Equipping your children for success in a disruptive world

In a rapidly evolving world, fostering entrepreneurial skills in our children is critical. Cultivating innovation, resilience, and a proactive mindset from an early age lays the foundation for future success – and parents play a pivotal role in nurturing these qualities. Here’s how parents can empower children to navigate an ever-changing landscape with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Model entrepreneurship at home: Entrepreneurship is an attitude, not just an occupation, making it easy to model at home. Encouraging curiosity, independence, and problem-solving is essential. Prosek and Rende’s book, 'Raising can-do kids,' identifies seven key entrepreneurial traits to nurture: exploration, innovation, optimism, risk-taking, industriousness, likeability, and serving others. Importantly, parents don’t need to be business magnates to set an entrepreneurial example. The family home is ideal for teaching soft skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, social skills, public speaking, and lateral thinking.

Expose your children to risk: Helicopter parenting, intended to shield children from risk, is counterproductive to entrepreneurial growth. Awarding participation prizes might feel good, but it doesn’t reflect real-world economics, where merely showing up is simply not enough. Allowing children to experience risk teaches them the genuine emotions associated with uncertainty—fear, excitement, and anticipation—and reinforces the reality that success isn’t guaranteed. To distinguish between entrepreneurial risk and reckless behaviour, use words like ‘initiative,’ ‘resourcefulness,’ and ‘inventiveness’ to promote creative thinking. The freedom to fail is crucial, as mastering the art of recovering from setbacks is invaluable.

Encourage creative thinking: Focusing on solutions rather than fixating on failures helps children maintain positivity and motivation. Viewing setbacks as learning opportunities encourages children to think creatively, even boldly. Asking ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions helps children dissect problems and look inwardly for solutions, making them comfortable with taking risks and accepting failures as part of the innovation journey.

Let your children make decisions: Entrepreneurial confidence stems from early experiences of independence. Allowing children to make everyday decisions—whether choosing their clothes, spending pocket money, or selecting from a menu—exposes them to critical thinking processes such as risk and reward assessment. Crucially, children must experience the outcomes of their decisions, reinforcing accountability and the complexities of decision-making.

Challenge the status quo: While mainstream education often rewards rule-following, the entrepreneurial mindset thrives on questioning norms. Teaching children to thoughtfully challenge conventional thinking equips them for future success. Traditional autocratic parenting methods that stress obedience can hinder entrepreneurial thinking. Instead, encourage your children to articulate rational arguments and alternative perspectives, thereby nurturing their ability to initiate useful disruptions.

Instil fiscal responsibility: Rather than simply handing out pocket money, parents can encourage entrepreneurial thinking by allowing children to earn money by identifying chores and negotiating payment upfront. This teaches children essential entrepreneurial skills such as spotting opportunities, performing cost-benefit analyses, and negotiating deals. This process also prompts children to consider the limitations of trading time for money, motivating them to think creatively about generating passive income.

Embrace disruptive careers: The modern economy, driven by globalisation and technology, has transformed career landscapes dramatically. Many of today's children will likely work in jobs that don’t yet exist. Occupations like social media influencer, blockchain developer, and augmented reality developer were unheard of a decade ago. Educational opportunities are vast, but traditional credentials alone won’t guarantee success – meaning that pairing academic achievements with an entrepreneurial mindset will be key.

Future economic success for our children will likely not hinge on which school they attended or their network. More compelling success indicators lie in their answers to questions such as: Are you willing to roll up your sleeves and get dirty? Can you dust yourself off after setbacks? Are you resilient enough to overcome obstacles? Are you brave enough to challenge norms? Can you continually reinvent yourself in a changing world?

Entrepreneurship is underpinned by grit, determination, and unwavering hard work—attributes children should be commended for displaying. Equipping our children with an entrepreneurial spirit prepares them to build their dreams. As Tony Gaskin aptly said, “If you don’t build your dreams, someone will hire you to help build theirs.”

* Odendaal is a Certified Financial Planner at Crue Invest.

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