The world needs more innovation every day and so we need more entrepreneurs.
It is vital to introduce kids to the concept of entrepreneurship not only to helping our children achieve their dreams and find successful careers, but also to ensure that our economy remains prosperous and stable for the long-term. In this post you will find some reasons and ways to do the same.
Mentioned below are some of the reasons to introduce entrepreneurship to kids.
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1. Encourages Free Thinking:
Recognizing and fostering entrepreneurship in children encourages free-thinking and helps them gain self-confidence in their ideas and abilities. Understanding and applying the principles of entrepreneurship helps children realize the outcome of their efforts, unlike that of introducing chores, which are parent-directed. When people raise their children to be entrepreneurs, they learn to try and they get to see a measurable outcome of their efforts. They also learn that they will fail sometimes, and that’s okay.
2. An Essential Skill for 21st Century:
Skills of entrepreneurship are also good life skills. Being an entrepreneur requires one to stay abreast with all the movement and come up with new ideas and solutions to problems. All these situations that children face requires them to use some of the most important skills like critical thinking, creative thinking, problem solving and more. All these skills are a must for being able to do good in the 21st century and hence teaching children entrepreneurship becomes a necessity for 21st century.
3. Teaches Multiple Subjects as well as Multitasking:
Entrepreneurship is a multidisciplinary form of education. Solving business problems requires knowledge of subjects such as math, arts and language. In order to do so, educators combine these subjects without making kids realize about it. Also, when kids are involved in small activities they perform many tasks alone and that teaches them the art of multitasking as well.
4. Brings Out The Best In Everyone:
Being an entrepreneur requires many different skills therefore it helps students in exploring about their strength and weaknesses and work on them accordingly. This helps them in identifying the areas that they need to work upon and also they end up skilled in many things to excel upfront.
5. Instills Social Good Values:
Children who learn how to make money, also learn how to give back; they learn good citizenship. Being a productive citizen is just as much about being able to be fiscally independent as it is about staying humble, helping others, and learning to take even big successes in stride. Being a young entrepreneur also demonstrates how to be involved with other people and one’s community while still taking care of business, both in-school and outside.
“I sold candy in grade 6. I learned about working with a team, making a profit, and that you need your business needs to be defensible! The cafeteria ladies found out we were selling candy, and dipping into their profits, and had us shut down.” – David Howe, Serial entrepreneur
Although elder students can go to business schools the younger children also needs to get information and knowledge about entrepreneurship from a young age. To being able to do this, educators or parents can do some activities or adopt some fun ways to teach them the same. Points Mentioned below are some of the Ways to Introduce Kids to the concept of Entrepreneurship.
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1. Ask children to define and write down their top five goals. In order to increase effectiveness and feeling of accomplishment, make sure that each goal is S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely). Follow it with making them write down five actions necessary to accomplish these goals. Don’t forget to put them up somewhere where you and your children can easily see them. Encourage and support your children in reaching their defined goals and be sure to enjoy the rewards together. This is to help them to initiate with the critical and creative thinking as they are being asked to come up with actions they need to do in order to achieve their goals.
2. Encourage children to start with small projects like selling their old toys, starting a lemonade stand, or offering their pet-sitting services. Let them price their products, sell to customers, and facilitate the transactions when sales are made.
3. Motivate children to start analyzing the messages behind marketing materials like billboards, promotional banners in front of businesses, printed advertisements in magazines, and television/radio commercials. Ask them what catches their attention about the message and see if they can identify the meaning behind the logo, tagline, and “call to action.” Encourage them to create their own marketing materials for their business ideas.
4. Give your children the opportunity to earn their own money through chores, their own small business or helping you in your business. Educate them about investing to show them how their money could be used to create more money in the future. Help them set up a bank account and let them learn how to budget their income.
5. When brainstorming business ideas with children, ask them to choose a charity or special cause to support with a portion of the income that they generate. Explain the concept that contributing to improving the lives of others benefits society as a whole.
Also, watch this video below by Cameron Herold. Ion this TED Talk titled “Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs” he speaks of the importance of the same.
What’s your take on the introduction of entrepreneurship to kids?
In what ways can it be done?
Share with us in the comment section below.
