How do we raise self-reliant kids who have initiative, who are resilient, and who could be problem solvers? Kids who have the skills and the courage to step outside of their comfort zone and take advantage of what life has to offer.
I'm a mom to these three boys. And if you're a parent like me, you've probably asked yourself those very same questions. And while I'm sure that every caring parent wants those same things for their children, I think we're going about it the wrong way.
We want our kids to be happy and successful. So our instinct is to shield them from hurt and disappointment. We worry about their self-esteem, so we praise them for everything. We are concerned about whether or not they fit in, so we indulge them. And we don't want them to fail, so we step in and take over. And we do all of this in an attempt to curate a perfect life for them.
But what we're really doing is raising kids who are afraid to take risks because they fear failure; kids who lack the confidence in their ability to figure things out; and then young people who are afraid to launch into adulthood.
More young adults are living at home and for longer stretches. And this was occurring even before the pandemic. A Pew Research study found that 52 percent of young adults are living at home, which is the highest percentage since the Great Depression. And what we're finding is that young adults are stuck between adolescence and adulthood. And that's the generation of people that we're raising. And in fact, we hear this in the language that young adults even use when they have to make responsible adult decisions. There's a term for it. Who knows what that is? Adulting, yes. The practice of behaving in a characteristic of a responsible adult.
So I am convinced that as parents and caregivers, we are missing out on a great opportunity to raise kids who are resilient and can take hold of their future, kids who can step outside of their comfort zone and do amazing things. Now, these are skills that are necessary not only for them to lead fulfilling lives and live out their potential, but those are skills that are also necessary for our changing world.
So back to my original question. How do we raise self-reliant kids who have initiative, are resilient and can be problem solvers?
I believe we do that by raising kids who can think and act entrepreneurially. Kids who have the opportunity or have the skill set to view the world from an entrepreneurial mindset.
So let me tell you how I came to this conclusion. So for more than 20 years, my work was centered around supporting adult entrepreneurs. Providing them with training and technical assistance and resources to help them start and grow their businesses. And something I would observe. We'd have two individuals come into our office seeking assistance. And on the surface, it appeared that those individuals were at the same level in terms of resources, capabilities, skills and business acumen. But what we would find is that one individual would take that information and go with it, and then the other individual would just seem to have trouble really getting traction and getting going. And what I realized was that it had nothing to do with skill or capability. What it came down to was the mindset of that individual. And observing this got me thinking: How might I raise my children such that they can view the world like an entrepreneur? That they would have the courage to step out and to change the world with an entrepreneurial lens.
So that set us out, my husband and I, on a 15-year journey to raise entrepreneurial kids. And we really saw this come together when my eldest son, Silas, was nine years old. We had been living here in Maryland for about two years, and my husband was planning to travel back to Colorado to visit his mother. And so Silas asked me, he said, "Hey, mom, can me and my brothers also go with Dad to visit grandma?"
And I said, "Well, you know, Silas, four airline tickets were not in the budget, but you can go if you can buy your own ticket."
So he paused for a moment, and he said, "OK, well, how much are airline tickets?"
And I said, "About 300 dollars."
And so his next question, I have to say, it literally blew my mind. So he said, "OK. Can I find free stuff on Craigslist and then resell it?"
Yeah, I was like, "Yeah, you can."
And so then, over the course of that summer, that's exactly what he did. You know, he would get online and research Craigslist. My husband would take him to go pick up those things, and then I would help him take pictures and post them online. But then he also did some other things that summer, he hustled. So he baked and sold cookies. And then he also washed cars. And throughout that entire process, my husband and I, we guided him along. We were there to coach and encourage him, but we allowed him to take the lead. When it was time for him to make his sales pitch, you know, we coached him on how to make the pitch, but when it was time to knock on the doors, he stood forward, and we stepped back.
And that summer he raised the money. He earned the money to purchase his airline ticket. And he made a little bit more. And he bought me a gift. But, you know, I'm like, I don't know really who he was thinking about when he bought that gift. If it was, like, me or him, I don't know.
(Laughter)
But think about the confidence that this put in him at nine years old. That he can have a big goal, and that he could persevere to achieve that goal. Amazing.
But when I share that story with other parents, many of them shake their head and say, "You know what? My kid could never do that because my kids don't have the entrepreneurial gene." Well, being entrepreneurial is not genetic. It is a set of behaviors that can be learned when given the opportunity. Entrepreneurs are not born. The skills and the experiences that cause a person to be entrepreneurial can be taught, and they can be nurtured.
Now, raising entrepreneurial kids is more than just teaching them how to start a business so they can earn money. Raising entrepreneurial kids is really about preparing kids for life. Equipping them with everything that they need, with the confidence, with the ability to speak up, to persevere, to have tenacity, to bounce back from fear and rejection. Those are the things that are required in our world to live to one's potential.
