Entrepreneurial Kids Finding Success

The high unemployment rate of the past few years has been particularly hard on teens, who are at the age where they're eager to get started on their working lives.

These teens decided to be proactive by starting their own businesses, and the results they've gotten will encourage your teens. Send them the article link; it may be just the inspiration needed to get going on a dream.

Disappearing Jobs: What Will Happen Next?

Writer Andy Kessler posed the question "Is Your Job an Endangered Species?" in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal. His article and the accompanying comments may not completely answer that question, but they certainly pose some interesting additional questions.

We cannot know for certain which jobs will survive in the future and what kinds of new jobs will be created. In fact, many of the industries our children will work in have not yet come into being. But if we raise our kids with certain skills and mindsets, they will thrive in whatever job they can find....they may even create their own.

What Do Your Kids Love to Do?

What do your kids love to do? What are their interests, their passions? It's likely that doing the things they're good at could be the key to their future employment.

Sir Ken Robinson is a creativity expert who has studied successful, creative people. In his book The Element, he addresses the issue of helping kids find their talents and passions:

The only way to prepare for the future is to make the most out of ourselves on the assumption that doing so will make us as flexible and productive as possible…..

Many people set aside their passions to pursue things they don’t care about for the sake of financial security. The fact is, though, that the job you took because it “pays the bills” could easily move offshore in the coming decade. If you have never learned to think creatively and to explore your true capacity, what will you do then?

More specifically, what will our children do if we continue to prepare them for life using the old models of education? It’s very possible that our children will have multiple careers over the course of their working lives, not simply multiple jobs. Many of them will certainly have jobs we haven’t conceived yet. Isn’t it therefore our obligation to encourage them to explore as many avenues as possible with an eye toward discovering their true talents and their true passions?

How do we, as parents, encourage our children to develop their talents and passions? By helping them when they ask for it, and then getting out of their way. Given the opportunity, young people can find their passions on their own.
 

Young Entrepreneurs Finding Success

Here's a great article you'll want to share with the young people in your life. It describes young adults who have decided to bypass the traditional (and currently bleak) world of working for someone else by starting their own businesses. Using today's technological tools, many are finding financial success, and all are learning to rely on themselves instead of an employer. Smart kids!

Self-Reliance is Necessary Now

This man submitted nearly 2,000 job applications but was never hired. So he wised up and started his own business, which is doing well. He used his personal experience to come up with the idea for his business. Smart! This is the kind of thinking that pays off in the new economy. It's how our children will need to think.

Are Schools Killing Our Children's Creativity?

In a rapidly changing economic environment, thinking creatively can help people make good decisions when faced with challenging problems. Our children will need to be creative in order to make a living in the 21st century. But are schools crippling their creativity? This video makes the case that they are.

What do you think?

Teaching Children to Recognize and Appreciate Quality, Part 2

PART 1 (in case you missed it)

Exposure to Quality

Giving our children opportunities to create things is key, but we also need to expose them to the creations of others. Seeing what others have done inspires our children, and also helps them to recognize greatness in the work of others.

Art museums are one place our children can become acquainted with high-quality, aesthetically pleasing works.

Historical museums expose our children to the great inventions of the past, and help them understand why it’s important to make things that last.

Art and craft shows give children an up-close look at art and the artists who create it.

Quilt shows highlight the creativity of those who work with cloth. Be on the lookout for special exhibits of antique quilts; before cloth was affordable or readily available, women of the past used fabric scraps, worn-out clothes and feed sacks to fashion quilts of beauty that were used to keep their families warm. Such quilts are the ultimate examples of good stewardship of materials.

Of course, the best place to expose our children to well-made and high quality items is in our own homes. There are high-quality items out in the marketplace, but they tend to cost quite a bit more than we might want to pay. In many cases, they’re downright unaffordable. Many people just don’t have the money to fill their homes with such expensive things.

However, there is a way to find affordable items for our homes, and that’s at estate sales, garage sales and rummage sales. Amidst the warped fiberboard entertainment centers and rickety kitchen chairs of the recent past you can find sturdy wooden furniture, high-quality pre-1990s towels and linens (some with the price tags still attached!) and small appliances made with metal gears (much longer-lasting than today’s products with plastic gears).

