Why Our Son Chose a Nursery Business Over a Lemonade Stand.

Is 4 too young to start a business? We didn't think so. Here is how our son is raising £500 for his first 3D printer - one planter at a time.

A few weeks ago, our four-year-old came to us and said he wanted to start his own business. He wanted to sell planters. Real ones. To real people!

Let me rewind…This idea hadn’t come out of nowhere, and as a mum, we become pretty good at working out where our children’s wild and whacky ideas come from. A few days earlier, we’d been out on a walk and bumped into some children on our street running a little stall. They were making things, selling them, and told us they were saving up for a treehouse. Our son listened intently and took it all in. And something in him clicked. He realised that if you make something, someone might buy it. If someone buys it, you can save the money. And if you save the money, you can work towards something you really want. It all made sense to him.

Around the same time, he had become completely fascinated by 3D printing and the idea of having his own 3D printer. He sits beside his dad watching videos of the machine building objects slowly, layer by layer. (Nathan, I should add, is also a tech-mastermind and has been fascinated by 3D printing for a long time.) Together, they’ll sit and talk about all the things they’re going to make… cars, animals, toys, self-watering plant pots, you name it. Their imaginations run far ahead of the printer they don't yet have.

The only small complication is that it costs about five hundred pounds (!!!!)

We were never tempted to just buy it. Because let’s be honest.. Our son is four. And it’s £500!! However, we do believe something important happens in the space between wanting and having. We don’t want our children to grow up thinking that big things simply appear because they ask for them. We’ve learnt that through many impulsive (and some regretful) buys, there is actually valuable growth to be had in the waiting. There are opportunities for confidence building in working towards something.

So instead of saying no, we asked him a question: “How do you think you could earn it?” There was a pause. A thinking face. And then an answer. He wanted to sell planters. It made sense! He has grown up around plants, he has helped in the garden, he has made little planters as gifts before, and people had even asked if we were selling them. This wasn’t an idea we planted in his head. It felt like his.

A few weeks later, we booked him into a real market. That was the moment it stopped being a dreamy conversation and started becoming something that felt real. Since then, he’s been doing extra jobs around the house (not the things we expect him to do anyway, but that’s a blog for another day). He’s been helping cut the hedge, washing the car, bringing in logs for our fire and gaining a few quid for it- small tasks that connect effort to outcome. The printer is no longer just a thing he wants; it’s a goal he is moving towards.

Of course, he’s only four. We’re not pretending he understands business models or profit margins (lol).  But he is starting to understand that he can have an idea, act on it, and see it move forward. Whether he reaches £500 or not doesn’t really matter. Of course we’ll celebrate every sale, and of course we would love him to succeed. But the printer itself isn’t the real prize. 

The real prize is watching him take ownership. Watching him connect effort with reward. Watching him see that his ideas have value. He’s learning that he can have an idea… and bring it to life.