Teaching kids business can be a fantastic way to build your child’s confidence. Recently while I was at a bead show, I met a Dad and his daughter who got into jewelry making as a hobby and before you knew it their hobby became a little business.
This struck a chord with me on so many levels. To give you a bit more details, the dad Steve, because of some health issues had to stop working and these issues began to limit his ability to do many activates with his 10 year old daughter Paige.
Paige at a very young age started to sketch and become very interested in fashion and after receiving a beading kit for her birthday started to become interested in jewelry making. After purchasing a wire wrapped ring, Steve looked at it a bit closer and thought “hey, I can make this myself”.
Teaching Kids Business: Starting a Jewelry Making Business
Together, Steve and Paige started Daddy and Me Designs two months ago and began their venture in jewelry making. They now have an ETSY store with 15 to 20 items listed and a business card. They are still developing their skills and learning through beading magazines, discovering bead stores and bead shows.
Meeting Steve and his daughter Paige was inspiring to me. I thought what a great way for a father and a daughter to share special time together, to be creative and to recognize an interest that his daughter has and to cultivate and grow that interest.
Then there is a business aspect of teaching kids business and encouraging entrepreneurship in our youth. The idea of children entrepreneurs have been encouraged in schools, books have been written about it and there are pages and pages on the internet with many great lessons about teaching kids business by encouraging them through entrepreneurial opportunities.
Teaching Kids Business: Online resources
A while ago I watched a video online from speaker Cameron Harold about teaching kids business. It was about raising our kids to be entrepreneurs and being a person who started my own business in high school painting t-shirts and selling them at a local beauty salon, I get excited about encouraging and teach our youth to do the same.
There are so many tools out there to help a person develop their own “business” through social media, inexpensive marketing products like business cards and sites like ETSY that allow you to open a “virtual store” with very little cost and technical know-how.
Who knows where the experience will take you or what it will turn in to. It’s exciting if you make a little money from it or you just enjoy the venture that you share with your child. Teaching kids business is a great trend and very exciting for the future of our young ones!