the first person named is also unable to act. The next question you ask yourself is “should I tell the children?”

The question poses a dilemma. Like most of this type, it involves considerations of personalities and consequences. The answer is “it depends.” If your family members get along well and understand their issues and responsibilities, this can be an ideal time to open up. If not, well, full disclosure can result in unfortunate conversations and friction.

When your spouse is still living, you might not give much thought to naming a successor executor or successor agent under power of attorney. You really should, though. Your documents might not be rewritten for several years when it will make a difference. In the alternative, you could review and modify them more often.

I have seen the issue both from the side where the children who are not “preferred” under the will become hostile and from the side where children, after the death of a parent, ask “why did they act as they did?” Most estate planners would tell parents to make an even distribution among the children to head off problems in advance. But how does a parent deal with the issue, for instance, of appoint