Raising Entrepreneurs

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Today we have another newsflash from the effervescent Amanda van der Gulik:

Last Friday, on our last day of our family vacation to PEI and New Brunswick, Canada, our credit and debit cards were stolen.

Not the most desired way to end a family vacation.

This is what happened:

We decided to go swimming at the local swimming pool in St. Stephen, New Brunswick.

In my husband’s haste to get our son ready to go swimming he completely forgot that he had
put his wallet in the pocket of his shorts which he had left in the change room.

We had a fabulous hour and a half of amazing swimming with our two young children.

We just really enjoyed ourselves.

Our little girl, 6 years, was able to swim all by herself in the deep end with no water wings!
It was incredible and she was so proud.

Our little boy, 4 years, was excitedly showing off how he could now look under the water with his eyes open!
He was thrilled.

It was a gorgeous sunny day with enough cloud cover to not get ourselves burned.

Then it was time to get dressed and start our long journey back home.

While I was getting myself and our daughter dressed, I heard my husband call into our changeroom,
“somebody stole our bank card!”

I was shocked that someone would do that. But other than that initial shock, I felt an incredible calm come over me.

I knew that all would be right.

What they did was awful, not only did they throw all of my husband’s wallet cards all over the changeroom, they also grabbed our 4 year old son’s underwear and threw that in one of the toilets!

We finished getting dressed, and then went to my aunt’s store and used her phone to cancel the bank card. By this time we also noticed that the credit card had been stolen as well, so we cancelled that one too.

Then we filed a report with the local police and then continued on with our journey home.

Now this event could have ruined our beautiful day, but we didn’t let it.

I had felt quite confident that they would not be able to access our bank card and we were able to cut off the cards before any money had been stolen.

We knew all would be just fine. A replacement card was on it’s way and we were safe once again.

Our son even learned a valuable lesson:

Never throw anyone’s underwear in the toilet! It’s not a nice thing to do!

He learned about the rule that says, “Do unto others as you would do unto yourself.”
I really don’t know if I would have been able to teach this lesson to him any better
than this incident did!

So all in all, it wasn’t so bad and we still had a wonderful trip home.

So my advice to all of you is: They can steal your wallet, but they can never steal your attitude!
That part’s up to you!

Here’s to your kids having an optimistically attitudical week!

Cheers…Amanda van der Gulik…Excited Life Enthusiast!
Founder of the “Kids and Money” DreamRichly Group.
Founder of www.TeachingChildrenAboutMoney.com

P.S. Teach your kid NEVER steal anyone else’s wallet and never throw someone else’s underwear in the toilet!

Remember the ‘law of attraction’ is always working so make sure it works FOR your children, never AGAINST them!

Click here to learn more ways to make the ‘law of attraction’ work FOR your child!

I am writing this post from sunny Stockholm - well, actually, Stockholm in summer isn’t necessarily sunny. The locals claim that there are three weeks of summer, spread across May, June, July, and August. The other 80% of the time it is overcast and cool, and often misting with light rain. What the Irish would call “a soft day”…

However, when the sun does come out, Stockholm is a magnificent city - one of the prettiest in the world, with all the water. The Old City is actually on an island - it’s all joined up by bridges now, but you can really get the feel of the fortified city which once stood here.

We haven’t had word from the publishers yet, so we are holding the competition open. I really want to see some of the great entries I have heard about via email. If making a video is too hard, pop over to HubPages and post an article with some photos instead.

And if even that seems too hard, just email me the story and the photos, and I’ll get the Hub made for you!

I promised you some great unusual ways to make money, and here are some ripper suggestions from Steve Gillman - if you’re not sure how to make a successful business out of these ideas, Steve recommends that you try the Cash-Smart Kids program to get you started.

Here are some money making ideas for kids. These simple businesses can be started with very little money, and grown into larger operations in time.

Make And Sell Painted Rocks

Where we live here in Colorado, many people have painted rocks they use for decorative doorstops or paperweights. If you live in an area where you can get nice smooth rocks, you can make them yourself and sell them. You can paint them with flowers, or with people’s names. Look around at what other’s have done for ideas. Ask your parents to help you buy the right paints, and how to price the finished rocks.

Now, if you want a bigger business, you’ll have to delegate. You can pay other kids for each good rock they bring to you, and then find an artistic friend you can pay to paint them. With other’s doing those parts of the work, you can get busy selling more of them. Maybe you can even get a gift store to sell them for you if you give them a good percentage of each sale.

Be A Computer Helper

There are many young kids who know a lot about computers. My own nephew was getting paid for programming by the the time he was fourteen. Even younger kids might get paid to show old folks how to use a computer for basic things, like setting up and using an email account and accessing the internet. Telling grandparents to spread the word would be a good marketing ploy.

Buy, Fix And Sell Bicycles

This one is for the older kids who like to fix things. You can get books that show you how to repair bicycles, and you can start by learning how to repair your own. Then you need to see what people are paying for used bicycles, by going to yard sales and looking at advertisements in the classified section of the newspaper. Take notes. Once you know what the bikes should sell for, you can start buying broken ones to fix.

Make sure you buy them cheap. Let everyone know what you are doing too. Sometimes people may give you old bicycles that they were going to throw away. During spring clean-ups in some towns people throw away bikes as well, and you can take these from the junk at the curb (if it’s okay with your parents). I once met a man who collected sixty bikes in one day in this way.

You’ll need to have a little money to buy parts and old bikes when you start. After the first sale, use the money to buy more bikes and parts. Wait until you have several sold before you start spending any of your profits. You can sell the bicycles in front of your home with a simple sign, or you can get your parents to help you place an ad in the paper if you have some expensive or popular bikes to sell.

