Aldridge Foundation's tips to develop effective skills for work

As the latest youth unemployment figures are published, The Aldridge Foundation has launched a series of tips to help parents develop an entrepreneurial mindset in their children and hit out at programmes like “Young Apprentice” for ‘unhelpful’ portrayals of entrepreneurs in the media.

Speaking on BBC Radio Five Live and the Today Programme on BBC Radio Four, Honor Wilson Fletcher, Chief Executive of the Foundation, said that it was clear that where school children were encouraged to develop an entrepreneurial mindset they were more successful at school and in life. 

Research carried out by the Foundation shows that 88% of parents fear for the job prospects for their children, with only 28% believing they are confident to help their children develop the essential skills to succeed in today’s job market. 

Honor said: “Many parents hear words like entrepreneurial and risk and don’t know how to help children develop these qualities.  Unfortunately programmes such as The Young Apprentice or Dragon’s Den may give the impression that successful entrepreneurs are ruthless wheeler-dealers, simply in it for personal enrichment, and with little desire to work as a team, when the reality is quite different.”

Alongside the tips for parents, The Aldridge Foundation has called for entrepreneurial skills to be part of teacher training, and for a step change from learning about entrepreneurialism to developing the skills and attributes required to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset, namely teamwork, problem solving and risk-taking.

THE ALDRIDGE FOUNDATION’S TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Encourage considered risks
- Encourage children to take considered risks. A generation of ‘cotton wool kids’ are missing out on the resilience and independence learnt from taking calculated risks. Making a decision and having conviction in this will allow them to discover their strengths and to learn from real life experience. 

The importance of failure
- Teach children to deal with failure. It is important children see failure as a learning process rather than a catastrophic endpoint. Show them that just because something hasn’t worked now, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be successfully achieved again with a fresh approach. An important part of this also is being careful not to ‘over praise’, which may make youngsters unaware of how hard they actually need to work for real achievement. 

Give early responsibility 
- Give children responsibility early. Empower them to take responsibility for a task usually reserved for parents – for example, organising a family day out or planning a week of meals.

Smart pocket money
- Instead of just giving children pocket money, challenge them to use the money to generate a return. Give them £5 and encourage them to spend it on something that will deliver £10 back, such as the ingredients to make then sell cakes, or offer a bonus for work well done. 

Celebrate passion 
- Passion - putting your heart and soul into something you believe in –is an essential part of an entrepreneurial mindset. This can be developed by encouraging new interests or sparks of enthusiasm that children have. Whether it’s playing the guitar or learning about dinosaurs, taking an interest and talking to them about it will encourage them to stick with what they love. Equally, parents can lead by example and talk to their children about their own hobbies and interests. 

Apply lessons to real life
- Demonstrate how the things they learn at school are applied in real life situations. For example, apply maths to calculate the cost per litre when re-fuelling the family car. 

Find the right school
- Parents keen to educate their children in an entrepreneurial environment should look for schools that take an innovative approach to teaching, ‘learning through doing’, creating a real life context for education.