Getting Kids Involved In Garage/Yard SalesWritten by Jona E. Kessans
Spring is coming and now is time to make preparations for having a yard or garage sale. And, yes…this includes kids too.For me spring always meant upcoming garage/yards sales to go to with my mom; but more importantly, those garage/yard sales I had with my mom. From these early experiences, I learned many valuable lessons that I use to this day. These include necessity of de-cluttering, finance, how to make change, how to price an item, how to organize and display items, and customer service. Thanks to my mom’s help, I was able to engage in an entrepreneurial endeavor at tender age of eight. I have fond memories of my many mini-business endeavors and feel that these ventures contributed to my desire and successes in owning my own business now. Here are some pointers to get your child involved in having a garage or yard sale of his or her own when you have one. For Children 8 and above: Gather Goods to Sell Have your children go through their items to determine what they are ready to sell, part with, or outgrown. You as a parent have veto power, but quite often children will not even think of parting with something they still use. As a matter of fact you may have to “assist” them in this step since it is likely they will want to keep just about everything they own. Be ready to ask them these questions: When was last time item was played with or used? 1)Why do they wish to keep it? 2)What does it mean to them? Having children answer these questions helps them to determine what items they wish to keep and those that have little value or use to them. This step teaches children importance of letting go of stuff they won’t use again and really don’t value. Having children de-clutter their lives this way is a valuable skill that will serve them well throughout life and keep them from falling into “packrat trap.” Prepare Goods for Sale Have children prepare items for sale by cleaning dirty items and boxing items into separate boxes labeled “(Name)’s Garage Sale Items. This way, when it is time to set up for big garage sale day, your children will be able to find their “stock” easily. Assist your child with pricing items to sell. Go through each item one-by-one and ask your child following questions to help them determine an acceptable price. 1)How much do you think this is worth? 2)How did you determine that price? 3)Do you think someone will pay your price for this item? 4)Should we ask ____ amount for this? By asking your child these questions, it helps them to critically think about value of items and their worth. By making pricing suggestions, it assists them with setting realistic prices. This step helps children learn relative value or worth of items and gets them to think about how much buying public would pay. Asking question, “Should we ask ____ amount for this?” is a way of helping your child set a realistic price for item.
| | Sign up for your childWritten by Andrea Cyrus
The following article is offered for free use in your ezine, print publication or on your web site, so long as author resource box at end is included, with hyperlinks. Notification of publication would be appreciated.Title: Sign up for your child Author: Andrea Cyrus, Msc.D., Rev., Mht. E-mail: mailto:andrea@truechanges.com Copyright: © 2005 by Andrea Cyrus URL: http://joyfulparenting.truechanges.com/ URL: http://www.truechanges.com Word Count: 675 Category: Parenting When you have your first baby, you may soon also get your first reality check. You may not really have expected to deal with so much work, crying, burping, poop, pee-pee, and stress. You notice you are constantly tired, yearning for some undisturbed rest. Wave your old days bye-bye, and Sign Up For It. What no-one ever really told you is that babies like to pee when you change them, diapers can leak and burping can become a full time job. Infants love to be up at night and sleep during day time; they can cry for apparently no reason and need you exactly at time, when it is most inconvenient for you. As these little angels grow older things do not always become easier, toddlers may still regularly wake up at night even when they are 2 years old, they will touch and chew on anything within their reach, and you have to be on consistent alert, knowing that your lovely baby follows his/her inner drive to restlessly investigate new world. There are an infinite number of expected and unexpected things your little ones will come up with, and my number 1 concept for Joyful Parenting is to Sign up for it: I ________________ , hereby declare that I am fully aware of what to expect of my □ newborn, □ toddler □ 3-5 year old, □ school kid, □ teenager, and that I will consciously sign up for whole package. I sign up for extended burping, less sleep, more noise, extensive dirt, broken stuff, dirty clothes, pee, poop, vomit, tantrums, obvious and not so obvious lies, broken items, stickers on furniture, scribble scrabble on walls, destroyed furniture, dead frogs, toys everywhere, posters, muddy shoes and broken windows. I sign up for having a 1.2 year old telling me NO and a 13 year old going through my drawers, I sign up for debates, arguments and very strange excuses. I sign up for tons of why-questions and discussions that are so confusing and disturbing, that I will consider hiring a professional. I sign up for holes in my yard and a stone collection neatly lined up next to my bed, for holes in brand new pants, in walls, in pillows, carpets and curtains. I sign up for pages ripped out of my favorite books, chewed up magazines and third set of blinds torn. I sign up for nightly-emergency-room-visits, sleep-overs, and smelly strangers being invited for dinner. I sign up for spaghetti sauce in face, hair, ears, nose, neck, chest, tummy, legs and between toes. I sign up for being rudely interrupted during conversations, sleep, telephone sessions, work, sex, leisure and meditation. I sign up for runny noses, buggers and tears, scratching, biting and pushing. I sign up for all of above and all other expected unexpected things my creative child/ren will present.
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