Starting a business with your kids

So, my super-smart, ambitious kids keep wanting to earn money by starting small businesses left and right – which is great but, wow, another project!! They’re homeschooled so they have a bit of leeway in their schedules and certainly all my emotional support for their desire. However, I keep running into the same road blocks and need some inspiration.

My two problems seem to be that I have a hard time finding the time to help them, the maturity to let them be inspired and do their own work and the innate sense of when to step in and suggest improvement or offer advice. Oh, that was three things. Well, clearly I shouldn’t help them with the accounting end of their work, but I do want to support them and help them be successful; I really think homestead kids (and all children) should have experience thinking outside the box when it comes to creating income! So, I got a little advice from a friend in the trenches on starting a business with your kids.

This article isn’t mean to be exhaustive and totally ignores things like business licenses, marketing plans and paying your taxes. That stuff doesn’t inspire me! I leave all that nonsense until the very end of a project like this. I just need a boot to the butt and someone to show me it can be done – and that it can be fun! Some fellow homesteading friends of ours happen to have two young daughters who found something they were passionate about and, with a little help from Mom and a lot of hard work, they’ve turned that passion into a business. I decided to interview the girls, with Mom, to see if I could get some inspiration and learn a little more. Here’s what I found out…

Starting a Business with your kids

Name of the business: My Inspired Dress Up Design

Proprietresses: Emily and Liah Stone with help from Mom, Liz

Website: myinspireddressupdesign@blogspot.com

•  Describe your business for us? What is it you provide?

•  How did you get to this place of starting a business with your kids? What inspired you?

Who We Are and How This All Started

In today’s technological world, sadly, the timeless pursuit of make believe and dress up play are no longer “just what kid’s do”. As a homeschooling mother I have watched my girls over the past several years and have noticed a fascinating thing. The more we read, studied history, went on field trips etc., the more time was spent in role playing and dress up games. The bottom line is that the better job I do at inspiring the more they choose to learn and create.

I’m always happy to see this type of creativity in my children so I encouraged it by supplying some open ended lengths of material (saris) and then watched in amazement the things they would create. Over the years I’ve seen knights and ladies, many a princess, and cultural costumes from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, China, India, and more.

This idea of keeping open ended squares of fabric for dress up play is not new to us, however when I saw the variety and quality of what the girls were coming up with I had to grab my camera and share for those who, like me, may need a little more inspiration. Children, when given the space and materials to do so, will create far more than we could think to show them. It’s us adults that think they have to have separate costumes for each character. Kids innately know better and make do with what they have, all they really need is inspiration.

•   What has been the most fun for you to do with your business?

It depends on which child you ask 😉  Liah loves setting up the blog and posting there. Emily would prefer designing and doing presentations. A good match, no?!

• What has been the biggest challenge?

• How have you gotten the word out about your business?

So far we have only done a few presentations and the party idea is just developing so we are excited to see what comes there. We have a blog we are working on populating with demonstrations and have set up pins on Pinterest that are shared regularly.

• Do you have advice for other kids starting their own business?

• Or for moms trying to help?

• What other business are you considering? Do you have other ideas you’d like to explore?

• Our readers are homesteaders, and so are you, so do you have any ideas for homestead businesses in which kids could participate?

We couldn’t take pictures fast enough will all the creativity whizzing by!

Even the littlest learned how to create their own designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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