Over the last few decades, the profile of a typical entrepreneur has become much younger. This is partly because young people are starting to realise that opportunities to make a living go beyond a typical eight-to-five job. In addition, the lack of employment opportunities for the youth serves as motivation to explore entrepreneurship.
Sanjeev Orie, CEO of FNB Business Value-Adds advises parents to explore some of the following guiding principles:
Help your children understand the concept of entrepreneurship
The easiest way to approach any subjects with children is to use examples they can identify with. Look at products they like and start educating them about the entrepreneurs who created some of those products.
Align entrepreneurial nurturing with their passion
At some point in our lives, we all remember being asked: what do you want to do when you grow up? This is an important question to ask your children so that you can align entrepreneurial nurturing with their passion.
Encourage creativity
Children’s hunger for knowledge presents an opportunity to shape their thinking around entrepreneurship. The ultimate goal should be to encourage them to solve complex problems in simple ways – which is exactly what every successful entrepreneur does.
Lack of entrepreneurial skills among parents should not be a deterrent
We often believe that entrepreneurship should ‘run in the family.’ However this does not need to be the case. Support, exposure and guidance play an important role in helping children realise their potential.
“In order to better prepare children to meet the demands of the 21st century, we need to ensure that they are given a platform to explore every single opportunity and entrepreneurship should be one of the top considerations. At the moment, South Africa needs more entrepreneurs and the earlier we can start nurturing them the better,” concludes Orie.
