What is an entrepreneur? Wikipedia defines an entrepreneur as: An entrepreneur is someone who organizes a system to create a product or service in order to gain profit. I define an entrepreneur as anyone who thinks outside the box and is willing to take risks.

Do you have a child that never does anything the normal way? My son has never done a household chore in the normal way. I used to get frustrated and wonder why he couldn't just do it the way I taught him. My way was fast and efficient. His way took hours to devise and implement.

He would come up with some contraption to tackle the task at hand. The trash cans were never carried to the end of the driveway. They were attached to a skateboard or arranged precariously on a scooter. They were pulled, pushed, and propelled, but never carried. The floor was mopped with rags attached to his feet which eventually led to the sock mop. The duster was duct taped to a long pole to see if the entire room could be dusted from a single sitting position. (The duster was even tied to the ceiling fan blade to see the room could be dusted without human intervention.)

I'm sure some of you are smiling and shaking your head. You too have one of these budding entrepreneurs. As a parent we can decide to encourage their creativity or squelch it. I am not saying that we support destruction, but I think we are too quick to discourage.

Look at all the wonderful traits they are developing:

Critical Thinking - they evaluate the task at hand and look at ways to solve their problem

Creativity - they think of ways to implement their solution

Taking Risk - they don't know if their solution is going to work but they aren't afraid of failure

Commitment - they are quite focused on developing their solution

Look for ways to channel their thinking. Give them opportunities to take risks in other areas. Our tendency is to strangle our entrepreneurs. To see how you are killing your entrepreneur, visit www.EducateYourEntrepreneur.com