Plantsmakemecrazy said:I have tried for years to interest my son then he received a video game console for Xmas and that seems to be his whole universe right now.
Work ethic. Both kids are paid for each seed packet they pack. Ethan also gets a cut of each net sale when he packs the orders for shipping out. His cut from our Hosta Seed Sales via DuluthHosta.com basically paid for his own Switch (aka. video game console) and he already earned enough from packing daylily seed packets to help buy his first laptop.
So in an ironic twist, I'm motivating my kids to be interested in gardening with money and video games ;)
But to be fair, it's also instilling good work ethic, the understanding of delayed compensation and investing in something for a payoff down the line. It's exciting an entrepreneurial spirit in them (you should see how much they rake in with their Lemonade & Pop stand during our annual garage and garden sales in the summer). But yes, buying his own Nintendo Switch with his own hard-earned money was a very important life lesson. And I'm not buying that game console out of my own pocket...Ethan legitimately helped earn it, and all our customers paid into what we do, voting with their wallets.
Overall, as a family, we decided to not HIDE money from our kids. They know what things like groceries and car payments and mortgages cost. They understand that we spend thousands of dollars to have KIDS each month that otherwise we grown adults could do any number of other things with. I think giving our children a much deeper understanding of how life works, financially, will prevent them from the shock I experienced when I first learned how predatory mortgages really are, how I might pay nearly as much in interest as I do for the house itself, over the life of the mortgage! I was VERY angry when I learned that in my early twenties. My kids will go into adulthood with their eyes wide open, far fewer surprises.
<end tangent> Buy our daylily seeds! No joke, Ethan was a SHREWD negotiator this year, and as I look at how much I invested monetarily to get to this point, he's getting a far deeper cut than he probably should be!!! But, he did work a lot, and he will continue to work to pack all your auction wins and website buys!
