When your son wants to start a business. You start a business!

As a parent, it is our job to educate, protect and inspire our kids. It is our job to pour into them daily and remind them to always love themselves first. During the pandemic when my children were home, I got a first look at how important that was. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have two beautiful children. Ella and Everett. Ella is all over my feed. She’s my little bubbly carefree child who loves a camera. Everett is more laid back, the overachiever who isn’t really into the spotlight. Two very different kids.

When we were on lockdown and the kids had to stay home from school, I, like most parents found a space in the house and turned it into a mini classroom. We set up their desks, found learning charts to put on the wall, and created a full-on learning space, In addition to those charts we added these large affirmation cards to the wall for inspiration. We all needed them honestly.

One day when Everett was in class I noticed him getting frustrated, with frustration comes doubt and with doubt comes melt downs. He didn’t understand a problem and just came down on himself. That scared me because as a parent hearing your child speak ill of themselves is heartbreaking. They don’t understand the power of words and if you don’t stop it, it can manifest itself and they will start to believe it. That day I said not my baby!

When we started really doing our affirmations, it was just us repeating them daily. They both were basically memorizing them, Until one day when we were saying them I asked “do you believe that about yourself tell me why”. This was a game changer because it opened up a conversation about why.. why are you great kids, why are you smart, why are you important? I started asking them how the affirmations made them feel about themselves. Listening to them talk positively about themselves has made a huge difference!

I needed to give you a little back story about our why and the reason we created these cards, It’s so much more than a sale. When Everett and I decided to do this together I wanted him to understand the power that he has as a child. I told him that there are so many kids out there that get frustrated and sometimes they just need a little reminder to help them out. And he could possibly help. So, we sat down and developed these cards. Everett gave me a list of affirmations that he wanted to include, he picked the colors as well as the design idea. He said he wants kids to smile when they read their affirmations so they had to be colorful and fun.

My job was to turn his dream into a reality. And Cool Kids Collective was born. I told him that I will always support him, as long as it’s legal. He doesn’t get my humor yet.