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By Katie B.
In 2021, for every 100,000 U.S. adults, 360 of them started an entrepreneurial journey, according to a study done by Statista. The growing interest in entrepreneurship likely has a lot to do with how diverse the business world is.
Nearly anyone can find a niche, grow their business skills, and work their way through the field until they start their venture, your teen included. If they express an interest in business, there’s no reason not to explore it and guide them into a successful career.
You can introduce entrepreneurship and business into your teen’s homeschool education. We’ll offer a few tips for how to do so effectively. But first, let’s explore why a business career is a good choice and what options are available to your teen.
Why a Career in Business?
Developing a business-centered career is an excellent choice for any teenager, but especially those that are homeschooled. This is because they’re already doing a lot of what business owners do.
For example, entrepreneurs must be extremely self-motivated. They must set their schedules, prioritize their duties, and get things done without relying so much on someone telling them what to do.
Homeschooled teens are similar in this regard because they too have to be self-motivated. You help with setting their schedules and creating their curriculum. But they have to keep themselves invested and learn how to prioritize their extracurricular activities along with their education.
And let’s not forget about the earning potential as an entrepreneur. Your teen can make as much or as little money as they want in their business. What determines which way they go is their work ethic and commitment.
Even if your teen wanted to work for someone else’s company and eventually become the CEO, the level of affluence they can reach makes this pathway worthwhile.
Aside from this, the rapidly evolving business world has a lot of career options.
Career Options in the Rapidly Evolving Business World
When many people enter the business world, their goal is to become full-time entrepreneurs. They want to work for themselves and establish their business as an industry leader. They want full control over how much money they make and what they do to get it.
If your teen is interested in becoming an entrepreneur, that’s great. If they aren’t sure about entrepreneurship but still express interest in the business sector, there are other options.
Here’s a list of business-centric career paths your teen can take that are outside of full-time entrepreneurship:
- Finance;
- Consulting;
- Administration;
- Company CEO;
- Marketing Specialist;
- Account executive;
- Public relations.
Exploring all sides of a career in business with your teen will help ensure they make the right choice for them.
How to Introduce Entrepreneurship and Business Education into Your Teen’s Homeschool Curriculum
No matter the direction your teen wants to go in the business world, it’s important you educate them on what will make them successful in this sector. But how exactly do you teach them the basics of business and aid them in achieving their business career goals?
We suggest adopting these three practices.
Define Your Teen’s Direction
Although learning about business generally is beneficial, you can make the experience much more meaningful by helping your teen get to where they really want to go.
Help them define their direction in business. For example, do they want to own and operate their own small business as Natalie Wickham Weber did with her piano studio, Joshua DeJong did with his small shop, or the rest of these homeschooled teens running their own operations?
Or, do they want to start slow, building a business career over time that starts in a lower-level position and ends as a CEO of a particular company?
When you know what your teen wants to be, you can tailor their education so they become that.
Implement a Business Basics Course
No matter what your teen wants to do in business, they need to know the basics. They need to know what it takes to launch, run, and grow a successful company.
This means diving into pre-launch practices like product development and company structure. After that, you move into the actual launch and the duties of running a business day to day. Then, you want to get into growing a business through marketing, sales, and investments.
You also must teach them the necessary business skills. For example, educating teens about different styles of leadership, particularly transformational leadership, aids their success. Transformational leaders engage with the people they’re leading so deeply and meaningfully that it brings out the best in those people. In addition to being great role models, transformational leaders can also make a difference in their companies, as their ability to motivate others can result in improved productivity and company performance. Teaching your teen how to lead in this way will help ensure they’re able to build a team around them that elevates them and their company.
Take some time to determine what topics you want to cover in your business basics course. Rely on good internet research and suggestions from homeschooling parents with a business course of their own.
Go Beyond the Classroom
You can cover everything business-related in their coursework. But to truly prepare your teen to be an entrepreneur or successful business person, you’ve got to get them out of the classroom.
For example, if you have a friend who’s a business owner, you could take your teen on a field trip to see a day in the life of this entrepreneur.
You could have your teen take a class outside of yours where they develop a particular skill that will aid them in entrepreneurship. Because people are becoming more entrenched in the digital world, enrolling them in an e-learning class could be helpful. Among other skills, your child would be able to learn how to make captivating content and educational presentations that can be distributed online.
Real-world experience will keep them going in the direction of a successful career in business. And incorporating a business education into your homeschool curriculum can set your child up for success.