The other day, I spoke about working from home and homeschooling, and shared my thoughts on the concept of balance. Today I’d like to talk about involving our children in our home businesses.
Our goal as parents is to give our children a solid foundation of principles and skills so they can go into the world as caring, responsible people and be able to create a good life for themselves. You can take your home business and use it as a teaching tool for your children, a way to help prepare them in these areas.
1. As you work your home business, you are demonstrating a good work ethic, you’re showing them how to treat customers with integrity, and (very important) you’re showing them that dreams can come true. This will inspire them to pursue their own dreams because they know it can be done.
2. You are setting an example of how to parent and have a career at the same time. They can see firsthand how you balance the aspects of your life, and they can see how you set your priorities. This will be an example to them of how to coordinate their own lives.
3. Not only are you demonstrating a good work ethic, you are teaching it in a hands-on way.
Let’s look at the hands-on teaching opportunities for a minute.
It’s important that children understand that money doesn’t grow on trees. If they work with you in your business, you can show them how work brings in money. This will not only prepare them for jobs down the road, but will help them be more grateful for what they have.
You can give your children simple jobs within your business. For the little guys, they can hand you tape and bubble wrap if you’re shipping product. Older children can help package up orders and insert invoices. Your teenagers can help process orders and even update your website and marketing, answer e-mails, etc. At every age level, there’s something your children can do to help. It makes them feel involved, gives them a sense of ownership into what’s going on in the home, and can bring you closer together as a family. And what better way to teach principles of free enterprise than participating in it?
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Top 10 Tips for a Home Business
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