So in order for me to learn as much as I could about raising entrepreneurial kids, I interviewed dozens of parents and kids to find out what they were doing. And so I want to share with you what I learned, and I want to share with you five strategies that I'm actually doing with my children and that honestly, I think every parent should be doing with their children to disrupt our conventional way of parenting.
So, number one, don't give them an allowance.
(Applause)
That's what I'm talking about, too, yes. Don't give them an allowance. Instead, challenge them to start a business to earn their spending money. So this is my boys, and this is one of the ways that they've earned money, their own spending money, is they make bracelets. And there is no better lesson around the value of a dollar than when you have to work hard to earn each one of them. And through this process, our kids will learn confidence, financial literacy, public speaking, how to convince people, all skills that are valuable for the world that we live in. So don't give them an allowance.
The next thing is make them pay for their wants. You know, key to entrepreneurship is about personal responsibility and ownership. And it is amazing how, when you put the responsibility on someone else to buy that thing that they said they really wanted, kind of shifts a little bit, right? It really, really does. It's no different with the kids. And so we actually started this quite early with our children. So when Silas was about four years old, I created “daddy dollars.”
(Laughter)
And the boys would earn daddy dollars for doing things such as chores, for exhibiting positive behavior and for also reading books. And Silas actually purchased his first bike from using daddy dollars. He had to earn 250 daddy dollars, and that allowed him to purchase his first bike. Now, yeah, you know, these are not real dollars. But to Silas, that experience of working hard to earn that money and to buy that bike was a very real experience for him. Also, in 2019, our family decided to take a trip to Tanzania. And so, you know, the boys were really excited about it. And I said, "Now, if you want to go to Tanzania -- your dad and I are going -- but if you want to go to Tanzania, you know what you got to do?" What do you think I told them? They're going to have to buy their own airline ticket, yes. Now, the tickets to Tanzania were not cheap. They were 900 dollars apiece. Yeah. But check this out. This is what I just loved, was when I told the boys that they were going to have to buy their own ticket, Silas, remembering back to what he had done when he was about nine years old, he said to his brothers, "That's easy, don't worry about it. I'll show you how to do it."
(Laughter)
Yes. And sure enough, they worked hard over several months, and they did just that. They were able to earn enough money by selling their bracelets that I showed you earlier, and they all were able to go with their parents to Tanzania. So I would encourage you to make your kids pay for the things that they say they want.
The next is to reduce their prosperity. Now let's admit it, kids today have a lot of stuff, right? And when you think about it, I understand this need and this desire as parents to want to give our kids experiences and things that maybe we did not have when we were children. But when we choose a parenting style of overindulging our children by providing them with too much, too soon, for too long, with no effort on their part, what we do is actually raise young people who are self-centered and entitled. And so when we, instead ... In the [1800s], it's interesting because Frederick Douglass made a statement that I thought was profound even in the [1800s], because we're dealing with it today. And he said, "If you wish to make your son helpless, you need not cripple him with a bullet or a bludgeon, but simply place him beyond the reach of necessity and surround him with luxury and ease." Still true today. Steve Jobs in a graduation speech, told the graduates to stay hungry. And what we love about entrepreneurs is their hustle. And oftentimes that hustle is rooted in a hunger for something. But if our kids never want for anything, what's going to motivate them to take action? So I encourage you to reduce your kids' prosperity.
Next is to let them be delight-directed. Entrepreneurs are lifelong learners. They learn to do, not simply to know. And when we encourage our children to seek out learning for the things that they are most interested in, they become learners who seek to learn to do because they're teaching themselves as opposed to just simply pouring in information, which is sometimes what we get in our education system. And so this is my my son Isaiah. His delight is drawing. And so he spends hours drawing, and he seeks out classes [that] teach him how to draw. And he was recently awarded an award by the Smithsonian Museum of African Art for creating --
(Applause)
this superhero, from looking at a piece of art in the museum. And he designed this. But now Isaiah is designing logos for people. Yeah, yeah, I love it. So give them room and space to follow their delights. And then lastly, let them solve their own problems.
Entrepreneurs are problem solvers, and as parents it is our natural instinct to want to step in and help our kids solve their problems. But when we do that all of the time, we kind of squelch the potential that they have to discover new things about themselves new capabilities that they might have. It squelches their ability to go out and find the answers for themselves.
So I want you to think about those five things as you begin to raise up young people. And yeah, you know what? It's very likely that my boys may not choose business ownership when they grow up. And that’s OK. Because whether a child chooses to build a company or become an employee, it doesn't matter, because every kid needs to learn how to think like an entrepreneur. And the sooner we do this as parents, create an environment at home where they have the opportunity and multiple occasions to challenge their beliefs about what's possible within them, to step outside of their comfort zone, to take risks, to learn from failure, to bounce back from rejection, then the sooner we'll put them on the path of living out their potential to lead very fulfilling and successful lives.
Thank you.
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