My husband and I began shopping in such places when we were poor newlyweds. We still use some of our purchases from back then; a few are now considered antiques that would sell for quite a bit more than we paid for them, IF we were willing to part with them.

The high quality of goods made in the past really hit home with me several years ago, when I helped my daughter find supplies for her first apartment by scouring local estate and rummage sales. She especially likes the look of the 1970s (to her, it’s very retro; I, however, lived through it the first time!). In finding various items of that vintage for her such as glassware, utensils and linens, I was struck by the sturdiness of the items compared to much new versions of the same things in our home. The plastic utensils were stronger and heavier. The glasses were also heavier, and the paint on them had held up almost perfectly; quite a difference from the glassware we use that’s not very old but already has faded a good deal.

The difference in linens is especially noticeable. The sheets I found for her are not as tightly woven as those you can buy nowadays, nor are the towels as thick and soft as today’s towels, but both are made of better-quality textiles. I can tell this because they continue to wear well despite frequent washings. In contrast, today’s sheets and towels seem luxurious when you buy them, but after a few washings they begin to deteriorate quickly.

These differences need to be pointed out to our children so that they can learn to recognize quality. In fact, just living with and using well-made goods on a day-to-day basis will have a subliminal effect on them; when you’re used to quality, anything “cheap” really becomes noticeable.

But we have to make an effort to “buy quality” in order to have it in our homes. If we can’t afford to buy new, buying older, used items is the way to do it. If you have a problem with doing that, just remember, every one of those expensive antiques you see on television’s “Antiques Roadshow” is a used item.

A Resurgence of Quality

Artists put a lot of time into their creations. In the new age of increasing productivity (the faster a product can be made, the better) and throwaway products, we have to ask if the creation of high-quality items is really worth the time it takes. Does it make sense to encourage our children to recognize quality and to develop their artistic talents so that they can create items of quality when the rest of the world seems to have forsaken quality for low prices and the convenience of disposability?

I think it does. Beyond the pleasure creation brings, and the joy of working with good materials, is the likelihood that eventually, people will tire of having to buy new goods all the time. There are many reasons for this:

• It takes time to keep buying replacements, and we’re increasingly short on time.

• It’s very frustrating when things keep breaking or falling apart.

• The novelty of each season’s “hot” new items wears off after a while; we get bored with them.

• It’s expensive to keep replacing the items we use in our daily lives; this is especially important during economic downturns like the one we’re in now.

• As people age, they lose interest in continual consumption, and learn to appreciate what they have (or maybe they just get tired of all that shopping!)

• In rapidly changing times, people find security in the possessions that have meaning to them.

This last point is especially intriguing. In a throwaway society, which items will become the eventual heirlooms we leave to our children and their children? Will the museums of the future have anything in them to represent the early 21st century, or will it all have fallen apart?

I think today’s “it’s cheaper to buy a new one” mentality will eventually lead to a resurgence of the appreciation of quality. It will always have its place, even among an avalanche of cheap imported goods. In the world of job insecurity and changes that we’ve entered, it’s human nature to want some security, some things that don’t change. Possessions that have stood up over time and even have special significance for us are greatly appreciated.

In our home sits a sturdy old rocking chair that we inherited after the death of my husband’s great-grandmother. She received it as a wedding gift, so it’s over 100 years old. I rocked my babies in it; when my children were small, they climbed in it and all over it. It has held up very well, and holds many memories for us.

It’s one of many chairs we’ve owned; many of the others are no longer in our house. Having been made more recently, they fell apart from the daily use of six people. They were replaced by even newer and not-inexpensive chairs. While my husband tries to keep them in good repair, it is a constant job. It’s true, they just don’t make things like they used to make them. Yet that rocking chair remains in good shape. You can’t beat quality.

NOTE: Excerpted from Thriving in the 21st Century, now available in print and eBook.

Teaching Children to Recognize and Appreciate Quality, Part 1

NOTE: Excerpted from Thriving in the 21st Century, now available in print and eBook.

The paint is coming off of the buttons of my cell phone, which I don’t use very often (it’s a prepaid). It’s only a year old.

The nonstick surface of the pans in my kitchen is flaking off; the pans are, at most, five years old.

Towels I bought only a few years ago fade and become stiff, while those received as wedding gifts over 30 years ago continue to hold up. The elastic stretches out in fitted sheets just a few years old, while sheets I bought for my now-young-adult children, much used over the years, are still in good shape.

