With Back-to-School advertisements heralding the end of Summer, my mind turns back to children.

I was the kid that always had the lemonade stand, the popcorn stand, the rummage sale that consisted of a few TV trays with the childhood treasures I could bear to part with. And my mom, bless her heart, put up with my madness of requiring real lemons for my lemonade... when I was only 5.

I was also the kid that always wrote, directed, choreographed and performed my creations on the playground with my schoolmates. I was always creating, doing, selling, saving, and going after whatever I set my mind to.

Do you know of any kids like this? Maybe you're exasperated by your own enterprising brood. Here are some ways you can help kids understand how business works & encourage them to go after their dreams.


What to do when you don't know what to do about ambitious children.

Think about when you were a child. When you told your adult role models about your dreams, what you want to do, what you want to be - when you grow up - were you encouraged? Were you told "you'll never do that, pick something more realistic?" How did what the adults around you said effect your ambition?

Think about things from their perspective. Even if they do not achieve YOUR definition of success, will they learn something from the effort? What can you do to enhance what they learn from setting & pursuing goals?


What to do when you have the ability to mentor.


If you have experience & knowledge to impart on the younger generation do whatever you can to aid in their learning & understanding. Kids face so much discouragement and disapointment that any encouragement and empowerment will help them to become stronger and more capable as adults.

Even if you don't know a lot about business and free enterprise, there are organizations that can help you. Junior Achievement is a non-profit organization that will train you & provide the materials you need to volunteer in a classroom and present fun, educational lessons about business, in age appropriate ways. It's really cool. (In the interest of full-disclosure, I used to work for JA. Even though I am not employed by them currently, I absolutely support their program.)

You can either work with little ones, reading a story about saving money to buy a present for a birthday; or you could be volunteering at the High School level, helping students learn skills for success. There are also opportunities to volunteer at fund raising events & scholarship competitions. More information about Junior Achievement can be found at http://www.ja.org.

By the way, there are also interesting things on the JA Worldwide website to help kids (and You!) learn more about planning for college, starting a business, and evaluating career options. Check out the JA Student Center, for some neat stuff.


What to do when your kids ask about what you do.


Involve them in your business. Participate in "Take Your Child to Work" day, to help them learn what it's like to get ready to go to work, do your daily tasks & look forward to returning home to the family at the end of the day.

If you have your own business, let them learn what goes into making your
business a success & what qualities you have to work hard on, as well as
what comes naturally to you. Let them know how rewarding it is to set your goals, plan your dreams and go after the business & life you really
want. If there's a downside to your business, let them know that, too, for
a well-rounded perspective.


Your kids are a great audience and R & D team for your "elevator pitch speech." If you tell them what you do and see their eyes glaze over - you know you've got some tweaking to do! Ask them what words or phrases don't make sense to them & have them help you improve it. If you can explain what you do so a kid understands it, so would anyone else that you give a one sentence pitch to.


Whatever your experience level, you have time, attention, and energy that you can use to help children have a brighter future. And you just might get to learn something, too.

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