Why Entrepreneurial Skills Matter For Children

Children today are being marketed to all the time. Marketing professionals spend a lot of time and money to market to your children, and turn them into consumers. That’s not always a bad thing, but parents today need to break things up a bit. Entrepreneurial skills lend themselves very well to dividing up the marketing elements that kids get hit with, and teach them so much. There are several reasons why these skills matter so much for kids of all ages, including the following elements.

Pushing Creative Spark

When you teach children about business, and pursuing ideas, they get creative. Instead of just assuming that they can buy everything, their ideas can solve problems. At the core of business is the notion of answering problems. Businesses that do well, address a problem that people have. Children can learn how to answer problems creatively, which will allow them to grow their ideas and address issues that they may see. Sometimes, that little spark can turn into a huge idea and even stem into a product.

Enhancing Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a great tool for a child, as it will last a lifetime. One of the hardest things to teach adults, even in collegiate settings is critical thinking. The reason why it’s tough is because most people assume that they have this in place inherently. But when you teach children entrepreneurial skills, they will start to critically look at things they would otherwise not consider. This lends a hand in problem solving, math, and so much more.

Entrepreneurship Shows How To Overcome Failure

Children will learn about failure. They’ll learn that failing is not the end, but rather a teaching mechanism that follows through life. The best business people in the world don’t give up after failing. They take each misstep as a way to figure out how to succeed. Children that can successfully navigate failure, will develop better overall confidence. They won’t sweat the small stuff, they’ll take things in stride, and will learn from the issues that they may face in their everyday life.

The reason why entrepreneurial skills matter today is because they aren’t taught in school. Children have the capacity to learn so much at young ages. Focusing on the elements that make business move, will showcase benefits that start in youth and lead through the rest of their lives. It’s a beautiful thing to see, and could very well be the firm foundation for the future.

Two Easy Ways To Teach Your Child About Business

Being an entrepreneur today can teach a lot of lessons. Whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve worked on it in the past, business has a lot of elements that you can learn from. It’s not just adults that can learn, either. Children can learn some things that will stay with them for a lifetime. From gaining confidence to learning social skills, a lot can be learned from experiencing business elements first hand. There are several ways that you can start teaching children about entrepreneurial pursuits, but which ones are the easiest? Consider a few of the easier options that you’ll find today.

Play Mock Business

There are a lot of toys and kits that you can purchase that help kids play business owner. Many of these are branded by existing franchise companies, but you may find generalized options. Things from beauty salons, fast food restaurants, and several other solutions are made for children that want to “play” business owners. You can join them in playing, and they’ll learn simple lessons from interacting with customers, to how to price things, etc. These may seem like rudimentary things, but they’ll come in handy over time.

Identify A Problem and Solve It

Watch your child and see if they are struggling with anything. Then join them in figuring out a solution. This is exactly what companies do all the time. Identifying problems and fixing them with creative solutions can not only help them in the immediate future, but it could help them down the line as well. Brainstorming is a critical teaching element that is worth exploring, just make sure that you give them some space to figure things out so that they can come up with solutions on their own.

Of course, these are just a couple easy ways to introduce children to business elements. There’s a lot more to explore, but if you’re just starting out, consider the above options. As long as you spend time with them, you’ll see their minds develop critical thinking skills.

3 Life Long Skills Children Can Learn From Entrepreneurs

Children soak up information faster than adults. They are sponges for learning, and you can help them along the way right now. Parents, teachers, and anyone that takes care of children will want to show them things that they can take with them for the rest of their lives. With so many distractions on the way to adulthood, it can be hard to engrave certain lessons. One of the paths that can help them improve today, and help them in the future is learning lessons from entrepreneurs. There are some specifics that come with this, and the roots go deep within the mind of children. Consider the following 3 lifelong skills they can learn from those that have paved their own path in business.

Self-Motivation

This is a skill that is essential for everyone. Some people don’t get to the point where they are motivated until they are older. Others never learn. Entrepreneurs have to motivate themselves to work, especially those that are working in a freelance or remote position. Without that motivating factor, many would not make any money or would have to succumb to dealing with a lackluster career path. Children that can learn how to be self-motivated will be able to succeed in nearly any arena that they find themselves in.

Math Skills

When looking at the lifelong skills that children need, you may be stumped. But if you’re honest, you’ll admit that math is one of them. Math can be a struggle for children of all ages, but when you frame it within the confines of entrepreneurship, you’ll see that it matters a great deal. Even basic math, fractions, and simplified algebra is used in business all the time. Bookkeeping alone takes up a lot of time because it measures whether or not someone is successful or failing at business overall.

