Pretend Jobs + Kidpreneurship
bonus: lots of free printables 🥳
On Monday, we talked about how making—and spending—money can do so much good. It’s fun to pretend to have jobs and make money…and spend it! The first half of this newsletter has some printables to help your kids play pretend market and restaurant, and the second half of the email has more practical inspiration for older kids who want to earn. This one’s pretty packed; enjoy!
Pretend Market
Later in this newsletter, we included more serious ideas and principles for entrepreneurship, but here is something fun your kids can do to pretend to have businesses: host a market day!
We made a printable flyer, price list, and even cute little dollar bills for the kids to trade.
Give your kids some craft supplies and encourage them to make something that other people would want.
This is a great activity to invite friends to do with you! Our kids made fabric wallets, felt sandwich materials for pretend play, rock jewelry, crocheted items, and paper crowns. They were busy for hours and took a lot of pride in their work. Plus, a lot of the stuff they made was actually cool!
Smoothie Shop or Restaurant
Kids love being servers. Print these menus out (maybe put them in a menu sleeve) and let them serve you! (Supply your kids with a Post-it pad or sheet of paper so they can write down orders and take them back to the kitchen 😉)
If you have some of these ingredients on hand, you could take this activity to the next level!
Here’s the romantic restaurant my kids set up for my husband and me. They made up new names and personas for themselves as the server and chef, too—“Beth” and “Elizabeth” 😅
Family Spa
We shared this idea on the post about Horizontal Parenting, because when you’re going through a physical issue or just really tired, it’s nice to be able to say “Hey, can I schedule a hand massage appointment from your spa business?” and let your kids learn how to create a calming atmosphere.
When I was pregnant and needed to lay down, my kids were so cute about spoiling me at their spa. They dimmed the lights, played music on my phone, brought me snacks and stuffed animals, and used way too much lotion on my hand and foot massages 😅 I paid the oldest sibling, and he paid his “employees” (siblings) for their work.
Kidpreneurship Basics and Worksheet
In preparing for this newsletter, we bought four books on entrepreneurship and money management that were written for kids. Honestly, all four were quite good! If your kid is serious about starting a business or planning for the future financially, invest in some knowledge for them!
The thing to keep in mind when you think about earning money—either as an entrepreneur, an artist, a grocery store employee, or working any other kind of job—is meeting society’s needs. You don’t need to come up with a Shark Tank invention to have a successful enterprise; you just need to make life easier for people. For example, the average American pays almost $2000 a year on food delivery expenses; people are willing to pay for convenience!
So any entrepreneurs—young or old—must ask, “What can I do to meet a need (and get paid for it)?”
Next you need to figure out where you’re trying to go and how you’ll get there. See if there’s anyone that your kid can collaborate with that both businesspeople would benefit from.
You know what would be a great big gift to your kid? Convince them that you believe in them. After they’ve written up some kind of business plan, you can be their first investor. Even $20 in the hands of an ambitious kid can go really far.
Also, designing logos used to be really hard, but it’s easy (and free) on Canva because they have all kinds of premade templates. You can also hire someone on Fiverr to do some design work for you.
The sweet spot when planning out a business is finding the intersection between what you like, what you can do, and what serves people. We made a worksheet for you to think through this:
Feel free to reply to this email and tell us about what ideas your kids came up with! Maybe there’s even a way that Family Scripts could help them get started.
Kidpreneur Inspiration: Pet Portraits by Summer
Summer F. from Tampa wanted to earn money for camp, and she had a great idea to figure out how to get there. She combined her talent for art with her love for animals to do something that added value to society: watercolor pet portraits!
Her mom simply posted some pictures of her work on Facebook and Instagram and told friends that Summer was selling these for camp. The response was overwhelming, and she had to close submissions after only a couple days because so many people wanted portraits of their pets. She tapped into something that people really want…even if they didn’t realize how much they wanted it until they saw her cute style.
By the way, Summer was only eleven years old when she did this! We live in a time where you can teach yourself how to do almost anything, and Summer has learned how to excel in her craft. And it’s paid off! You are an inspiration, Summer!
Thank you for reading this issue! There are obviously so many more things we could’ve written about this topic, but hopefully this was a helpful and fun launching point.
Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts
P.S. Do you know any friends or Facebook groups who might enjoy the ideas in this newsletter? Feel free to share. It would help a lot; thanks in advance!
P.P.S. Here’s one more picture from the cute restaurant our kids made. Our chefs used yarn as food, and in the background is another one of my daughters standing upright in a crawling tunnel, doing quick-change costumes for entertainment 😅 I wish you could’ve seen it. Literally all I did was hand the kids the printed menus and they came up with everything else. Let your kids go wild with creativity ❤️
