Teaching Business Skills to Child Entrepreneurs

A How to Guide for Parents

Parents whose children have entrepreneurial leanings are likely to discover it early in the children's lives. Before preschool is over, these children want to run lemonade stands or hold yard sales. By elementary school, their business plans expand to include pet sitting, dog walking, yard work and a variety of exotic and sometimes harebrained schemes flowing from the child entrepreneur's vast imagination.

Not all unusual business schemes are doomed to failure, of course. One 8 year old child in our community convinced her parents to let her buy glow sticks for $1 at the dollar store and resell them for $2 on the town square. She made $200.

Children with entrepreneurial spirit are easily recognizable for their persistence. These children don't give up when someone discourages their business plans. They may speak their ideas for running a business more emphatically in response to adult expressions of concern. They may even make some revisions to accommodate the concerns. But the one quality that is a hallmark of child entrepreneurs is that they will continue to show interest in pursuing their business ideas.

As the parent of a would-be child entrepreneur, your role is to support and guide the child so that he or she learns solid business skills. It does involve some work, but take heart: studies have shown that most successful business owners started their first business as a child.

Business Plan

Most children with a desire to run a business know exactly what sort of business they want to operate. Parents can help them establish a very basic business plan so that they understand the different facets of running a business.

For example, the parent and child can figure out what product or service the child will offer, what costs will be incurred in providing that product or service, where the start-up funding will come from, where the customers will be found, how to price the product or service, how to advertise the product or service, limitations on providing the product or service, and work quality.

Product or Service