My six year old came up to me the other day and asked me to buy her a game for her portable gaming system. She had one in mind which I knew cost about 40 bucks so I told her she needed to save money and buy it herself. I was waiting for her response to be but why can't you just buy it, instead she asked for ways she could earn money.
I told her we could start getting an allowance at five bucks a week which she liked but than she asked if she could have a lemonade stand one of these days. I told her yes and truthfully pushed it out of my mind. The next day she got up and instantly asked if she could have her lemonade stand. Both my husband and I figured well why not so we put her to work organizing it.
I told her I would go get her some supplies (we were almost out of TP so I needed to go) and while I was gone she needed to make a sign and figure out how to set her stand up. When I got back buying her supplies, she was working on her huge sign and my husband was engineering the stand. Mind you he is a engineer so nothing is ever simple.
So my husband went to work building a table to lay over the coaster wagon and my daughter finished her sign, helped me make her lemonade, and arrange the cookies for her stand. After about an hour, the table was ready and we got her stand all set up. Both kids set their chairs up out there in the front lawn under the shade of the tree. We took some fun photos and posted to Facebook of them being cute. We figured that no one would come and they would be bored with it in about thirty minutes.
About ten minutes in some friends, who had seen it online, stopped by to purchase and than it snow balled with neighbors coming out of the wood work. One woman walking her dog told us she would get her kids and be right back. She came back and bought four glasses. People stopped as they drove by and one guy doing some work in the neighborhood drove around the block to stop to buy and than he came back for more cookies.
People would stop to just chit chat even though it is so hot. They would ask her why she was doing the stand or talk to my husband about his vintage car sitting in our driveway. A couple of kids that she knew in school stopped by with their parents and it was nice to catch up with them. It was amazing to see the outpouring and overall the kid did a great job and made some money towards her DS game (actually she got pretty close to it).
After we were done, we sat down and talked with her about saving her money and also if she wanted to do this on a regular basis that she would need to purchase supplies from now on. We were really proud of her dedication and amazed how well she did. This was a great lesson for her to learn and one I think kids should learn. It cost me about six bucks in supplies and everything else was from around the house to create one amazing memory for her.
Bio:
Rebecca Benson is a League City stay at home mom who has lived here since 2003 when her husband took a job on the International Space Station program. She followed soon after working on the same program for nearly six years when she started staying home with the kids. Rebecca loves to craft, scrapbook, sew, and embrace motherhood. Rebecca has a blog called Mommiedom ((http://queenmommiedom.blogspot.com/) where she talks about all the things in her life not just those “confessions”.
