Dear Fellow Parents,

Today I am honoured with sharing with you a special blog post written by my good friend, Jenny Ford.

She is the owner of Cash-Smart-Kids and has three young entrepreneurial girls of her own, all with their own businesses, started at the ages of 9-12! Enjoy!

“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 reject 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.

I hope you have enjoyed this post. Jenny will be gifting us with future posts as well.

Here’s to your child’s business education,

Cheers…Amanda van der Gulik….Excited Life Enthusiast!
http://www.teachingchildrenaboutmoney.com/

I’ve had a lot of parents tell me,

“I’m not very good financially, how can I teach my child to be smart with their money if I’m not very smart with mine?”

This is a GREAT question!

Have you ever heard the old saying, “The best way tot learn is to teach?”

Well, it’s incredibly true!

Just because you have not been very smart with your money in the past doesn’t mean that you must continue along this way.

The fact that you can see that you have not been very clever with your money in the past shows me that you are now at a cross roads. You can see what you have done wrong and are getting ready to change.

Don’t wait until you get a handle on your finances BEFORE you start to teach your child about money, start today!

Right now!

Sit down with your child and show them how you have made money mistakes in the past. Then come up with a plan of how you are going to change these bad money habits for the future.

Be a rold model for your child. And don’t be afraid to show your child your failures.

By showing your child that you are human, that you make mistakes you are actually helping your child to see that it is okay to make mistakes. That mistakes are just life’s way of teaching you something.

I like to think of mistakes as just, “very expensive lessons!”

That’s all.

Now if you make mistakes and don’t learn from them, then you are asking for trouble.

If you begin on your path to financial freedom together with your child, not only will you be setting the best example in the world for your child’s financial success but you will also be really connecting with them at a very personal and emotional level.

This could be the best bonding experience you ever make with your child.

Just imagine, you could be having weekly fiance meetings with your child where you both take turns describing how your week has gone financially.

Set the example, you go first. Tell your child about your week’s financial successes and also about the financial mistakes that you have made this past week along with the lessons that you learned from those mistakes.

Then it’s your child’s turn.

You’re child will be more likely to be open and honest with you if you show that you are being open and honest with them.

Have fun with it. Set a special family game night, where you play the CASHFLOW game or some other financial game together. It’s a great way to open up the lines of communication.

Read books together on finances and then hold your own book club, so you can discuss the lessons together.

But most of all enjoy each moment of learning and teaching your child.

This should be fun!

Cheers….Amanda van der Gulik…Excited Life Enthusiast!

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For More Great Money Lessons for Kids read,

“The Insider’s Secrets to Raising a Future Millionaire!”

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Does this saying sound familiar to you?

I bet you are probably one of many who heard this often growing up, right?

If not, you were lucky.

Let’s turn a new leaf and start raising our own children a little differently.

How about we change the way we answer our kids when they want something that requires money that we do not have or refuse to give.

For example:

Jonny wants a new pair of brand-name, high-endurance, running shoes.

“Dad, I really need a new pair of ‘brand-name’, running shoes. They are the coolest and all the kids have them. I want a pair too! If I don’t get a pair of them, then Shawn’s going to beat me at basket ball and you know, I’m 10 times better than him at basket ball!”

Here are two different replies:

Dad replies with, “What do you think I’m made of? Money doesn’t grow on trees you know!“

or

Dad replies with, “Well son, if those shoes mean that much to you and you truly feel that Shawn will have an unfair advantage over you in basket ball, then what is your plan? How do you plan to buy those shoes? Can you think of something that you can do, or make, or service, that can raise you the money so you can buy your own pair? If you really want those shoes, son, then you’re going to have to come up with a good way to buy them. I believe you can do it. Come back to me when you have a plan and we’ll see if we can work it out together. Good luck kiddo.”

In Dad’s first reply, dad shuts Jonny’s hopes down but ALSO teaches him, although unintentionally, that life is all about ’scarcity’. Jonny learns from these negative replies that money is hard to come by. That it is difficult to get what you want in life. That other people will always have more than you. And the list goes on and on…

On the other hand in Dad’s second reply, you can see that Dad is turning on the creative juices in his son’s mind, “okay, so I want these new shoes, how can I go about making the money to get them myself?”.

And as well as getting Jonny’s creative juices flowing on some easy ways for kids to make money, Dad is also teaching some other incredibly valuable life lessons. Like: Abundance, Optimism, Faith in his son to find a way to fullfil his desire.

He is teaching him to be responsible for himself as well as encouraging him to come up with a plan and then to work together on making that plan come to action. This alone will diminish any thoughts of theft as an option.

So how are you talking to your own kids when it comes to money?

See if you can pay attention to the next time your child asks you about money. Listen to your own reply and then meditate on it for a minute or two.

How did that answer come across to your child?

Was your child turned off of money, or encouraged to take responsibility to come up with a creative way to attract their desired goods.

I hope you have enjoyed this thoughtful session, and I look forward to writing the next. If you have any specific topics that you would like me to talk about please just leave a message and I will do my best to answer your topics of interest where concerned with kids and money.

Cheers…Amanda van der Gulik…Excited Life Enthusiast!

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For 50 Free Money Making Ideas for Kids click here!
www.TeachingChildrenAboutMoney.com
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Hello Parents of Future Millionaires!

I am so excited!

My ebook, “The Insider’s Secrets to Raising a Future Millionaire” has been a huge hit!

It is so heartening to know that the information, tools and resources that I have put together in my book have been able to touch the lives of so many families who really want to teach their kids all about money.

Here’s what one mother wrote me:

“Hi Amanda,

I just wanted to congratulate you on a fantastic book!

I grew up in a household with a ´poverty mentality´ always struggling to make ends meet.

Since having my own children I have always want to teach them that nothing is impossible but time seems to fly by and I always think I am not doing enough to give them a financial education (too busy trying to make money to give them the best schooling I can afford!)

Your book has really given the push I needed to make this a priority. They are already 6 and
8 and I know you are right – the time to start is now.

If I say we don´t have the money for something they tell me to just go to the bank and get it – like it just appears magically.

I desperately want them to be financially secure so that they concentrate on enjoying life and there are loads of great resources in the book to help me teach them.

This is a must-have for all parents.” Yolanda Solo, USA

Thank-you Yolanda, I am so pleased that I was able to give you what you needed to really get your financial education for your kids going. I’m sure that with persistence and by being a positive role-model for your children you will be able to succeed at raising your own kid entrepreneurs and future millionaires!

I’m so pleased that I was able to offer my loyal members my Last Chance Offer to get my ebook at the Pre-Launch reduced price. The ebook is now fully available and functional.

For all of you who have already purchased my ebook, a REAL BIG THANK-YOU! I really do appreciate your business and I truly look forward to working together to help your with all your educational needs and support while you are teaching your children about money.

Cheers….Amanda van der Gulik…..Excited Life Enthusiast!