Start Early to Grow Your Child Into
an Entrepreneur
Volume 12, Number 34
Issue 581
This summer I have spent a lot of time in New York and Washington in connection with the publication of my soon-to-be released book, Tales, Ideas and Quotes from a Greatcpa™--The Book! One of the things that I have consistently observed in New York is that children are much more savvy entrepreneurs—and at a younger age—than their counterparts in Richmond are. How did this happen? Is it that parents—probably out of street-smart necessity—have instilled far more real-world knowledge into little kids than what I see back her in Richmond?
In New York, I see young kids “working” and hanging out with their parents who are street fair vendors, restaurant and small business owners. Often, a nine to eleven year old is the one that takes my money or hands me (or bags) my purchase. Sometimes, the kids have even become more entrepreneurial than their parents.
Last weekend in New York, it was probably an eight year old (yep, a second grader) who was almost three feet shorter than me, who asked if I “wanted the matching umbrella for $10 more,” then conveniently totaling exactly the $50 bill I had just handed over. Another little entrepreneur was barking to the crowd on the street “free plastic bag with any purchase.” That got my attention and made me stop at the parents’ sidewalk table, which I think was the entire idea.
These types of things make me fondly remember hanging out with my Dad at his office when I was about nine or ten years old talking with his customers and listening in on telephone conversations and doing his filing. In fact, I learned more about math and English skills from hanging out with him than I did in the third and fourth grades.
I’ve also observed that Washingtonians and New Yorkers seem to simply talk to their kids more about what’s going on when they are out together. I love seeing parents who ask their kids to calculate change amounts, approximate totals of buying more than one item and/or how much each individual item is within a “three for one” price total.
Long ago, my mother made sure that going to the grocery store was like a field trip away from school. One of her favorite questions was to make me figure out if buying six individual lemons was cheaper than buying a bag of six. She was constantly questioning me how much the equivalent individual price was when more than one was included for one price, such as “a dozen ears of corn for $___.”
Teaching me rounding was a favorite thing of hers. She would have me keep a running total in my head of our entire purchase at the store by rounding to fifty cent increments as things were placed in the cart. Over a period of years--until we stopped shopping together--I got really, really good at being able to get within $1 or $2 at the checkout, including a provision for sales tax.
Comparison shopping was a big thing for both Mom and Dad. They let me know that not every place charged the same thing—or even close—and that “shopping around” was important, including using the telephone and reading the newspaper to get quotes. I observed how they did it and how they ultimately made their decisions. Intangible variables came into my decision and sometimes—at least I thought—my observations about salesmanship and service helped determine what we bought and where. Sometimes, they even let me make the decision and I think that, on purpose, they let me make some wrong decisions for us. I remember learning more from the wrong decisions more than from the right ones. Mistakes became the by-product of moving forward towards better and better decisions.
Clients often ask me how they should prepare, tax-wise, for college. Often, they wind up with an additional homily that they didn’t request: one about it never being too early to start making the world an open classroom for basic math skills involving multiplication, addition, subtraction, division, fractions, percentages and coins and currency.
I think that parents who make sure that their child is introduced to entrepreneurialism through a never-ending dialogue of “what’s going on” when parents are shopping (as a consumer) or selling (as businesspeople) stand a far better chance to raise a successful, independent adult.
Parents need to plant the seeds of capitalism and a market-based entrepreneurial economy as early as possible. In fact, it’s never—no not ever—too early. At a very minimum, talk to your kids about “what’s going on” when you are out in public purchasing things. Make your kids “do the math” about price calculation, sales tax, change back, and about what goes into buying decisions. Chances are that they will greatly improve their math and communication skills while they are building their own entrepreneurial skills.
If you start a conversation with your eight year old about buying and selling things that doesn’t ever end until they are well past college, you will raise a VERY successful adult that will become a skilled and multi-time entrepreneur that will make you very proud.
David B. Robinson, CPA
This issue is dedicated to Rita Marie Cook who departs very soon for Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Thanks, Rita, for a great year.
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