I believe that every young kid should learn the basics of entrepreneurship.

We all know about talented but starving artists, dedicated teachers who are paid peanuts, and wannabe musicians who are secretly dying a little inside, in a boring day job.

Although some people may willingly choose a life that consists of financial struggles, I bet that many people would prefer to live a life where their career passions will meet their financial needs and wants.

We all know of people who harbor longings to switch careers to pursue their passions, but hold back because they are afraid that it will not pay enough to meet their financial needs.

It’s very sad to me if a person loves painting, but forces herself to remain in her accounting job because she cannot live on an artist’s income. Or an author who stays in an investment banking job, not because he loves it; but because he won’t be able to pay for his kid’s college fees from book sales.

How Entrepreneurship Skills Can Help Any Kid

Some of us may think that reality forbids us from pursuing our career passions. I, on the other hand, believe that we just have to find creative ways to combine our career passions with financial know-how or entrepreneurial skills.

Entrepreneurship teaches a kid to think out of the box, to be self-motivated, work hard and be brave.

Specific entrepreneurship skills such as sales, marketing, financial strategies and leadership, can help a person turn his or her existing skills into better income.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if your kid could pursue their passions AND also make enough so that they don’t have to worry about finances?

This is what I want for my kids. They can pursue their dreams AND still have finances to support the lifestyle that they want to have.

My kid doesn’t have to be a full-time entrepreneur if that is not her passion. However, I hope that she will have enough entrepreneurial skills that she could make money with anything that she wants to pursue.

However, if my kid ends up wanting to be an entrepreneur, I would also be incredibly excited. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint-hearted, but it builds strength, creativity and character.

Many new entrepreneurship models allow you to work from anywhere in the world and not be limited by geographic location. If they get it right, it can be financially rewarding enough that they never have to worry about finances again.

How To Help Your Young Kid Become A Future Entrepreneur

I believe that we can start building entrepreneurship in our kids from when they are young; toddlers, or even babies. Kids absorb things everything around them when they are young.

Here are my 15 tips on how you can help your young kid to become a future entrepreneur.

  1. Inspire them with stories.

One of the easiest ways to inspire your kids to entrepreneurship are through books.

There are more and more storybooks out on the market now that are written with this purpose; to inspire and teach entrepreneurship to young kids.

We have one that teaches about lemonade stands.

But one of my toddler’s favorites is Disney’s World of Reading Minnie Mouse book series. In this series, Minnie Mouse has her own ribbon shop (‘bow-tique’). I share business principles while I read the book to my toddler. For example, I point out Minnie Mouse’s marketing strategy of organizing a magic show to entice new customers. My toddler loves Minnie Mouse so she happily listens while I read.

If you already spend time reading to your kid, get some entrepreneurship books.

  1. Play shop.

My kid loves role-playing with her toys. I try to introduce useful entrepreneurial concepts to her when we play together. For example, we will get the toys to sell their “products” to other “customers” and I will casually mention sales strategies in the process.

I also purchased play money so that we could teach her about numbers and money. We set up shop and we take turns being the shopkeeper and customer. I talk about financial concepts such as value, rarity, desirability and the expense of goods which affect their price.

  1. Guide your kids thinking with good questions.

One of the easiest ways to guide our kids thinking is by the questions that we ask them on a regular basis. For example, at the end of her preschool day, I always ask my toddler some of these questions:

“Did you help anyone at school today?”

“What did you learn today?”

“Did you get better at anything today?”

Even though she is often not able to give me proper answers, I am hoping that these questions will train her to think like a leader and to focus on self-progress.

Another way to guide your kids thinking is by getting them to create their own Vision Board. We have produced a long list of questions that you can ask your kid about the future that they want for themselves while they create their vision.

  1. Give them opportunities to learn how to negotiate with you.

You need patience for this one. However, there is no escaping the fact that young kids will always try to negotiate with you. Embrace it.

The dictatorship-style of parenting is something like this:

Child: “Dad, I want to watch TV.”
Dad: “No way. No TV. Don’t ask me about it again.”

In the dictatorship-style of parenting, there is no wiggle room for any compromise and kids are discouraged from negotiating. Of course, there are certain things which are non-negotiable and good parents will never allow their kids to do. But, there are many things that are negotiable if you remain open-minded.

