Awww that's adorable xD
I usually buy stuff at kids' businesses partly to encourage them and partly because they're cute and I'm a sucker
MrBonkers will probably love them :D
how cool it was that the kids were actually able to hold a conversation and eye contact with another adult
Haven't dealt with too many homeschooled kids then? :) This was completely normal in the homeschool groups we went to (for the most part, there were a couple that were being homeschooled because they were autistic or severe anxiety and the school system couldn't cope with them).
Mine and the ones I maintained contact with didn't start businesses though (two of them got as far as writing business plans at a couple of points in their lives but bailed out on the actual thing), I hope the ones I lost contact with are doing awesome XD
My mum really, really, really tried hard to give me a decent financial grounding and at the time I really, really, really did not care one whit and refused to listen because it wasn't relevant to me and what I wanted to do in the moment. Additionally (and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before) there was an overwhelming consensus among my uni friends that investment was a waste of time and money because it unnecessarily locked up money and made it unspendable for no reason (it was probably a justification to keep the money free for use for instant gratification, I don't think any of us had a clue about long term planning and probably none of us had money to invest at the time anyway).
I really think there's some peresonality trait involved as to when that kind of stuff sinks in (if ever). I don't think the dyscalculia helped in that regard. I've only recently (last couple of years x_x) got somewhat on top of that (not really) and that's purely because I found apps that my brain works with.
I did babysitting as a teenager and all of my jobs have been something Mum organised for me when I went home for the holidays, or with places where someone specifically came looking for me because I had skills they wanted (I have so far been headhunted for a handful of webdev/Drupal jobs and kind of got thrown into my current one). Jobs I applied for in between I apparently have amazing attention grabbing resumes and bomb the interview stage.
The mostly unrestricted (they lost internet to all devices til 15) screen time doesn't seem to have done all the terrible things they're supposed to do to my kids; 18yo applied to uni recently (after a month of procrastination due to anxiety issues which he came and chatted to me about before forcing himself to just go and get it done), 16yo currently has a job and has found out that she is actually able to apply to childcare centres so will be looking at that next year (stuff is ramping up a bit much for us at the moment for her to think about it before then) and 14yo...well he has been applying for the usual entry level jobs but they keep knocking him back. Like everyone else he has all these brilliant ideas and like everyone else doesn't want to put in the time and effort to realise them and just whines about the fact they don't exist XD
Just on the topic of money, my kids have all independently recently told me that the financial literacy of some of their peers is so abysmal that they're apparently unironically believing that if you pay cash for something it's free because your bank account didn't go down and that if you walk past a shop you've saved/earned money and can spend more at the next shop and I hope whatever they saw that on was joking.
