Estate Planning for Parents, One Step at a Time

Thinking about who will care for your children if anything happens to you can be the most difficult thing in the world.  Although many people would like to shy away from the subject altogether, every parent knows how very important it is to ensure their children don’t end up as a ward of the state. This is why most parents of young children begin their estate plan with a simple nomination of guardians.

The good news is that even when you come to it reluctantly, estate planning with young children in mind doesn’t have to be a stressful activity.  With the help of a knowledgeable and compassionate attorney, creating an estate plan for the benefit of your children can instead bring incredible peace of mind.

By planning for your children’s guardianship you find that you have a plethora of other tools within an estate plan to help you provide for your children in other ways as well. The most comprehensive tool for this purpose is a revocable living trust.  A trust allows you to financially provide for your spouse, your children, and your children’s guardians if anything happens to you.  And a trust is flexible and comprehensive enough to provide for your children exactly as you wish, whether they are age two, twelve, or twenty.

A trust may be the most comprehensive, but certainly not the only tool to help parents provide for their children. Many parents will also create an Authorization for Medical Treatment of Minors, a Memorandum of Intent, or an Exclusion of Guardians, just to name a few.

If you are a parent, you have every reason in the world to look into creating an estate plan.  Whether you choose to make use of all the tools available in a full estate plan, or stop with a simple Nomination of Guardian, every step provides your child with one more bit of protection—and provides you as a parent with a lot more peace of mind.