Will work for Bubble-Yum...

We started a vegetable garden this week. On the surface, this seemed like a brilliant idea. Homeschool family and all, growing vegetables all summer is a great lesson on where food comes from, how to take care of a garden, etc. Besides, kids love to dig, at least, my kids do, and there's lots of digging in gardens.

Except, that kids are actually really hard workers, surprising but true, and if you give them a job they enjoy, they will do it day and night forvever and ever amen. My backyard is starting to look like a shelled out battlefield and mom and I have to be vigilant about keeping the digging away from the already planted parts of the garden.

But, to harness that drive, that power...who knows what you could accomplish. The trick is making it fun. For instance, our kids wanted to play with their toy shovels, so mom set them in garden beds and in no time they had the soil tilled up. I think I'll invent a game where ninjas must wash and wax the whole car to defeat evil. Hmm. Needs work.

Anyway, the point is, that kid's have limitless energy for playing, and they don't mind pushing themselves. They're natural workers, just like they're natural learners and natural problem-solvers. You don't have to ask them to do it, you just show them how. Who knows what a kid can accomplish if he's given a little encouragement and the right tools? Oh, and the right currency. For some reason, a pack of gum is like gold bullion in the kid economy. So turn 'em loose on something and see what they can do.