In a recent article about how a bad economy can actually be a good time to start a business, Jerry Osteryoung, director of outreach of the Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship in the College of Business at Florida State University, noted: “So many people say that entrepreneurs are born, but I am here to tell you that entrepreneurship is a learned discipline.”

Well, my girl just had the great opportunity to start that lifetime of learning by opening her first business. It was part of Austin’s first Lemonade Day - an event begun in Houston to introduce kids to entrepreneurship. The event encourages kids to start a lemonade stand and sell their lemonade to the entire community on May 3rd.

When I first heard of it, I thought “oh, that will be something fun for us to do” and envisioned nothing more involved than setting up a card table in the driveway. After picking up our backpack of how-to workbooks to teach students participating in Lemonade Day about budgets, securing investors, choosing locations and making signs, however, I quickly realized that Prepared 4 Life was taking their job seriously and I was thinking too small.

So, we talked to a friend who was also planning to participate and stuck a partnership. A new location was chosen at our neighborhood park where we thought there would be more traffic. We discussed my role as an investor, and made choices on what kind of lemonade to make and how much to charge per glass.

Despite threats of rain, it turned out to be a beautiful day to pass three hours watching cars, walkers and bike riders pass. Sales were not booming (we blame the fact that the park’s playscape was fenced off due to a factory recall) and there were times of boredom where our young enterpreneurs talked of calling it quits; but, then a burst of business would renew their enthusiasum.

After splitting the proceeds and paying her investor, my girl only grossed net $3.75 - a far cry from the revenue she hoped to use to buy that Nintendo DS mean-old-Mom won’t purchase. But, she had fun and did learn about counting money, making change and providing good customer service. And, we weren’t the only ones who had to learn not to drink all the product it sounds like. She’s also got ideas for how to improve business next time - like finding a location with higher traffic, and maybe adding “a pretty table cloth” to the stand.

Lemonade Day 2009 had local organizations in Austin, Houston, Bryan/College Station, Minneapolis and Wayne County, Indiana, this year, but anyone can participate and they have a goal to reach one million kids in the next five years. Contact them now about hosting the event in your city next year!

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• Lemonade Day Teaches Kids Entrepreneurship (myventurepad.com)
• Entrepreneur 101: Words of advice to a future Entrepreneur (The Jeff Pulver blog)

Back in July, I posed a question here about extracurricular activities and how much is too much? My girl was getting ready to start kindergarten and I was stressing over whether to sign her up for ballet or gymnastics or both.

In the end, I pushed aside my own deep desire to raise a prima ballerina and asked her what she wanted to do. That turned out to be gymnastics.

Then, her daddy jumped into the fray pushing piano lessons. I’d initially decided to go with the recommendation to limit it to just one after-school activity at her age, but I really have hoped she would inherit her father’s musical talent and he found someone right in the neighborhood who taught out of her home. Thirty minutes a week didn’t seem like that much more, so I went with it.

My question this time is, how long is long enough to tell you child they must try an activity before quitting?

After the first gymnastics lesson where she appeared to be enjoying herself, my girl had a complete melt down in the car on the way home. Gymnastics was too hard! She didn’t want to go again! Well, my pragmatic side immediately said she had to at least finish out the month because we’d already paid for it. But, another side of me wanted her to learn that not everything will come to her as easy as her academics seem to be doing, and that she would have to work at some things in life. So, I held the line and two lessons later she was loving gymnastics.

Six weeks into piano lessons the same turnaround has not happened. Her complaints are very similar – it’s too hard, but also “boring.” Her teacher says she is doing very well and is even ahead of another student the same age who started at the same time. But getting her to practice is like pulling teeth! Actually, it’s harder because her first tooth fell out last weekend with ease, but it was painful for both of us to simply complete two pages in her theory workbook last night. She’s asking to quit. Dad’s not ready for it. I suggested maybe trying just through the end of the year, but neither of them seemed to like that idea.

Do a Google blog search on “quit AND piano” and there is certainly no shortage of discussions on this topic. There are the students who are contemplating it, the teachers who are agonizing over it and reminiscers who are regretting it years later. I myself fall into the latter category – sorta. I do wish I could play, but don’t really have fond memories of the three years I took without ever really learning to read music (I was really good at just memorizing what the teacher showed me and faking my way through).

So are some people just naturals at music and others not? Is six weeks long enough to find out? What are your experiences around this topic?

Laura P. Thomas is the wife of a former rocker and mother of one 6-year-old girl that’s already waaay too interested in The Jonas Brothers. (the apple didn’t fall far) She works in the Global Online team at Dell, evangelizes virtual worlds, and twitters too much as LPT.

While I fully admit I knew nothing about children before having them, there is one thing I have always known – that I was not going to raise brats. It always irked me when I would see a parent threaten a child with a consequence, only to not follow through when the child continued to disobey. Therefore, even before our first son was born, I made my husband promise that he would not use empty threats; we wouldn’t say anything unless we were prepared to follow through.

