A job or self employed?

Why not a job in the public sector? My reasons:

We need to realise that jobs are not secure these days just because our children have graduated from school and college with a degree - a degree is not an automatic pass into a job anymore.

I have seen many homeschooled and public schooled teens come to the end of their schooling and not know what they want to do with the next few years of their lives. Some are so out of touch with their passions and interest that they opt to travel for a year on their parent’s expense. This is not an option for us.

Other teens have not been trained in responsibility or with business skills and are thus totally unprepared to begin an entrepreneurial venture or even hold down a summer job. These young people think that the only way to make money will be to get a job as a waiter or waitress.

In this country 30% of our population is unemployed, this means that to each job there are hundreds of applicants. Our local newspaper states: "At least a third of the 351 503 who finished school will still be unemployed a year from today, while half will battle to find jobs." Taken from a newspaper article dated 11 January 2007.

By raising a child to think entrepreneurially they will be able to provide much needed employment to others.

What I have found...

When I began building this website I became even more aware of the fact that our teens need a productive pursuit to keep them focused on a goal and in touch with their own passion and specific life interest so that they will one day be able to work where their passions are.

Ask any adult whether they are doing the job they love or dreamed of when they were younger...ask yourself that question! My neighbor wanted to be an oceanographer; I wanted to be a nature conservationist(and a mom). Another neighbor wanted to be an architect. But we were told by well meaning parents, school career counselors or other adults that either our personality profile, gender or choice of subjects did not allow for these career choices.

Step by step process

The first step in this process of helping our children to achieve their dream is to not force our life expectations on them. We need to say to ourselves that we will be happy with our children serving God and being a testimony to His name and then seeing them work within their passion. For young women this may be for example anything from being a wife and mother to a tour guide. For young men this could be a choice to be a doctor or a mechanic amongst many other professions.

Caveat
There are some teens that need to study at a college or university to achieve their goal, this article in no way is anti-college. But even these students normally need to have a supplementary income while they are studying.

Our second step is to make sure we give our children the lifeskills they would need to achieve their goal. This includes how to care for their bodies, their physical space, their finances and their spiritual life.

The third step is to find a way for them to earn an income that can either be supplementary as in the case of a college student or a source of income that will begin them on the path to financial independence. Thus begins the search for a valuable activity, real entrepreneurship for teens, beyond waiting on tables or handing out leaflets at traffic lights!

What about the Internet?

Key into a search engine either of these terms: on line jobs for teens or ways for teens to make money and you will find a plethora of ideas but with it comes a whole lot of “cyber-noise”. And well - let’s face it, with all the scary stuff on the web who wants to let a young teen loose there anyway?

Even I, and I consider myself a pretty savvy net surfer, will find it hard to sift the wheat from the chaff. Yet it is not all hopeless...when I began with Site Build IT! I happened onto a success story of a girl of 14 who, with her dads initial help, built a webpage based on her family holidays to the island on Anguila. She is now (4 years later) a young college student who earns a decent income from her webpage to put herself through college.

The principle with this approach to entrepreneurship for teens is that it is not just a summer job nor is it a huge outlay of cash - the cost of starting a website like mine or Nori’s (the teen girl mentioned above) is the equivalent to less than $1 per day (in South African currency that is R7 a day!) and my site is starting to show a profit after 4 months - as at end of Sept 2006.

But this is not about my site...it’s about the one your teen can create which will become a source of nearly passive income after a few months of work. Their unique knowledge on a topic or their passion, like my daughter’s for horse’s or Nori’s for her vacation spot, will become the content for a business that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.

Whether their interest is finding the best MP3 players, surfing, cooking or books it is not relevant as the Site Build IT! model fits them all.

Our daughter's experience with Site Build IT!

When daughter was 11 years old she built 4 pages on this site – you can see her three pages here , which have already earned her money while she sleeps! As she wants to breed Thoroughbreds I choose not to tell her all the reasons why that cannot happen related to costs and space requirements but am beginning her on a journey where I can help her to continue making her dream become a reality.

In September 2008 she wil begin to build her own website which, going on past Sitesell experience, will help her pay her way through Equestrian College.

Sitesell will be more than happy to anwser any questions you may have about how your young adult can become part of a highly successful and motivated group of young entrepeneurs.

Their mentoring system for teens to build a successful online business will cause you to be pleasantly surprised.

There is no “noise” around Sitesell, just proven results and a honest approach on how to use knowledge, hobbies or interests as a way for real opportunities in the area of entrepreneurship for teens.

You can even watch a three minute movie clip summing up the benefits of a SBI site right here

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If your children are still very young then I suggest that you take a look at developing entrepreneural skills in children so that you can begin your children on a journey of a lifetime as an entrepreneur.

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