A negotiation-style of parenting conversation will be something like this instead:

Child: “Dad, I want to watch TV.”
Dad: “Tell me why I should you let you watch TV. If you can convince me, I will allow you to watch 20 mins of a cartoon that we both agree on.”
Child: “Okay. If you let me watch Paw Patrol, I will go to bed immediately when it’s bedtime.”
Dad: “How about you practice your letters before bath time AND go to bed immediately when it’s bedtime.”
Child: “Okay!”

Notice that in the negotiation-style of parenting, you don’t necessarily have to give into the request. But you give your child opportunity to negotiate with you.

This automatically trains them to be creative, think outside the box, and consider what others’ want too.

  1. Teach them simple financial literacy.

It is possible to teach a toddler simple financial literacy concepts such as savings and investments.

Once, we were looking at buying our toddler her own travel suitcase. I found a secondhand blue one at a quarter of the price. But my toddler wanted a brand new pink one at full price.

I took out her savings from her piggy bank which we had collected from our previous business kid experiment, and laid it all out on the floor in front of her. I showed her the difference between how much would be left if we purchased the brand new pink suitcase, and contrasted it with the secondhand blue one. It took some work but she finally understood that choosing the secondhand blue one would allow her to save some money towards a trip to Disneyland too.

In the end, she agreed for me to get her the secondhand one.

I also added that if she invested the money in things like stock or properties, the returns would allow her to go to Disneyland not just once, but many times.

  1. Teach them about the value of money.

We don’t want our kids to be obsessed with money, but we also don’t want our kids to be completely ignorant of it. Money is not the most important thing in the world, but it certainly is useful.

I believe that it’s not that money is evil, but the love of money. How you earn the money and how you use it makes all the difference.

Let’s help our kids to form a healthy perspective of money. Let them appreciate that money is a useful tool, but not let money rule over the happiness of their lives.

People who know how to balance money along with other important values in their life, are more likely to lead healthy, balanced lives that are filled with both personal and financial blessings.

  1. Teach them about leadership.

An entrepreneur is often a leader, whether they intend to be one or not. Whether you have thousands of employees working for you, or you are working for yourself, you still need to be someone that customers believe in enough, to buy from.

You can start teaching your toddler about leadership by asking them to help out with younger siblings and kids, to volunteer for roles and even, to assist adults whenever possible.

Invite them to propose solutions. Let them take the lead whenever appropriate such as helping to choose what restaurant to go to, where to go on holiday etc. Give them a range of options that you are okay with.

  1. Let them overcome the fear of public speaking early.

Entrepreneurs often benefit from good public speaking skills.

I consider myself an introvert. But since I was young, I was given many opportunities to be on stage for various kindergarten and school performances. So when I decided to do public speaking many years ago, it wasn’t such a big transition for me.

Similarly, since she could talk, I often encouraged my toddler to talk to the neighbors and even, to strangers (with me around, of course). My toddler started off shy and silent in front of strangers, but after a while, I noticed her period of shyness lasting shorter and shorter.

I also believe in the importance of exposing our kids to onstage experiences early. You can enroll them in drama and dance classes, or join organizations such as churches and non-profit community centers that often have annual stage performances.

All these will help in making our kids feel comfortable in front of a crowd or on stage.

When they are older, you can enroll them in public speaking courses such as Toastmasters International’s Youth Leadership Program.

  1. Teach them to communicate politely and confidently.

Another useful skill that all entrepreneurs need is the ability to communicate politely and confidently.

Some toddlers have no problem asking for what they want while others struggle with shyness. If your toddler is especially shy around adults and strangers, then teach them how to speak up and ask for help when they need it.

For example, my toddler has no problem asking me for help all the time. However, when she is among unfamiliar people, such as in a new school environment, she tends to clam up and be shy about expressing her need for help. I had to teach her the language to use, to ask her teachers for help.

The other important thing to teach them is politeness. I have found that at the toddler phase, I have to frequently remind my child to say “please” and “thank you”.

Regardless of whether your child ends up as the CEO of a Fortune 100 company or the sole proprietor of their own business, politeness goes a long way.

