A parent built an e-commerce business around his 9-year-old's unicorn obsession to teach work differently than chores. He asks his kids two things when they fail: did you prepare and try hard, and what did you learn. Focus on effort, not results.
My kids have jobs. For example, you see this pin? This pin is my daughter's company. My daughter is 9 years old. She loves unicorns and rainbows, so we built her an e-commerce site where she gets to sell unicorn and rainbow products. For that, she works and she gets paid. But instead of giving my children chores to get paid, I think about how I can get my children to learn a skill to build something. I'm not saying my way is a good way or your way is a bad way. You can do any way that you want. I've just chosen to say, if I'm going to get my children to work, I to create positive associations with work.
He's right, and I'll tell you, um, I wish I would have done a better job of this with my own kids. I was so scared of pushing them into the business or entrepreneurship or making them feel like the path that I chose was the only path that I really didn't expose them enough to work and entrepreneurship as I would have liked. But the thing that I did teach my kids that I believe checks the same boxes that he's talking about here is to focus on inputs, not outputs. So I didn't care if they failed. I didn't care if they failed as long as two things were true. Number one, if they could honestly say that they prepared well and that they tried hard. If they did their best on the inputs and the outputs just didn't work out, you know, that's okay. And two, I wanted to ask them if they failed, "Can you tell me something that you learned so you can do better next time?" And the nice thing is, is That applies whether they're doing schoolwork or extracurricular activities or work-work, and I think it's gonna serve them well whether they choose the entrepreneurial path or not.
