How to Lead Kids Down a Path to Entrepreneurship in 2021 When it comes to the next generation and private sector problem solving? Teach your children well.
By Paul L. Gunn, Jr •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
One 2020 positive is the opportunity to provide your child with a path to life as an entrepreneur.
The latest generation has recently endured remote learning and collaborating in virtual environments. It used to be the workforce could select to delay adaptations based on markets and financials resources without sever repercussions. Now many are being forced to quickly adjust.
Taking advantage of this opportunity to show our youth the pros and cons of entrepreneurship could yield large success in later years. This will be a generation that understood social, political and economic situations on a global scale while having their own inner drives to make a difference.
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Nurture their inner-entrepreneur
As a CEO and parent, I try to pass down the qualities that allow my children to consider a similar career, while leaving room for them to create their own paths. There are mixed reviews from schools along with theories suggesting you can't teach entrepreneurship. Unsurprisingly, a study conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Kodable found that 77% of parents have been supplementing curriculums with lessons at home to ensure their offspring are properly prepared for all the real world throws at them. Indeed over 80% of the families surveyed think education must better adapt to workplaces of the future.
Personally, we try to foster our kids' creative thinking along with showing them how to look at various situations differently. Adapting to change, while learning about failure, etches in them the qualities of an effective entrepreneur. Utilizing what took place in 2020 to show alternative paths to success can spark a desire to one day create an entirely new industry.
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Many gifted programs for adolescents measure intangible qualities that are what many successful entrepreneurs utilize daily. Even if your kids don't show these traits, there are still ample opportunities to allow them to learn these lessons by teachable moments at home with research on why some businesses succeeded, and others failed, during 2020.
Prioritize the path less taken
Exposing our youth to entrepreneurship can reap many benefits. Allowing them to exercise their skill sets, and develop traits that many small business owners possess, will make them better people and spark interest in areas that they otherwise may not have considered. Curiosity, quick learning, an ability to seek independence and a sense of self-awareness are not traits reserved for the gifted.
Learning something new, even if it eventually doesn't suit your progeny, will lead them to having better awareness on how to interact with others. When they become executives who will buy from them, or customers supporting them, they would have learned a valuable lesson on what it take to sustain, grow and build a business.
Related: Common Characteristics of Gifted Individuals
There are schools and organizations, like The Lemonade Project, that help foster this mindset in kids. Showing them how to adapt to changes happening in classrooms, the workforce, and the world in general can lead to skills that assist in entrepreneurship. Provide STEM games, puzzles or utilizing items around the home to create a problem they must solve.
The book Range talks about trying many domains to steer people into what eventually allows them to be at the top of their skill set. If they are exposed to all manner of online options detaling what owning their own business entails, it will only make them better at whatever they chose to do in life. When they learn what entrepreneurship is all about, you may one day find yourself the parent of a skilled professional with a true appreciation for what it takes to succeed.
