Encouraging your child in entrepreneurship.

Some children are self-motivated and others need a little push to get things done. I’m happy that 2 of my 3 boys are self-motivated and didn’t need any help in creating little side hustles for themselves to make a little bit of money. I love encouraging and supporting my boys in their efforts to become young entrepreneurs.

Job ideas for teenagers.

Our youngest son is 14 years old and has been quite bored because of this COVID situation and not being able to hand out with friends.

One day he decided to write up a little flyer to pass out in our neighborhood hoping to get a little landscaping business. Hoping to either cut grass or doing odds and ends like weeding, spreading mulch, etc.

Here’s the flyer that he put together:

He went around our neighborhood and passed out the flyer and has received quite a few requests for work.

He now has 3 customers for whom he cuts the grass every week and several different people for whom he does various different landscaping work for like weeding, spreading mulch, helping dig holes, paint sheds, etc.

He’s been doing it for only a few weeks and has already made $1,500. He charges $15/hour for hourly work and $30 to cut grass.

Not a bad hourly rate for a 14-year-old kid. Isn’t it? I know that probably seems like a very high hourly rate for a kid, and it is.

But we live in a bit of a higher-end neighborhood and it seems that people here don’t even blink at that hourly rate.

I’m really proud of him for taking the initiative to start this little business of his and we love supporting him in any way that we can.

My husband has helped teach him how to use our lawn mowing tractor, how to use a weed wacker, and rototiller. It’s great watching his pride as he completes jobs for neighbors.

Our oldest son was about 13 years old when he started earning.

He started by doing a little bit of babysitting for our neighbor, coming to work with me, and doing some filing.

He used to cut the grass for his grandparents and began breeding rabbits and selling the bunnies on Craiglist.

Here’s a photo of some of the bunnies he used to breed.

He also raised baby chicks that were always high in demand. People around here are very interested in having chickens

Even during winter, after a snowfall, he would go out and shovel the snow for some elderly neighbors, who in turn gratefully gifted him a few bucks for his help.

He also came up with the ideas himself. He’s always loved working with animals and I’m happy that he found a way to make some money at an early age doing something that he enjoys.

I guess it helps that his Mom owns her own businesses, one of which is reselling on Ebay. Dad also breeds and sells canaries, as well as doing some custom woodworking and renovation side work.

I think that one of the most important things that we’ve done to help encourage our kids to learn to make money is that we have taught them that money does not grow on a tree, that one must go out and make it before you spend it.

And if the kids want to buy something, they have to spend their own money.

It’s a personal thing, but we do not give our children allowances.

In the real world, we work on commission. You work, you get paid, you don’t work, you don’t get paid..there are no allowances in real life.

What’s great about this is that when they DO spend money they have, they are more thoughtful about their purchases (when they are gifted money for birthdays and holidays, they can only spend a small portion of it, the rest is saved/invested).

Or if they don’t have money they get very creative in coming up with ways to get what they want, either by finding ways to earn money or even bartering with friends.

This also helps a great deal to combat our society’s Childhood Entitlement Disorder!