Teaching kids about business and entrepreneurship?

[MacMac123]

Hi all, just a general query really as I'm wondering about a potential business in this area.
I'm self employed and run two of my own businesses. I wish I had learned at school what I know now as I would have set up businesses at the age of 20.
I feel really strongly that even my 5 year old should be some how being taught business basics in a fun way. So that spotting ideas and understanding how to create money becomes automatic in his life. jobs are no longer for life etc.
It frustrates me that he's currently learning about the arctic (not necessarily relevant to being able to live as an independent and successful adult) when he could be learning about buying and selling, or money, or even just about things like how children can make money with say lemonade stalls!
Am not looking for a flaming here! This is just something I personally feel and am wondering if I'm alone. Would anyone else be interested in their kids learning business skills (somehow in a fun way) from a young age.
(admittedly 5 is a bit young as my son can't really read and only understands whole pounds, ie not 1.25 - but perhaps from 6 or 7!)
Interested in hearing your thoughts!

Yes and no. Teachers aren't best placed to teach about running a business, after all, what do many of them know about it? Market traders, on the other hand are too busy running a stall to spend all day in the class talking about piling it high and selling it cheap. And, learning about selling hamburgers or flowers may be of no use to me if I want to be a fashion designer, put out oil fires in the desert or run a travel agency.

From my own experience, children of farmers are more likely to become farmers, those of doctors, doctors and those of florists, florists. It makes perfect sense. There are also children who learn from experience that they want to stay as far away from the family business as it's possible to get. I guess that's up to them.

A lot of secondary schools do this, and there are gazillions of schemes from Young Enterprise to the Prince's Trust that encourage and support young people into entrepreneurship. There are two universities, both with business schools, where I live and they work with local secondary schools to encourage their students to think in an entrepreneurial way.

Personally I think there is time enough to learn about business as you get older. And even successful business people benefit from a good general education -- plenty of independent and successful adults make a living derived from scientific research in the Arctic, for example. Maybe your son will be one of them.

I remember once thinking that it would be useful to learn how a toilet flushes, how an engine works, how to maintain your car, how to check that the boiler is still working and how to check the fuses. You do learn how to dissect a frog in school, and I'm not sure how many people find that it comes in handy.

I would like my dd to learn about that kind of stuff, yes, and I think she'd enjoy it. However, I don't think all education necessarily needs to be about "useful" stuff. There is room for learning about the arctic too...

What kind of activity did you have in mind? And what age group? As others have said, there are already tons of schemes for secondary aged kids.

And how do you know that the child that learns about the arctic isn't going to go on and develop a business involving conservation or tourism in the region?

Your 5 year old will be role playing "shops" ( cafe/estate agent/travel agents/ supermarket/ garage etc etc etc) and buying and selling in reception - not sure how much that actually teaches such a young child about the reality of running a bussiness. However with older children they will be taught how to be little "enteprepeneurs" and bussiness studies is often an option in secondary. Our older pupils are currently running a healthy tuck shop and working out costings, pricing, stock ordering etc.

Many teachers have worked in bussiness before moving into teac

teaching so may be well placed to teach the subject.