And I have stayed true to my word… that is, until a few weeks ago. I had signed Braden (almost four years old) up for swim lessons – five Saturday lessons at the local college. After watching him have a ball in my dad’s pool just weeks before and having me, who swam on my high school team, as his mother, I figured he had the love for swimming in his blood and couldn’t wait to watch him in the water.

The first lesson came and went, and he had gone in for a total of 10 minutes (40-minute lesson), and this was after 30 minutes of crying and saying he wanted to go home. That’s okay. I chalked it up to the fact that it was a new experience and the water was cold. But then the second lesson came, and it was worse than the first. He didn’t want to go anywhere near the water – just balled up next to me and cried. I tried talking to him, but he wouldn’t tell me what was upsetting him so much. So I told him if he wasn’t enjoying the lessons, I would just bring his brother, Devin, the next time instead. This made him even more upset, to which I responded, “Show me you’re having fun, and I’ll keep bringing you. But you have to go in the water. If you don’t go in the water, I’m bringing Devin next time.”

He ended up not going in the water, and I was faced with a decision that was incredibly difficult for me. As I said, I’ve always been one to follow through with what I say, but he had been acting so out of character all-around during that time period, that I didn’t want to deprive him if this was just some short phase he was going through. Yes, perhaps the threat was a little harsh (as one friend said to me); I guess you had to be there to understand what a miserable situation it was for both of us during that entire swim lesson.

I toiled with this decision the entire week following that lesson – not wanting to go back on my word but wanting to believe him when he said he wanted to go and that he would go in the water. “I promise, Mommy.” In the end, his overall attitude did a complete 180 that week and Devin ended up getting sick. Not wanting to take a sick child to the pool, I decided to give Braden one more shot. And I made it clear to him that the only reason he was getting another shot was because Devin was sick.

But I took a different approach this time. Rather than trying throughout the entire lesson to get Braden to go into the pool, before the lesson started, I simply said to him, “Braden, I’m only going to say this once. I love you. Whether you go in the pool or not is completely up to you, and I love you either way. But please understand that if you aren’t enjoying this, then I am going to give Devin a try next time. I signed you up for lessons because I really thought you would have fun.” Well, something sunk in, and he went in for 10 minutes that day and had the biggest smile I had seen on his face yet. The following week, he was in for 20 minutes, and for the last class, he went in for the entire 40 minutes.

Yes, it turned out well, and knowing what I know now, I’m glad I gave Braden one more chance. However, had Devin not been sick, would I have taken him instead of Braden? To be honest, I really don’t know. What would you have done?

Kristen Keller lives in New Jersey with her two young boys, husband and two dogs. In an effort to obtain the perfect work-life balance, Kristen works part-time out of her home office as an independent public relations consultant and spends the rest of her time striving to give her children the same wonderful childhood experience she had. Click here to check out Kristen’s other posts on This Mommy Gig.

I like words. I like reading them, I like writing them, I’m bothered by people who don’t want to use them. One of my favorite quotes is from Mark Twain, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and a lightening bug.” I think words can be a powerful tool and weapon. I try to be careful with my words.

My son likes to talk. He’s been verbal from the moment he was born and, geez, is he a talker. He identifies when he’s said something cute, and will often point it out to me. The other day he said something funny in the car, and before we could laugh, he said, “That was cute, right?” Nicholas is starting to understand the power of words.

Our next challenge is to teach him how much words can hurt. The other night, my fiance was giving Nicholas a bath and N wasn’t behaving very well. When William got after him, Nicholas used the big hammer, “Daddy, I don’t love you.” Yes, I know that kids say that stuff; but, Nicholas had never used it before, and his and William’s relationship is just new enough, that it really hurt William. So, the three of us sat down and talked about how words can hurt just as much as hitting or biting or falling down. Later that night, William and I had a conversation about N not fully understanding what his words mean yet.

William and I have also had conversations about talking with N about his Daddy Mark. I talk about his Daddy Mark whenever it makes sense (”Your Daddy Mark liked this song.” “Your Daddy Mark’s favorite veggie was asparagus”), and I try to talk about him every day. William is worried that Nicholas may have a tendancy to put Mark on a pedastal and that William will never be as “good” a Dad as Mark in N’s eyes. He’s very worried about the day when Nicholas says, “You’re not my real Dad!”

I’m worried about that day too. Because words hurt. But I also reminded William that kids, teenagers especially, will use whatever amunition they have against their parents, and I’m sure he will use that one against William. Just as I’m equally sure that my sweet, loving, beatuiful son will one day say the words, “I wish you weren’t my Mother!” And man, those words will hurt. 

Sherry Carr Deer is Mommy to Nicholas who just turned 3, fiance to William, widow of Mark, and a PR professional at a non-profit hospital. You can read more of her posts here.