Develop Entrepreneurial Skills in Children

The entrepreneurial mindset enables children to overcome daily challenges, be decisive and take on responsibilities for any of their behaviours and activities. Developing entrepreneurial skills in children helps your children confront difficulties confidently and create values in their lives.

The entrepreneurial mindset is referred to a certain way of thinking by which children confront disadvantages, mistakes and problems in life. The entrepreneurial mindset enables children to overcome those challenges, be decisive and take on responsibilities for any of their behaviours and activities.

 

Children are born naturally entrepreneurs: they explore, prototype, roleplay and create with their creativity, curiosity and a fearlessness of failing. Along with time, they are put in force to follow disciplines – which, if not be carried out genuinely, are enemies of kids’ creativity and their development.

 

Have you ever seen your children losing their stillness when they make mistakes and are scared of being scolded and punished? If yes, this article is to help you discipline your children, and yet develop their entrepreneurial mindset.

 

 

Self-confidence

Entrepreneurship instils the strong confidence in one’s self and own ideas. Children with a strong self-confidence are more likely to have life experiences, readiness to take risks and resolve any problems that appear along their ways.

 

How to develop self-confidence in kids?

As a parent, it is necessary to encourage your kids to come up with ideas, freely speak out opinions and make decisions confidently. Although you know the decision is inappropriate, let them take actions within your careful observation and eventually explain to them why their decisions fail and what could be done so they succeed next time. A question can be solved with various answers; thus, you would rather suggest than appoint any specific solution.

 

 

Innovation and creativity

Children are born with innate creativity. They explore surroundings in their own ways and dive into their fascinating imagination world. Children, however, can feel challenging to solve a problem, for instance, how to get the laundry out of the washing machine when they cannot reach to the cap of the machine on their bare feet.

 

Developing your children to be creative and innovate within the available conditions and resources can develop their self-confidence and problem-solving skills.

 

How to develop innovation and creativity in kids?

Be available and ready when kids need help in order to provoke their thinking and ideation, and not to do it yourself or appoint a solution. Ask them a lot of questions, for instance in the case as aforementioned, “Why cannot you reach the cap of our washing machine?”, “What do you need to reach it?”, “Besides a chair, what other ways can help you reach it?”. The aim of this practice is to ideate solutions as much as possible, exploiting the available resources in a limited surrounding.

 

 

Initiative

No matter how great the position might be, every entrepreneur are doers and always start with initiatives – make decision, take action and get involved. Regardless of how many solutions may children come up with, taking own initiative is a leverage to their accomplishments. Kids that are encouraged to act on their initiatives are likely to take risks, ready to solve problems and be responsible for their actions.

 

How to develop initiative in kids?

Get your children involved in housework, give them responsibility in certain tasks and specific expectation on the outcomes. When giving them the tasks, it is necessary to let them space and time to accomplish those tasks on their own. If there is a mistake or a problem occurred, you should ask your children what they have done wrong and let them the second chance to solve it.

 

 

Empathy

Empathy refers to being able to understand a situation from other’s points of view, to accept the differences of individuals and to support others whenever possible. The ability to empathise with other people, not only in a family, can help your children adapt easily in various environment and cultural backgrounds without judgements and critics. Nurturing empathy in children can also develop the ability of observation and caring of them.

 

How to develop empathy in kids?

Respect and treat your children as individuals that are unique with their own personalities. It is essential to encourage kids to speak out their opinions, feelings and emotions. This will help your kids recognise things they have in common with others and be able to relate to them naturally, and also things they are different from others and accept them as they are.

Resilience

No matter how intensive your protection is for your kids, it is certain that there are possible and unexpected pain, failure and disappointment in life, which your children are facing at some points. Instead, it is vitally important to teach them early about failure, how to learn from failure and how to cope with situations that are unexpected.

 

How to develop resilience in kids?

Allow kids to be fail in daily activities and their responsibilities, and explain to them why they failed and help them acknowledge their feelings when failure happens. You should not avoid or minimise their feelings according to your age and experience. After your kids get aware of their emotions, ask them what could be wrong and encourage them to try again with new solutions.

 

As a parent, you should always be supportive and empathy, and eventually a role model for your children to look up to and follow, which benefits your children in the future. Parenting is tricky and requires a lot of effort and patience.

Thu Vo.