Life is crowded, and if you’re a business owner, you’re busy! You may be a parent, a spouse and a business owner.  How do you juggle it all?  And how do you help your children understand that what you are doing is important?

One way is to include your kids in your business.  Show them that what you are doing is worthy of your time, and important to others.  When you include your kids in your work, you demonstrate that they are important to you, and you invite your kids into your day-to-day. This brings huge rewards!

How do you do it?  It’s not as hard as you think.

• Talk to your child about what you do. Make this a natural part of your day.  Over dinner, ask your son or daughter to tell you about his or her day, and tell him or her about yours.  Use simple terms.  Talk about the good that you do.  Talk about the struggles you have.  Talk about your task at hand.  Children learn so much from you and your example.
• Show your child what you do. Maybe you work from home and you have an office set up right in your house.  Show your child how you set it up and why.  Show her that there are special programs you use for different tasks you accomplish during your day.  If you work in an office, bring your child to work with you.  Show him the different offices and explain what each employee does and why.  Keep your explanations simple.  Depending on his or her age, the details may go over your child’s head, but he/she will get that all these different people and all of the different software and computers you use get your task completed.  This makes it personal for your child.  It makes your child feel connected with your business.
• Let your child help you. Every child learns differently.  But most children, most people, learn by doing.  Find some small way that your child can contribute to your business.  Maybe your son can deliver supplies to your employees or come with you when you purchase items for your office.  If your child is older, maybe she can assist as you do some number crunching or word processing work for your company, or help you with some internet research.  These are all great life skills and they also connect your child to your business in a personal way.

Connection is essential to making your business important to your child.  You are busy and your son or daughter is busy.  You already know your child is priority number one.  Now it’s time to show your child that they can be part of another of your priorities.  Make the time to connect them to your business.  You will teach your child life skills that last a lifetime.

How do you help your child feel connected to you and your business? Would love to read your thoughts in the comments below!