Social Skills

The key to success for entrepreneurs comes with socializing with others. They not only have to work with customers, they need to network all the time. Children that learn social skills at a young age are more confident down the road, and can benefit when they go to college, or enter the work force down the line. Social skills beyond social media are critical today, and those that can navigate that element of communication will find success in any industry. This is one thing that is missing with a lot of individuals, which is why it’s important to teach children at a young age.

Goal Setting: Creating Goals With Your Children

One of the most important aspects of life that you can teach your children is planning. Setting goals, working towards milestones, and rejoicing when things are accomplished is a great thing. Many parents struggle with the chaos of so much going on, but there are things that can be done to ensure that children can learn this valuable part of life. The following guide can help with setting up a simple plan towards goal setting in a monthly arena.

Choose A Calendar

The first thing that you should do with your children is simple, get a calendar. Focus on a wall calendar that they like, and let them pick it out. This is going to be the foundation of planning, as  it will allow them to write in the dates, and schedule things that should get worked on. This allows them to have a little more control over their projects and planning overall, so let them choose just about anything here.

Write Small Milestones

After you have the calendar up on the wall, write in some small milestones that lead to a larger project. For instance, let’s say that you wanted to have a month-long project of cleaning up the house. On each week write down 1 task per day, and that’s it. By the last day of the month, 30 or 31 projects will be done, making the larger goal completely done. The same can be done to break up month long chores, school work and more. When a small element is done, put a red line through it to make sure that it’s done, and the visual is in place.

Fill Up The Calendar

The options mentioned above can’t work unless you follow up on the process. Setting weekly milestones with 7 steps forward is a good way to start. But over time, you’ll want to fill up the calendar with more and more tasks. By doing this, and crossing out the things that are done, you’ll show children how to set up a goal, follow through on steps to complete it, and finally cross it off a list. This is the most basic way to teach planning, and follow through.

If you’re not an organized person, or you have trouble setting goals and accomplishing various tasks, don’t worry. You can join your child in setting up a calendar, and crossing things out as you accomplish them. You can even rejoice together when you both have done everything on the list!

Now Available on Audible.com and iTunes!

Excited to announce that in addition to Amazon, Entrepreneur School For Kids (The Book) is now available on Audible.com and iTunes!

Have Brainstorming Sessions With Your Children

Spark Creative Entrepreneurial Thought Processes In Children With Brain Storming

One of the easiest ways to get your child involved in entrepreneurship, or at least thinking like an entrepreneur is through brainstorming. Millions of business owners do this on a regular basis. They focus on finding new routes to work through money making elements, hiring the right people, building portfolios, and doing a lot of work that is needed on a daily basis. In practice, this can help with project planning, management, and more. Bringing it down to a simpler scale is not complex. It’s a matter of taking the things that a child does and then compartmentalizing them for efficiency.

The Chore Element

As mentioned in the previous post, chores are a great tool to tie to entrepreneurship for your child. You can also very easily spark creativity through chores. When looking at chores that need to get done, you could take out a piece of paper, or use a whiteboard to brain storm how to get things down faster and easier. Sometimes the best thing to do is engage with a child’s visual learning curve. Visual learning uses drawings, more than just text. It’s easy to write a lot of text lists, but children may not find them amusing or fun. That’s where you may want to consider drawing, even simple sketches as you creatively tackle chore ideas and more.

Letting Children’s Imagination Run Wild

Sometimes the notion of business and entrepreneurial lessons can seem drab. That’s why it’s important to focus on sparking creativity. You can easily do this by bringing down hard concepts to the level of a child. Let them engage with some of the ideas, and write down simple things that they would do. Sometimes a session of brainstorming is a matter of writing down as many ideas as possible, in a short span of time. Once they are written, take a step back and see what works, what doesn’t, and why some things are better than others overall. Simply put, let a child’s imagination run wild.

Bring Them Into Your Business

When in doubt, focus on allowing your child to see what your brain storming sessions are like. Chances are you have a lot of elements balanced out, and need help pushing them through. How do you do it? Explain the bigger picture concepts that you deal with, and show children how they too can pursue the same thing. The learning options within the notion of entrepreneurship are endless. It’s just a matter of painting them in language that children understand, and want to explore. With that, you can spark creativity, and an industrious mind all the same.

Begin Teaching Your Child Entrepreneurship with Chores

Engaging the notions and ideas of entrepreneurship at a young age is a great thing. When you can get a child to become interested in business opportunities, and the possibilities that are out there, they learn skills that last a lifetime. Starting in business doesn’t have to be relegated to age, or status. Children can learn concepts fast, and use them to run real life businesses. There’s plenty of stories of young entrepreneurs that have gone out to make serious moves financially, all before they turn 18. Some even starting as young as 8 or 9 years old. Not everyone is going to want to start a full business venture, but there are things that can be done to get started. For instance, chores can help teach fundamentals in many ways. 