These are more examples of the decreasing quality of goods we buy today. Our stores are overflowing with wonderful, exciting new products, but most aren’t made to last. The hope of those who make them is that they’ll have to be replaced before long, thus requiring yet another trip to the store, and so more profits in the manufacturers’ pockets. Increasing global competition is teaching manufacturers to produce goods with low costs and a low profit margin, which they can then sell in large quantities at modest prices, thus making up the profit in volume.

The combination of innovative new products, mass marketing and planned obsolescence (making a product with a limited lifespan so it will have to be replaced) has brought us this avalanche of goods that don’t last. As soon as they hit our stores, they’re aggressively marketed so that we’ll buy them. Those that don’t sell right away are deep-discounted so that we’ll buy them on sale because of their irresistible prices. Anything left over is then marked down for clearance so that there will be room for the coming season’s “must-have” items, and the cycle begins again.

This sequence has trained American consumers to expect low-price, low-quality goods, and develops in us an attitude of “it’s cheaper to replace it than to fix it.” Compare that to the mindset required of our grandparents and great-grandparents who raised families during the Great Depression. A common expression of the 1930s was “Use it up, make it do or do without.” Most people didn’t have the money to buy new goods or replace old items all the time. So they learned to take care of their belongings to make them last, and to fix those that could be fixed.

Cultivating such an attitude helped them stretch their money as far as possible, which was a necessity during tough financial times. We need to teach our children that same attitude; it will be very helpful to them during those times ahead when they’re between jobs, or when they need to tighten their belts in order to keep their business afloat.

That won’t always be easy in our disposable society. We parents have been trained to pitch what doesn’t work. One example of how we’ve come to think that way is the videocassette recorder (VCR). When VCRs first became available to the consumer market over 30 years ago, the cheapest models cost over $1,000. After investing that kind of money, almost anyone with a VCR took it in to be repaired when it broke down.

But over the years the price of VCRs declined, and so did their quality. When you can find them, you can buy a multi-featured VCR for $50. When it breaks down, and it will, it won’t be worth investing at least as much as you paid for it in repairing it, when you can go right out and buy another for $50. And that’s what Americans do. We just keep buying more products to replace those that break down or fall apart. By doing so, we kept the economy going for a long time.

But this process creates a mindset of increasing consumption. It’s the last thing we want to teach our children, but that’s what we’re doing by our examples. We parents need to get our heads straight about what and why we buy things before we try to teach our children.

It can be done. By learning to recognize and appreciate quality, we and our children can keep a lid on our expenses by not having to replace things all the time. The choices we make as consumers will have an effect on what’s being offered in the market place. Just think, if everyone were to refuse to buy inferior goods, manufacturers and marketers would have no choice but to offer better quality goods.

That’s a nice thought, but the reality of the present is that it takes some work to find high-quality goods, things that will hold up for a while. We have to take the time and make the effort to buy well-made items, and to teach our children how to do so. If they learn to appreciate quality now, they’ll grow up looking for it in the things they buy. It will be worth their effort to take care of those things, and to fix them when they need to be fixed. Such an attitude will be very helpful in the financially uncertain times ahead.

Learning to Recognize Quality

Not long ago, I was shopping in a local discount department store when I noticed a display of baby clothes. Thinking how adorable they were, and how creatively they had been designed, I went up for a closer look.

What I found was disappointing. The tiny shirts were made of very poorly made fabric that would certainly not hold up for more than a few washings. The matching corduroy overalls turned out not to be corduroy at all, but a cheap fabric with ridges stamped into it to make it look like corduroy.

As a mom who has had four babies, if there’s one thing I know it’s that baby clothes get washed a lot. They need to be sturdy to hold up to hours of spinning in the washer and being heated in the dryer. And hopefully, they’ll last so they can be handed down to the next baby. These clothes, as cute as they were, would not likely hold together for one baby, much less four.

I can recognize poor quality in clothes because I sew. I learned to sew at age 11, and as a teen, made many of my own clothes. Sewing teaches you proper clothing construction. Once you learn that, you come to expect it in the clothes you buy as well as the clothes you make.

