Bring Your Kid to Work Day

This week, I participated in my office’s “Bring Your Kid to Work” day. I spoke to 10 kids ages 8 to 13 about my wonderful profession of public accounting. I had a blast and held their attention for the half hour I was allotted.

First of all, I did not dumb down my presentation. What I did was shorten it to gear it to kids that either did not know squawk about accounting, knew it was something one of their parents did, or came because they were told they would have fun and get to play with other kids whose parents also work here. Kids are not much different than adults, except they might have twice the attention span of their fathers – 3 minutes rather than a minute and a half (Note that mothers seem to have unlimited attention spans). I used plain words in short sentences. I also stopped frequently to ask if they had any questions, which some did, and that made my presentation participatory for them.

I also did a lot of show and tell. I use this technique all the time and did not develop this method for this group. I chose to not use PowerPoint (which I do for High School students) and printed what I wanted to say in a 60-page booklet which I distributed to each kid. I also had each kid take a label and place it on the front of the booklet and write their name on it. That gave them ownership.

Accounting started at the dawn of civilization at the demarcation line between Prehistory and History. The first human writings by the Sumerians around 3400 BCE were accounting records. With the first incision into a clay tablet, a record was created that started history. Everything before then was considered prehistoric.

Now let me ask you a question: did you know that history started 5423 years ago? Add the 3400 BCE years plus today’s 2023 CE year, and you get 5423. Now consider whether this is right. Since 3400 BCE is an estimate, then 5423 cannot be right, yet it looks right because it is an exact number. A better way is to say history started about 5400 years ago. Well, what accountants do is decide on the right way to present numbers so that people can relate to them and that they are relevant for their purposes. When we prepare a tax return, we need to use exact numbers for the government. But when we are discussing strategies or advising a client on whether they should start a new business or hire a new employee, or how to invest their money in the stock market, easy-to-grasp estimates are more appropriate.

Anyway, I had a half hour of stories like this as well as a few number games for them to play. And you know what, no one was happy when I stopped!

In between my stories, I told them how some accountants specialize and are financial detectives, business valuation experts, advise parents on how to plan for their kid’s college expenses, and even how much they should donate to their church or other charities they like.

If you are offered this opportunity next year, try to take advantage of it. I know I will. I had a ball and liked sharing my love of accounting, and am now planning next year’s Bring Your Kid to Work presentation.