Do you remember what it was like being a kid with interests and hobbies that kept you going for many hours? Imagine if you had taken it seriously and made some money from it right from an early age; you probably would have become a professional artist, writer or even a world-renowned poet.
Whether your child’s hobby is sports-related or writing, you can encourage them to take it seriously and monetize it. We will explore how you can encourage your kids to monetize their interests and hobbies.
Why Should Children Be Encouraged to Monetize Their Interests?
Encouraging children to monetize their interests and hobbies can be an excellent way to teach them about entrepreneurship, fiscal responsibility, and the value of hard work. However you go about it, ensure you approach this process with care and consideration for the child’s age, interests, and developmental stage.
At a tender age, you should refrain from enforcing the monetization aspect but build them up to the point where they want to start earning money. For instance, learning about practical ways for 12-year-olds to make money – is an excellent step because they will be interested in earning extra pocket money at that age.
So how can you start building up your children early to embrace their interests and hobbies? This takes us to our next point.
How Can Parents Identify and Nurture Their Child’s Passions?
As parents, you play a huge role in shaping your kids’ passions and interests. That means if you are someone who enjoys having fun and making things, your chances are your kids might learn to love this too. If you like reading and writing, you can share your stories with your kids and encourage them to write their own stories too, just for fun. Kids have a fantastic imagination; you can tap into this so easily.
Below are some additional practical ways to help your children identify their interests and hobbies.
- Enroll them in different extracurricular activities. Whether it’s chess, piano lessons, art class or even debate class, it gets them involved.
- As time goes by, ask them the classes they enjoy the most.
- Intensify lessons for the classes they enjoy the most.
- Encourage them to practice in their spare time.
- Make it fun and praise them when they do a decent job.
- Encourage them when you notice your child is improving and honing their craft
If you follow all these steps, your child could be well on the way to becoming a Pro!
How Can Kids Learn the Basics of Pricing and Value Proposition?
Depending on the hobby, your child might need to develop their skills further to offer a valuable product or service. This might involve taking classes, practicing regularly, or seeking mentorship.
You can also work with your child to create a tangible product or define a service they can offer. To do this properly, you will need to learn about the basics of pricing and value proposition, such as the following;
Value
Before selling a product or service, you should know why it is needed. As part of the product or service, include the features and value it provides for the customer.
Benefits
What are the benefits of your product or service? Your child should have an idea of what their passion helps their target customer to achieve.
Understanding the market
Do your research – look around and see what other people who provide your services also do. You can add something different that will help you stand out.
Costs and expenses
How much does it cost for your child to run their service – are there any supplies they are paying for – this needs to be included in the final cost.
Profit margins
Help your child to calculate how much money they will have left after covering expenses. This can be a straightforward way to show the financial aspect of their project.
Experimentation
Encourage your child to experiment with different pricing strategies. They can start with a certain price and adjust it over time based on customer feedback and market response.
Once you have done all the above things, encourage your child to learn more about how to improve their processes and save time and expenses.
How Can Children Develop Entrepreneurial Mindsets and Skills?
Your kids can develop entrepreneurial mindsets and skills through a combination of experiences and lessons that you, as their parents, can play a crucial role in.
For example,
- You can encourage them to be creative and problem-solve – through games and activities you do together as a family. Playing games like Monopoly is an excellent example, as it is a fun way to introduce them to business and money management.
- You can also encourage your kids to think critically by analyzing situations to make an informed decision.
- Promote hands-on experience by encouraging your kids to improve at what they love doing.
- Lastly, you can encourage your kids to start businesses by monetizing their interests and hobbies.
This takes us to our next point.
What additional lessons can kids learn from managing their own ventures?
When your kids are empowered financially, they will have the confidence to start their own ventures. So, what are the additional benefits kids can gain from managing their own ventures?
We have listed a few below:
- When your child can manage their own venture, who is to say they will not be a great leader or CEO someday?
- Teamwork & collaboration skills can be learned when your child works with you to learn and start their venture.
- Your kids will learn to sell their craft by convincing customers to buy their services. This will give them confidence, and they will grow to become excellent communicators.
