BBQs, lemonade stands, pool days, and slip n’ slides…SUMMER IS HERE! But we all know along with all that fun comes lots of free time for your children. Help your children grow into responsible young adults (and make some money) this summer at a lemonade stand. Teach your children RESPONSIBILITY by having them run a lemonade stand...all while they're making money!

“The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source form which self-respect springs.”  -Joan Didion

Responsibility is about attitude and teaching your children this at a young age will help them grow up to be successful, self-respecting, hard-working adults. By starting young with things like a lemonade stand, you are preparing your children for success when they begin living on their own and assume complete responsibility for things like feeding themselves, laundry and providing for themselves. They will be more successful in life due to their strong work ethic and self-respect instilled in them from a young age. Your home is the perfect place to start teaching your children great life lessons in taking responsibility for themselves and their actions, and a lemonade stand is a fun time for everyone involved, so try it out to teach your children valuable life lessons.

Start Teaching Your Children at a Young Age

Start teaching your children while they are still young. The longer you wait to teach responsibility, the more difficult it will be later on. If you have children of different ages, let your younger child participate with their older siblings in running a lemonade stand for the day. There’s always room for more employees to help with the responsibilities: stirring the lemonade, counting the money, make sure the customers have a great experience, making signs, getting cups and straws from the house, etc. This will help your children learn that getting paid requires hard work.

“Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it’s addressed to someone else.” -Ivern Ball

Participate With Them to Share Your Knowledge

Be active WITH them! Make it a ‘we’ activity not a ‘you’ activity. Teach them new lessons along the way: respect for customers, responsibility to always have lemonade in stock, and how to handle money. Lemonade stands involve a cash transaction and this may be your children's first experience in this sort of setting. So why not take this opportunity to start teaching your children about fiscal responsibility. Keep track of how much money they make and split it evenly amongst all the children involved. When they get paid at the end of their 'lemonade stand' shift, they'll realize their hard work really does pay off.

If you want to take it a step further, try this: Ask them if they want to make more money next time (for this example, we are going to assume the say "yes"). This can open doors to a more in-depth discussion about fiscal responsibility when you discuss things like the cost of creating the lemonade stand (lemonade, cups, table, signs, markets, etc.) and have them brainstorm ways to cut down costs so they get to keep more money next time.

Allow Your Children to Have Freedom

It's important for you to be there helping out and sharing your wisdom but it's also important for your children to have room to grow on their own. Give them a chance to complete tasks on their own, even if they make mistakes; it is not the end of the world. Standing over their shoulder and bossing them around is not the most efficient way to help your children learn. If they mess something up, don’t criticize, try and help them fix their mistakes so they can learn from them. If they mess up the math when giving someone their change, take time to talk through the correct way to find the solution with your child. Don’t tell them the answers, show them HOW to find the answers.

Make it Fun!

Music, posters, friends! When it’s time to clean, keep the fun going to keep everyone involved. When everyone helps clean up, they will learn the responsibilities that come along with fun activities like running a lemonade stand for a day. Want to try and speed things up during clean up? Create a competition amongst the children to see who can clean up the most for an extra prize.

Conclusion

Lemonade stands are a great way to teach your child responsibility from an early age. They're fun for everyone involved, and those who work the hardest get to walk away with some money in their pocket too. Get everyone involved and go enjoy a great day in the shade selling lemonade to all your neighbors while putting a smile on everyone's face!

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