Getta Job!
KidBiz
February 25, 1998

Bathing suits are hitting the stores at the mall, ads for the beach are on TV, and Spring Training starts this week. Could summer be far behind?

If you have an overactive pint-sized consumer in the house, chances are the topic of "My Summer Job" will start being bandied about soon as well.

Hey, we're all for putting the little pumpkins to work. Many of us here at the Fool had jobs when we were young'uns and have fond memories of flipping burgers and scooping cones and blowing an entire paycheck at a Police concert. It's an American rite of passage that no youngster should be without.

Your kids can do us one better, though. Why not encourage them to start their own businesses instead of working for someone else? It's never too early to plant the seed of that entrepreneurial spirit. As always, we're here to help.

-- As always, we're also here to pique your curiosity with a Fool Quiz, on subjects ranging from the sublime to the mundane. You can find out when the verb "baby-sit" first came into the language. You can discover a key mistake often made by young entrepreneurs, according to the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. And, to savor these delightful morsels, you need not even be Canadian.

-- How to Build a Lemonade Empire shows you how to help your kids start their own businesses.

-- And we've even come up with 10 Foolish Kid Bizzes to get them started on thinking about what they might be good at.

-- Play Dough this week is chock-full of hints for turning daily life into a fun-filled learning experience. Next week, of course, we'll teach you all about Enlightenment itself, but for now, we'll start with five handy tips. Why do you shop where you shop? Why have you retained that good ol' tree surgeon all these years? Why does your child know what McDonald's is? Are there lessons that she can take from accomanying you on your daily errands, that she might be able to apply to her own business? Five simple lessons from the School of Life.

There are lots of great reasons to help your kids start their own empires. One of the best ways to help your kids learn about investing is to have them fall in love with business. If they can make their own company successful, they'll be in a better position to judge another company's potential for success. And then, of course, they're making money, as well. Doesn't that mean more for you, too?

--Trudy Hoyden
(TMF Hoyden)