It's not theory in our house. It's just how things work.
We don't do allowance. If they want spending money, they have to find ways to earn it from outside sources. We're their parents, not their employers. Of course we cover everything they need (they're kids, not freelancers surviving in the wild). But the spending money? That's on them.
One of them has run his own business since 4th grade, in partnership with a friend. He makes money and a tidy profit (we track the books, margins, and profit) every week, especially for a kid who still puts school and friendships first.
My 16 year old lives in Adobe. He creates short videos with handcrafted animation, precise editing, and transitions he builds frame by frame. No templates. No shortcuts. He's drawn to craft, to the details most people skip. He has a real eye for aesthetics, color, and how music should move with visuals. He helps me with my own videos and LinkedIn carousels sometimes, and honestly, his taste makes the work better.
My wife runs her own landscape architecture and design firm. If you've talked to architects lately, you know the market is brutal. She's leaned hard into AI across her workflows, making her roughly 3x more productive than two years ago. That extra capacity lets her focus on the parts of the work that are uniquely hers (the creative judgment, the client relationships, hand drawing, the design instincts no tool can replicate). She employs our boys to help with site analysis for new clients. They're learning the business from the inside.
I run my own AI coaching and advisory firm, as some of you know, where I help businesses inject AI into their workflows through Founder OS, advisory, and coaching.
And the 9 year old? He edits his own YouTube videos in DaVinci Resolve. Gameplay stuff. Nothing commercial yet. But he's 9, building real skills, and having a blast doing it. He was shaking me down for an upgrade to DaVinci Resolve Studio a couple of days ago so he can use some of the new AI features he learned about on YouTube. GREAT!
Here's the thing. None of this is taught in school. Not one piece of it.
I have zero expectation that college will teach it either, if they go. Running a business, using AI as leverage, building craft through real projects, learning to earn before you learn to spend. The system doesn't cover any of it. And if I'm being honest, the schools sometimes work against it. They reward compliance, not initiative. They teach kids to follow instructions, not create opportunity.
Nobody sat these kids down with a lecture. They just grew up watching the people around them build things. The classroom gives them social and emotional development to a degree; the good and the bad. Some good role modeling with the good teachers. Some really bad role modeling with the bad teachers and administrators; and the system itself. The household gives them capability. The household shows them what's possible.
And that's the part no institution can replace.