Sewing also teaches you to recognize and appreciate high-quality fabric, because the last thing you want to do is put a lot of work into an item made out of cheap fabric. It will eventually fade, or the fabric will come apart, and all your hard work will be wasted.

I taught my girls to sew, and it has brought them great enjoyment as well as an appreciation for quality. When we’re out shopping and my younger daughter spots a piece of clothing she likes, I show her how it’s made. If it’s made of poor quality fabric (and increasingly, it is) I show her how thin the fabric is, and how loosely it’s woven. These are signs that it won’t last long with normal use. Each time I show her something like this, and each time she sews something, she learns to recognize quality. This will serve her well in adulthood.

Sewing, however, is just one way to teach about quality. There are many skills that we can teach our children (or learn alongside them, if we don’t already have the skill), so that they can recognize quality. Any skill that requires you to work with your hands and to select good materials to work with is worth learning in order to recognize quality. For example:

Woodworking helps children learn about furniture construction and types of wood. The child who can work with wood will someday be able to recognize and buy high-quality furniture, reject low-quality furniture, and even make his or her own furniture.

Cooking and baking helps children learn to enjoy healthy, high-quality food, and to reject inferior food. The child who is accustomed to home-baked cookies doesn’t find packaged cookies as appealing; a frozen pizza is no match for one made with fresh ingredients and love.

Knitting and other types of handwork (quilting, crocheting, and needlepoint are just a few examples) give children the opportunity to make things of beauty that will last and can be handed down to their own children someday. Compare a hand-knitted sweater to the sweaters you find in the store these days (ill-fitting, and made of inferior yarn that begins to pill on the first wearing); there’s a definite difference in quality that even an older child can see and feel.

The creation of art (painting, sculpture, metalwork) lets children experience how much work goes into translating something from a concept to a finished item. It gives them the opportunity to use paint, chalk, stone and metal to make something tangible while expressing themselves. The child who is an artist will be more likely to appreciate the work of others, including the great artists of history.

These creative activities are just some areas we can use to teach our children to recognize quality. All of them help our children to develop an appreciation for the work that has gone into something. Children who understand this will appreciate heirlooms and other family treasures for what they are as well as what they represent. They’ll also be able to recognize shoddy work and reject it, which is a good ability to have in a world where inferior goods are increasingly common.

Learning to recognize and appreciate quality through such activities as those listed has other benefits:

• Recognizing quality brings pleasure; the feel of fine fabric, the aroma of home-baked goods, the patina of exotic wood.

• Making something with one’s hands is satisfying, and gives a goal to work toward that, once reached, provides great satisfaction.

• Creating something teaches you not to waste materials, but to put them to good use.

• The creative person knows how and prefers to fix things instead of replacing them.

This last point is an integral part of being a good steward. Taking good care of what you’ve been blessed with is a Christian principle. The child who recognizes and appreciates quality will be a good steward of resources. In the financial ups-and-downs likely to characterize the new economy, that ability will be a great asset.

PART 2

Will Your Kids Be Able to Live on Less Than $50K a Year?

This article asks if it's possible to live on an average income of $50,000 a year. Considering that wages have been stagnating for years (when you consider inflation) and are now dropping, it's possible our kids will have to live on less than $50,000 annually.

Will your kids be able to do it? Have you taught them to handle money wisely? If not, why not?

A Professor in Favor of Teaching Practical Skills and Hands-On Work

Joining the chorus of those saying our kids need to know how to work with their hands is college professor Camille Paglia, who states:

Jobs, jobs, jobs: We need a sweeping revalorization of the trades. The pressuring of middle-class young people into officebound, paper-pushing jobs is cruelly shortsighted. Concrete manual skills, once gained through the master-apprentice alliance in guilds, build a secure identity. Our present educational system defers credentialing and maturity for too long.

While I'm not sure I agree with Ms. Paglia about college being the place where young people should be taught to work with their hands, she's right on the money about the uselessness of many current college majors, and the need for more career guidance regarding the trades.

It's More Important Than a College Degree

Parents spend amazing amounts of effort and money to get their children into college. But times have changed. A college degree is not for everyone, and may not monetarily benefit most people....not anymore.

But there's another commodity, one that I list in my upcoming book Thriving in the 21st Century as being one of the Seven Strengths our kids will need as adults, that parents should encourage. It's creativity: see what John Taylor Gatto has to say about this issue here.