  1. Don’t give them everything that they want.

I mentioned before in a previous article about the problems of giving kids everything that they want. We now even have a term for it; entitled kids.

If you want to raise entrepreneurial kids, it’s even more imperative that you deny your parental urges to make life easy for your kid by giving them everything that they want.

When we give kids everything that they want, we remove their innate motivation to get it themselves.

You have two choices; you can make life easy for your kid now, and let them suffer later when they discover that the world won’t hand them everything on a silver platter. Or let them work for what they want now, so that they can build good work ethics, that will help them have an easier future life.

  1. Be entrepreneurial yourself.

I think that one of the best ways to raise entrepreneurial kids and impart entrepreneurial skills to our young kids is to be an entrepreneur yourself.

There is nothing like watching entrepreneurship in real life. Even if you don’t take a lot of time to teach your kids about what you are doing, they will pick it up just by watching you. After all, kids copy how we behave all the time.

I don’t run a huge business but I make time to pursue my own micro entrepreneurial interests and include my child in it. I know that by doing so, she will pick up useful skills.

It’s also important to keep in mind that your child will pick up positive as well as any negative feelings you have towards your business. If your business comes across as lots of hard work, exhaustion and no reward, your kid will associate negativity with it. So it’s important to consider what kind of perspective you want to present to your kid about entrepreneurship.

I believe in presenting a realistic but also positive perspective. Entrepreneurship is hard work, risky, and requires a lot of patience. But it is also exciting, strength-building and the risks may come with huge rewards.

Of course, you may have no interest in entrepreneurship, or no time to pursue it yourself.

That’s fine, you still have another option; exposing your kid to other entrepreneurs.

  1. Expose them to other kid entrepreneurs.

Help your child meet other kid entrepreneurs. There is nothing more inspiring and motivating, than watching someone else that is so much like you, doing things that seemed impossible to you before.

There are more and more social media groups where young entrepreneurs can meet online. However, social media comes with its inherent dangers as well, so we do not suggest this option without adult supervision.

A good place to meet other kid entrepreneurs are children’s business fairs. These are some more popular ones:

There are many more and you only need to Google “young entrepreneur group” or “children business fair” with your location to find the closest one to you.

Many of these groups are designed for school-age kids. This means that if you have a younger kid such as a toddler, you will have to try something else, such as getting to know other entrepreneurial parents and families.

  1. Get to know other entrepreneurial families.

Get to know other entrepreneurial parents and families, especially if they have young kids like yourself.

Not only can these parents speak into your kid’s life but your kid is also exposed to their entrepreneurial work and lifestyle.

If you like talking about entrepreneurship and business, your kid will also be exposed to these conversations.

When I was young, I enjoyed hanging out with my dad and his friends because they liked to talk about politics and business. I always found these conversations fascinating.

These conversations helped me to form a bigger picture of the world.

  1. Let them start a ‘mini business’ for learning purposes.

When your kid is still only a toddler, they won’t be able to run a business by themselves. However, you can still help them to start a mini business to develop some hands-on experience.

Some simple ideas that toddlers can do include picking out toys that they no longer play with, to sell at a garage sale. Or they could start their own mini vegetable and fruit garden, and sell the produce to neighbors.

The main purpose of their ‘mini business’ is to let them learn simple entrepreneurial concepts such as hard work, the art of selling, and saving what they earn.

Buy them a piggy bank of their own and let them drop the money into it themselves and watch it grow. Or open a bank account for them and let them learn how compounding interest works.

  1. Teach them about helping others and making a difference.

Research has revealed that parents who communicate to their kids their high aspirations for their academic performance, heavily influences their kids actual academic performance.

I think that similarly, parental expectations play a key role in other parts of our kids lives.

Because of this, I often share with my kid my aspirations that she will one day, learn to help others, make a difference and change the world.

Entrepreneurs have to think beyond themselves in order to create products and services that serve others.

By teaching our toddler kids to start helping and making things better for others, we are instilling seeds of leadership and entrepreneurship.

You can start them off small by teaching them to look for opportunities to help their siblings, friends, grandparents and preschool teachers.

Even if they start small, it’s a great first step to entrepreneurship.