Best Biscuits: How My Son Started a Small Business

Raising Kids

Parenting Fail or Creating a Future Entrepreneur?

I’m gonna start this post with a confession.  I love buying toys! I especially love buying board games, costumes and anything that leads to dramatic play.  So, when we are at Target and L asks me to buy him something, I find it really hard to say no because we have similar taste in toys, and I also want the toy he’s lusting after.  But I know better, these are important parenting lessons where I have the opportunity to shape his spending practices which he will likely carry into adulthood. That's how we started looking into businesses for kids.

Last year when L asked for a new toy, I decided that it was a great time to teach him about the value of money.  I told him that if he wanted to get a new toy, that he would have to earn his own money, and since we don’t pay for chores, he needed to come up with a business idea. I was hoping to teach him the value of time as well as money and also the idea of delayed gratification. His first thought was to set up a lemonade stand and he quickly came up with a business plan.

This post contains affiliate links. Please visit our disclosure page for more information.

Best Biscuits Lemonade Business Plan #parenting #mosswoodconnections

A New Business is Born

The very next day, the children down the street opened a lemonade stand. This threw a wrench in his plan, but it didn’t stop him.  He decided instead of selling lemonade, he would sell dog biscuits. L made another “bisness plan” and we were on our way to baking biscuits. I didn’t know it yet, but his business turned out to be a lot more lucrative than either of us expected.  That was the beginning of a parenting lesson gone wrong.

Making Dog Biscuits to Sell Parenting Fail or Creating a Future Entrepreneur? Small Businesses for Kids #mosswoodconnections #parenting #positiveparenting #financeforkids

Time to Market the Business

He had a successful launch! By the end of the first day, he had $22 worth of online sales and $14 at his storefront for a total of $36. He still had enough ingredients for 4 more batches so his business continued to boom.  When it was all said and done, L earned close to $400 (half of which he donated to The Humane Society)!

Best Biscuits Logo- Parenting Fail or Creating a Future Entrepreneur? Small Businesses for Kids #mosswoodconnections #parenting #positiveparenting #financeforkids

Creating Businesses for Kids Turned into a A Parenting Lesson Gone Wrong!

And that’s when the trouble began. I had expected that L would make a little money from a lot of hard work creating businesses for kids. That he would realize that spending money on frivolous toys comes with hard work. That’s not what happened. What really happened was that making the biscuits was lots of fun. Hanging out at the dog park selling biscuits with his friends was even more fun. And the result of all that fun? He made more money than he needed. He made so much money that he could buy as many toys as he wanted.

Instead of the lesson that I was trying to teach him, he learned that when he wanted something he could easily get what he wants. Now, whenever he wants something he suggests another business. He looks back on his biscuit baking business as an example of how he can easily succeed, how easy it is to make plenty of money so he can buy whatever he wants. I look back on his biscuit baking business as a parenting mistake.

These days he has his eyes set on a very expensive DJ mixing board.  At my husband’s suggestion, L is now collecting recyclables. His last collection (2 months worth of recyclables) yielded him only $4.40.  It’s going to take a long time for him to earn enough money to buy what he wants, but I do believe he will finally learn the lesson I meant to teach him last year.

Parenting Fail or Creating a Future Entrepreneur? Small Businesses for Kids #mosswoodconnections #parenting #positiveparenting #financeforkids

Ideas and Resources for Creating Small Businesses for Kids

If our parenting fail hasn't dissuaded you from encouraging your child to look into creating businesses for kids then here are some ideas and resources for you:

Does Your Child Want to Start Their Own Business? Resources and Ideas for businesses for kids #mosswoodconnections

Parenting Through Puberty

Forest Lessons_ Learning from Outdoor Nature Activities

An Absolutely Awesome Collection of Kid Made Gifts

top
×

Subscribe for latest updates

Get all the latest exciting news from Mosswood Connections!