How Does Encouraging Monetization Foster Financial Independence
Did you know that if you encourage your child to monetize their hobby, they have a great chance of becoming financially independent right from an early age? This means it can set them on a positive trajectory and set them ahead of their peers.
So, what is stopping you from encouraging your child to monetize their hobbies and interests? You can start by finding out what they love doing in their spare time – and simply encouraging them to keep doing it. You can even enroll them in a professional class; whether it is a cooking or art class or whatever it is, now is the time to start.
5 Interesting Techniques for Raising Money-Wise Children
Being financially savvy is one of the many gifts you can give to your kids. But it’s not easy to raise children who have good money management skills. For one, it takes years of training to instill in them the habit of saving especially in their early years wherein they still have a vague concept of money.
You will also have to make conscious effort in practicing good money habits yourself to serve as a model for your children. Your words of advice to them won’t matter if they don’t see you doing what you teach them to do.
So how can you assure that your children will grow up having a healthy attitude towards money?
Include them in making the shopping list
Creating the list together will let children understand what are deemed important for the house such as toiletries and food supplies. You can first ask them what they think you should include in the list and write down whatever they say. They can then rank each item according to priorities.
You can also discuss to them why you have to let go of some to give space for alternatives that are better in terms of price and quality. By engaging children in making the household shopping list, you give them the opportunity to learn about prioritizing, one of the essential skills needed for good personal finance management.
Involve them when you actually shop for the home.
It’s highly possible that your children will be begging you to buy the toys they see while in the store. While this can be an annoying scenario, consider this as a chance to explain that if you buy the toys, they need to give up something or you won’t be able to buy an important item for the home. It’s also a good chance to teach about delayed gratification, which is another essential for good money management.
Shopping with children also allows you to show to them how you strike a balance between price and quality when choosing products from various brands. You can give practical money tips from time to time, too.
Moreover, you can also give the shopping list to them and let them choose the products themselves to give them a sense of responsibility. Of course, you should be there to guide them and ensure they make wise choices.
Let them know about the bills to pay.
Help them understand the implications of the utility bills in connection to money and to the household’s electricity and water consumption. Most importantly, inform them that they can help reduce the bills and save more money to buy the more important stuff if they take part in conserving water and energy.
Let them know that as simple as practicing the habit of turning off the lights and appliances when they’re not in use or preventing water from unnecessarily running out of the faucet can greatly help in reducing the bills. Of course, you should also practice saving water and electricity.
It will also help if you teach children how to read and monitor the water and electrical meters used to determine the household consumption. The kids can experiment on how fast or slow the meters run depending on how many faucets or appliances are currently being used, and thus, will have an understanding of the grave effects of wasting water and energy.
Help them understand how doing chores can save money.
While it’s a common advice to teach kids about the value of work in order to earn money, it’s not wise to constantly put financial rewards on household tasks. Although most kids hate doing chores, they have to realize that it’s important to do these tasks to keep the house clean.
But most importantly, doing the chores can save the family more money because you won’t have to hire someone else to do the job. If children help in washing the car, for example, the family won’t have to spend for premium car wash services. Moreover, if kids are trained to clean the house regularly or at least to clean as they go, the family can reduce their expenses on professional cleaners who are paid per hour because they won’t have to stay long in the house.
Teach them to save whenever they receive money.
Whether it’s an allowance from you or cash gifts from relatives and godparents, help your children instill the habit of not spending the money right away just in case they need to buy something more important in the future. You can opt to use transparent cookie jars or if you want to further introduce children to the concept of interest income, you can open a savings account under their name.
Final Words: Train Children As Early As Possible
Raising money-savvy kids require time, patience and constant reminders until the good habits become a natural thing to do for them. Don’t forget your role, too, as you have to walk your talk because children often follow what adults do despite the verbal advice given to them.
Mari writes for Loansolutions to help educate people in making informed-decisions on taking out loans and becoming responsible borrowers. Being the COO, she feels it is her social responsibility to do so. Learn more from her as she shares tips, advises and stories on finance. Also, she’s fond of 9GAG, so you might read some random stuff over here.
