As a parent, you know there are countless things you can teach your children, in addition to what they learn in school. The education your child receives in school will be necessarily limited by the relatively short time spent in class and the resources the school has available. This is true whether your child goes to a public school or a private school.
If you have a child who is older than 2 or so, it is likely that you've been supportive of your child's early attempts at creating artwork. However, if you have elementary school children, you may still be supporting their artistic endeavours, but you may not be thinking about preparing them for managing their finances. After all, they're just kids!
Even for older children, the financial education they may receive from you will be about working for money, saving, managing a checking account, comparing ways to spend money and discussing opportunity costs, etc. But if you read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you'll see that this doesn't give them the preparation to "escape the rat race." If you want your children to have a comfortable life when they're older, you have to start early and go beyond teaching them how to live paycheck to paycheck! A key approach to this is to teach them about assets -- that is, things that earn money for you (which rules out many "goodies" that people often refer to as assets even though they just decline in value over time).
One way I've discovered to introduce to my children the idea of accumulating assets is to set up a shop for them in CafePress, where the asset of their copyright in their artwork can be converted into cash if someone buys the products that they've designed. If you think this is too dry of a topic for your child, I can attest to the excitement that my kids expressed when they saw the products appear with their drawings on it -- it really does support their interest in art, while giving them some basic exposure to the concept of accumulating assets.
The sample products on this page are examples of what my kids have come up with. I originally encouraged them to focus on holiday-related (or otherwise seasonal) products, but now I think that may not be best for them due to the continual need for marketing, which isn't something they're able to do effectively. Items with broader appeal may work much better. There will be more to come, as they're having fun coming up with ideas for new products. (It helps that I've made money with my own CafePress shops, so they know it's not just wishful thinking.)
Not surprisingly, they've been even more interested in creating "video assets," which they host on Revver.com. Revver inserts ads, and ad revenue is split between Revver and my young videographers. This has been both more fun and more profitable for them. Take a look at some kid-created videos to see what they've been up to!
