When my eldest son was 11, he wanted to sell sweets on the school bus on, so he and my wife duly trecked down to the local cash-and-carry and bought a variety of sweets.

Despite our expectations to the contrary, he didn’t eat them himself – he sold them and made a very tidy profit.

However, as parents we were torn. Do we support his entrepreneurial flair in meeting the market demand that he had identified amongst his classmates or should we discourage him from selling products that most people would accept were not supporting a nutritionally balanced diet?

In the end, as happens with boys, his attention drifted off onto the next hot topic and our conscience was assuaged!

But the question lingers as to when the right time to expose children to commerce?

Mashable’s Iris Mansour writes about a brownie troop of 12 and 13 year olds who are running a pinny printing business – is this too early to be hot housing the entrepreneurial spirit in youngsters? Click here to read the full article.

It is probably worth reflecting on the fact that there are fewer and fewer ‘jobs for life’. You can add to that, the fact that an increasing proportion of the population is under-prepared for the higher cost of retirement as a result of living longer. In order to balance what will be a difficult long term issue, the likely outcome is that more people will have multiple income streams throughout more of their lives, so why not start early?

Anyone involved in the governments’ Apprenticeship scheme is likely to be impressed with the contribution that an apprentice can make to a business.

We encourage youngsters to get involved in sports, arts and science and whilst life as an entrepreneur doesn’t suit everyone, why not encourage them to experience the buzz of business as early as possible?

After all, Apple, who have just posted the greatest quarterly income ever recorded by a
company, was started by two youngsters called Steve, aged only 21 and 26!