Children are not stupid, I believe they are the smartest humans on the face of the planet. They will ultimately find a way for you to do all the things they do not want to do themselves. Even if they have real issues that hinder them from a goal, they learn how to manipulate that to carry over into everything they want us or others to do for them.
When I started to teach my child about money one of the first things I did was to sit down with her every night and have her read a book called “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. While the book was not way over her reading comprehension level almost every night the first challenge I met was with my daughter wanting me to read her the book instead of her reading to me. Ofcourse I always found a way to convince her to read - but my goal in having her read was for her to understand, for her to 1- practice reading 2- learn and retain because she was reading [ using her brain and not pretending to listen ] and 3- by her reading I knew she was listening and not just ignoring me as I talked. After all, this was not a bed time story, this was a lesson, time of learning - even if it was also time of togetherness and more.
Fighting the Urge to do it for them
As Parents we have two options when our children do not do what they were asked or told to do - you do it for them or you give up on them. My wife sometimes falls into both categories - the problem is that both of these options does nothing to help the child, except teach them to be lazy or incompetent.
The challenge I face now is fighting against the over whelming Urge to do it for her - her business is doing so well and like children do, they lose interest or have a tendency to taper off and relax when they should be pushing forward. At a point I was ready to take the jewelry material and make some jewelry pieces on my own in order to keep the selling going. But I didn’t. I know if I start I wont stop because she will begin to rely on me to do the work instead of her doing the necessary work to keep her business going.
When I was a teenager my Mother always asked me to “help” my sister with her homework - which I hated to do. Not because I did not want to help, but because I already learned that the help my sister wanted was not help but for me to “give” her all the answers.
So despite my “URGE” to keep the sales coming, the business moving, I have to sit back and bite my nails as I watch and hope that my little girl learns that this is what she has to do if she wants to succeed.A tip to help with lack of desire is goal and reward
Children are children and they will lose interest, desire and occasionally take extended breaks because - they are children. Children have no worries of paying the bills, providing food or anything else for that matter. If they are hungry they ask Mom for dinner. If they miss school they just make up the work later. The mind set of a child will always be - I have time to do it later - we all did this as children.
The goal of a Parent is to give a child goals, time constraints and purpose or rewards if you like.
I have set up 2 goals and time constraints for my daughter:
1. She set her own goal of raising $1,000 dollars by Oct 31, 2010.
It can be achieved, she made over a $100 dollars in 3 weeks selling her jewelry pieces. If she accomplishes this goal she will learn that even though she thought it was impossible - if she works hard she can accomplish anything she sets her mind to.
2. If she reaches the $1,000 dollar goal I will give her a lap top.
We were getting a new computer and my daughter was franticly asking me when she can get her own - she even asked if she could use the money she is making from her jewelry business to buy the lap top - I used this opportunity to build some interest and a goal for her - I told her that when she reaches $1,000 dollars in October I will buy her a new laptop and she will not have to use her own money. That put a fire in her belly for awhile at least.
Ultimately you know what works for your own child. You know what motivates them, drives and interest them the most. I suggest you use that not to manipulate but to motivate.
Another thing we have to learn as Parents is to allow them our children to work at their own pace. Yes, I know kids forget, lose interest and we already knowing that life is short and time is money want everything done today or better yet - yesterday. But we have to remember that this is a lesson, training, that our goal is to teach them the principals and tools they need in life in order to succeed - not to make them multimillionaires at the age of six.I was watching a show a while back about extra ordinary kids - children who had their own clothing line, toy business and were already CEO’s of their own companies at age 10, 12 and 16. They were ordinary kids, one particular boy who like to invent fun underwater pool toys that his father licenses to a toy company.
It made me think: Why can’t my kids do that?
We have to remember that no one is happy trying to be some one else - and we have to let our kids be themselves - the goal is to teach them how to think, to understand that there are more ways to doing things than that of just being a follower, an employee. To instill in them the principal that made this country great and why millions of people still come from all over the world to this country, a land of opportunity.
Too many people think that they are trapped in a dead end job - but they are only trapped if they refuse to try and learn about all the opportunities that are out there for them.
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