Adults tend to drive the pleasure from work, business, and making money.

A hard-driving lifestyle is not sustainable in the long run.

Let's teach our kids a gentler, more humane approach to life, work, and making money.

This is an excerpt from a longer article. It forms part of the resources for members of the Cash-Smart Kids Program, and is copyright. All rights reserved.

It is no co-incidence that they are called e-motions.

Feelings, emotions, are what get us into action, into motion, and keep us going through difficulties and obstacles. If you nurture and cultivate feelings, you will find an endless store of cheap renewable energy, and everything will come easily to you.

If you abuse and suppress feelings, they will find a way to sabotage even your best and brightest plans.

Our culture is generally not good at emotional education. Our role models for success are often driven, apparently emotionless, and disconnected from their feeling cores, their inner children.

Under stress, we are encouraged to put on a "stiff upper lip", to "tough it out", and to "just get on with it". Be very careful how much of this conditioning you pass on to your child. The last thing any parent wants is to raise someone to have all the outward trappings of success, but to feel hollow and empty inside.

Unstructured "play time" is important for adults, as well as children.

As part of this educational process, make time each week for enjoyable sensory activities such as walking in nature, finger-painting, making collages, jumping in puddles, feeding ducks, or watching ants. Do these things with your child, and make it clear that doing sort of things is important for succeeding in life and in business.

Many highly successful people attribute their creativity and problem-solving to a regular practice of taking "down time". A weekly "date" for two hours of sensory play is a cornerstone of The Artist's Way, a recovery program for blocked creatives. And the Taoists refer to it as "wu wei" - the art of doing nothing.

This one simple practice can revolutionise your family life, as well as your professional life, and can provide your child with a means of staying grounded when the pressures of adult life start to bite.