Personal Development: Young People

I work with kids, parent kids, coach kids, and write about kids. That’s what I do. What ages? All ages really, and I love it.

The purpose of this blog is to highlight the importance of how we can help kids and young adults to grow up in a healthy and positive way. That’s a tall order really and I know it. But I am really confident that when you really have energy for important things…you usually come up with the best methods of attaining a goal.

My basic premise is that kids who grow up and become smart ( not just academically) are normally healthy, positive, and in some way trained to be strong and resilient through adversity. Normally this takes great parenting and a kid/teen who is resilient.

There are so many things that help kids/teens to become resilient and responsible young adults. I can think of many ideas that promote this type of self discipline…

• household chores
• childcare (home or neighbor)
• school work value
• valuing friendships (this must be an ongoing discussion especially with girls!)
• maintaining a job or even a scheduled web project such as the Lemonade Experiment (which my seven year old promotes).

The point is that kids who are involved in “thinking activities” usually have a better chance to be creative with innovative ideas. There’s so much to write about on this subject…so more later.

Lemonade Experiment: Revised

When trying to engage my almost seven year old daughter in a discussion about making more money I ran into the popular "lemonade stand" idea. Great idea of course, but at the end of the day we have to take the stand down and I said to her "also, mostly we only have time to set it up on the weekends, like saturday...I said"..

"Why not figure a way to brainstorm an idea online that might someday lead to making money even when you aren't around?!" ...was my response. Here's where the conversation went next...

Well, my wise daughter said to me,

Lauren: "why not just ask people to contribute Fifty Cents each...and if enough people do it then I won't have to keep putting the lemonade stand up..."

Me: "How much do you want to make from this?"


Lauren: " I don't know..maybe I could make a million dollars !"

Me: "Why would people donate to you without getting anything?"

Lauren: " I don't know, maybe they want to help me!"

Me: "Why would people want to help someone they don't know?"

Lauren: " I don't know...the same reason you want me to help people that I don't know maybe..."

[sidebar: this statement killed me. After wondering if she hear's anything I say, she really really floored me with that.]

Lesson Time:


So this is what I proposed: She could ask for donations but only if she is willing to GIVE something in return. She has agreed to give:

The idea was to promote her spirit of giving to others and also allow her to

• A real, custom picture deliverable by mail to a child afflicted with cancer for every $5.00 earned. She's a fantastic artist.
  

The Lemonade Experiment

So I decided to compromise and said that I would help her cause on this blog and if her donations exceeded her lemonade stand earnings than we will start her a full time website at the end of the summer. Her future site will be "The Lemonade Experiment" (or something similar :) So this starts the official "Lemonade Experiment For Wealth." You may donate to her cause on this page. If She succeeds we will start a new website that will be seen around the world as "The Lemonade Experiment."


The idea was to promote her spirit of giving to others and also allow her to experience a healthy respect for money and open her eyes to the internet in a positive way.

When You feel the urge to donate to this cause/experiment go here:




Good luck Lauren! I will keep results posted here. You can donate her prescribed "50 cents" or whatever you choose when you push the "make donation" button. I programmed it so that you can put in whatever you like for donation.

Lemonade Experiment

When trying to engage my almost seven year old daughter in a discussion about making more money I ran into the popular "lemonade stand" idea. Great idea of course, but at the end of the day we have to take the stand down and I said to her "also, mostly we only have time to set it up on the weekends, like saturday...I said"..

"Why not figure a way to brainstorm an idea online that might someday lead to making money even when you aren't around?!" ...was my response. Here's where the conversation went next...

Well, my wise daughter said to me,

Lauren: "why not just ask people to contribute Fifty Cents each...and if enough people do it then I won't have to keep putting the lemonade stand up..."

Me: "How much do you want to make from this?"

Lauren: " I don't know..maybe I could make a website lemonade stand!"

Me: "Why would people donate to you without getting anything?"

Lauren: " I don't know, maybe they want to help me!"

Me: "Why would people want to help someone they don't know?"

Lauren: " I don't know...the same reason you want me to help people that I don't know maybe..."

[sidebar: this statement killed me. After wondering if she hear's anything I say, she really really floored me with that.]

So this is what I proposed: She could ask for donations but only if she is willing to GIVE something in return. She has agreed to give:

• A real, custom picture deliverable by mail to a child afflicted with cancer for every $5.00 earned. She's a fantastic artist.

The Lemonade Experiment

So I decided to compromise and said that I would help her cause on this blog and if her donations exceeded her lemonade stand earnings than we will start her a full time website at the end of the summer. Her future site will be "The Lemonade Experiment" (or something similar :) So this starts the official "Lemonade Experiment For Wealth." You may donate to her cause on this page. If She succeeds we will start a new website that will be seen around the world as "The Lemonade Experiment." check your sidebar on top to help her out! ---->)

Good luck Lauren! I will keep results posted here. You can donate her prescribed "50 cents" or whatever you choose when you push the "make donation" button. I programmed it so that you can put in whatever you like for donation.