Linking Allowances As Part of An Education in Entrepreneurship 

The first major point of interest for teaching children about business is found in chores. Chores can be leveraged to show cause and effect. You can do one of two things. You can give a child an allowance for the chores that they do per week. This shows them that if they work hard, they will get paid a fair wage. It’s a simple process, and it stays with them for a lifetime

The second solution is found with investing. If one does their chores, they can earn a little money through an allowance. The progression there is to invest that money into a business opportunity. Whether it’s supplies for making lemonade, or it’s to buy raw materials for crafting, the allowance earned from chores can be used as startup capital for business options. 

Creating Opportunities

There’s plenty of projects a child can work through, including some that allow them to earn through chores and learn about entrepreneurial endeavors. Working with them to find projects that they can build on their own, or focus on after the fact is the key element. Whether you want them to work through a lot of chores weekly, or a few things here and there, you can show a child the complex nature of what small business owners go through when starting up an endeavor. 

To start on this path, set up simple chores first. A few chores for a small allowance on a weekly basis is enough to get started with learning about entrepreneurial roles, and more. Then progress slowly to larger sums, more work, and teach supply and demand. There’s many learning opportunities found with chores, and it all starts with simple weekly tasks. 

The Best Approach When Teaching Your Child Life Skills

There’s a lot of parents out there that are struggling with teaching their children simple life lessons. Even those that have school aged children have to deal with a variety of issues that can be somewhat difficult to manage overall. Finding the best approach when teaching a child life skills can seem painstaking at times, but there are ways that you can make it a bit easier. To ensure that things are going forward with ease, consider a few simple tips for making lessons stick a bit easier. 

Show Them How You Do Things

The first thing that parents forget to do is in regards to example. Many parents take the “do as I say, not as I do” approach to parenting. If you’re guilty of that, you’re not alone. The problem here is that you can’t enforce certain rules because a child doesn’t know any better. They will see you and assume that they don’t really have to do what you say sometimes, because you don’t do the things asked of them. To avoid that, you’ll want them to see what you do, and when you do it, so that when you tell them to do something, they oblige without question. 

Repetition Is Crucial

If you are frustrated that your child is not picking things up with ease, don’t panic. Repetition is the key to getting your child to learn specific life skills. You have to repeat things over and over again, and once it becomes second nature, you’ll know when to stop. Giving a child instruction can become routine, and eventually they will do things on their own, and when you see that, reward them with praise. Always recognize when they do something on their own, and give them praise for it. Don’t let it slip your mind. 

Patience Is Key 

Above all other tips that you can take with you today, make sure that you exercise an extra amount of patience. This is by far the best approach that you should consider when you’re teaching children life skills of various types. Patience will keep you moving forward when children seem to be lapsing or just not developing the skills you’d like fast enough. Just be patient, and you’ll end up with a positive experience. When all else fails, make sure that you compromise and see things from where they are. Perhaps a new set of eyes will help you establish the right plan of action. Learning the best approach when teaching your child life skills matters greatly in how you approach each situation, no doubt. 

Finding Kid Friendly Business Events To Attend With Your Child

Millions of kids today have great ideas for businesses. So much so that the term kidpreneur is starting to make a big splash. Parenting today lends itself well to training children for business, since tech is a part of daily routine. Children today are adopting technology at far faster rates than ever before, and it’s creating a complete change in how many of them communicate with others. Harnessing this learning potential, many parents look for kid friendly business events to attend with their child. The downside is that these can be hard to isolate, and find. That doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, but there are definitely options that are worth exploring on a deeper level. 

Look For Local Government Sponsored Options

The first thing that you should do is look at local government websites. Every community and municipality has a website for their city. You’ll find that there will be business events listed on these pages. Aside from that, look for the local chamber of commerce website, and look for listings of events that are coming through. You’ll be surprised by how many options there are, some of which are in fact child friendly. While some may seem boring at first glance, many are actually quite entertaining, and for an aspiring entrepreneur, what may seem boring to some, is exciting to them. 

Special Events In Summer 

When the summer hits, you are guaranteed to find all sorts of events to consider. Parenting becomes easier when you fill your summer months with lots of events on a regular basis. Special events for the summer can range from entrepreneur classes, to competition, and more. Look at your local mall, for instance, which can have events planned in this arena. One example is the Annual event that occurs at Windward Mall in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Every summer this event encourages youth to showcase business ideas, and entrepreneurship options. It’s open to ages 6 to 15, and it has been growing annually. This is not uncommon to see in major metropolitan cities, often times sponsored by local malls, and recreation centers. 

Keep Eyes Open 

Often times, kidpreneur events are listed on community boards across malls, big box grocery stores and others. You’ll find that they may be listed under “Kids in Business”, and “B4K” etc. Searching for events about business in your community is the starting point to get children interested in business events, community gatherings and more. It just takes a little bit of digging to find them all.