Why not  take the same approach to teaching kids business as we do to

teaching them sports?  We can take many of the reasons we choose to teach sports at an early age and apply them to business. Kids will more than likely end up with a business career rather than a sports career. Let's make teaching kids business at an early age, as early as eight, acceptable. Try a "sports approach" to teaching business. Expose kids to business at an early age; try different businesses until you find one they like (explore different career paths), teach the fundamentals or basic skills first (creating and presenting ideas), while working up to competitive games (participating in business) - like sports.

Teaching business has an important self-discovery stage that many people

fail to recognize throughout their own career.   If we had tools to help kids

understand and develop themselves in terms of their personalities, interests

and inherent abilities,  we would enhance their chances of success and

happiness in their future career.  By allowing them to discover opportunities in

this global marketplace and helping them understand what it takes to

succeed, we will have provided them one of the best gifts in the lesson of life.

Most parents and community members underestimate their teaching abilities or

their educational influence on kids. Think back to your role in teaching your child to,

walk, talk, tie their shoes, read, ride a bike... career preparation. Most of us fall short on the career preparation front ,as we rely on our education system alone. In general, our education system requires assistance in bridging education and business preparation. Teaching business can be greatly enhanced  by parents and community involvement through a collaborative partnership between the business community, educators and seniors efforts. Kids' career preparation should not be overlooked or delayed to a point when kids are more difficult to influence and have lost important learning years. Give some thought to this opportunity and set a plan on how to get involved and deal with it.

Work experience is becoming more difficult for kids to obtain. Remember grass-cutting and newspaper routes that were available a generation ago? The success of franchising in North America has created many small business success stories but sadly, have taken jobs from kids. The average household gets over 20 calls a year from home maintenance services and daily newspapers arrive early in the morning by car. We need to re-examine how kids can obtain the relevant experience necessary to develop their interests and talents at an early age.

The evolution of the Internet has helped to level the playing field for kids. They can now be involved in business from the safety of their own homes. There are other safety issues that have surfaced, but they can at least be at home. Kid's aptitudes with computers and their ability to learn from tinkering around, have allowed them to do amazing things with computer technology. The Internet, if used wisely, has the potential of becoming an excellence means of job preparation, offering kids the chance to explore, learn relevant skills and gain valuable experience.  We should embrace this phenomenal opportunity and create Internet tools that will help occupy and develop kids with positive and lasting influences like business.

TeachingKidsBusiness.com is developing tools and experiences that will expose kids to business in a playful learning environment. Jeff M. Brown, President & CEO of TeachingKidsBusiness.com is confident that "the benefits will be tremendous as kids learn fundamental skills in business, gain business experience, develop confidence and self-esteem. We can also instill lasting characteristics like work ethic, values, community involvement and charitable giving. The introduction of business to Kids at an early age isn't about money and it's not about putting kids into high pressure or stressful business situations. The focus should be placed on engaging and inspiring kids to discover, preparation, nurturing of interests and the understanding of business in a positive way."