Sell Fishing Worms

If you are near an area where people fish, you may be able to sell nightcrawlers or worms. Visit a bait shop or other place where they sell them to see how much you can charge. You can sell them at the lake or stream where the fishermen are.

To get the worms, check the lawn after a rain. In some areas there are hundreds of night crawlers all over the sidewalks after a summer rain. You can also dig under wet piles of leaves to find them. You can start without any money if you save plastic butter tubs and coffee cans to sell the worms in. Later you can use your profits to buy nice Styrofoam containers with lids.

The next step could be to invest your profits into a good book on how to breed night crawlers, and the equipment to start a little worm farm. If you can produce a steady supply you might be able to sell them to a bait shop. They will pay less than the fishermen since they need to make a profit too, but you may make more because you can sell so many at once and spend more time “farming” worms than trying to sell them.

By Steve Gillman. These money making ideas for kids were borrowed from the “Unusual Ways (To Make and Save Money)” newsletter. Get your free subscription at http://www.UnusualWaysToMakeMoney.com

, and for help getting your business started, check out the Cash-Smart Kids program - there’s a special offer on at the moment with incredible bonuses included at no extra cost.

Image: flattop341

Every now and again, I meet someone who is new to the area of financial education, and when that happens I find that I need to go back to basics and explain why it is that we believe business experience is a vital part of a well-rounded financial education.

I find that many people get focused on the earning of money when they think about business for kids. Many people see business as difficult, and stressful, and as a complicated way to make money. It seems to them that understanding business is optional, as most kids will never need that understanding.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Kids gain so many benefits from running a business, above and beyond the money they may earn.

Business Understanding Benefits Consumers and Employees, As Well As Entrepreneurs

Even as a consumer, if you understand how business works, you are much less likely to be conned, overcharged, or exploited. As an employee, your understanding of the business model your employer uses will make you more valuable, help you to make the right choices when using your discretion, and enable you to choose the right time and the right supporting arguments to ask for that raise.

Business Experience Develops Character

Quite apart from any financial benefit, running a business develops your child across a range of personal qualities. A business has been described as “one of the best personal development programs available”.

Whether it is dealing with unhappy customers, trying to make sales, managing contractors, or managing their own emotions of excitement, apprehension or disappointment, doing business will put your child in learning situations which develop his or her character and attitude. Business provides the best possible feedback - immediate and accurate. If you get your marketing message right, customers show up. If you treat your customers badly, they go elsewhere.

We have devoted ourselves to shielding kids from the “harsh realities” of the world, but a little controlled exposure to reality is very important preparation for real life!

Business Experience Builds Confidence

Doing business enables a child to negotiate with adults on an equal footing, as a professional supplier of good or services. The experience of being taken seriously is incredibly important, particularly in the tween and early teen years, when our culture really doesn’t offer kids much opportunity to interact with adults as peers.

I cannot stress enough how important it is for kids to have the sense that they can provide something of value, which adults will take seriously. Kids are not stupid - they know when adults are cooing “oh, that’s lovely” about a painting or poem, but don’t really mean it. They won’t treject condescending praise - any praise is better than no praise - but they hunger for real, valid affirmation. They yearn to be able to do something worthwhile, and be appreciated for their contribution with no allowances required for their age or cuteness.

Once a child knows their accomplishments are genuinely impressive at an adult level, it relieves a primal anxiety about how they will make their own way in the world as adults.

Too many of our kids never get this sense of their own capability, and become children in adult bodies, still uncertain and anxious about their ability to function in the adult world. Early business experience can provide that vital sense of competence and self-sufficiency, even when the actual business earnings are no more than a few dollars.

Business Experience Teaches The Real Value Of Money

When a child is too young to have a regular job, the only way they will learn the connection between providing something of value and receiving money in return is to have a business.

As we all know, the “something for nothing” mentality is at plague proportions in our culture, and it causes a lot of misery. Early business experience, coupled with parents who are responsible about allowances, will give kids a good, solid foundation of visceral knowledge that money comes as a result of providing value - and that they have something of value to offer.

What better attitude to instil in your kids?

Of course, it is also important to teach them how to manage their money responsibly - to save, invest, give, and to make wise spending decisions. Business experience is not the be-all and end-all of financial education.

Business education, however, makes an important contribution to financial understanding, which cannot be replicated using allowances alone.

This is why we created the Cash-Smart Kids program, to provide an integrated approach to financial education - one that covers all the bases.

Jenny Ford is a financial educator, holder of a B.A.(Hons) in Psychology, a Diploma in Training And Assessment Systems, and an Advanced Diploma in Business Management, and mother of three girls, all of whom started businesses aged between nine and twelve. Jenny’s blog can be seen at Raising Entrepreneurs.

Enter the Cash-Smart Kids YouTube Video Competition - do you know a child with a business? Make a video and they could be featured in a new book to be published in 2009.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait…

It’s a rushed week this week, as I am preparing to go overseas this weekend. I’ll be flying to Stockholm to speak at a conference, and then on to Washington to attend another conference.

In Washington, I’ll be catching up with Shonika Proctor, who is coaching those remarkable business kids from very underprivileged backgrounds. I am looking forward to hearing more of their stories, and I’ll share them with you soon.

I have had a press enquiry - if you are in the north-eastern part of Sydney, Australia, and you put an entry into the competition, your regional newspaper, The Manly Daily, will do a story on you and your business. Now, we don’t have an entry from that part of the world yet, so the field is wide open!

I don’t need to tell you what it can mean for your business to have a story in a paper with a readership of over a million people.

So, any Aussies ready to grab this opportunity?