I'm a mean mother. I wouldn't let my son have a dog. It's not that I dislike dogs. It's just that I had enough on my plate. I knew I would end up doing all of the work. Because I was the stay-at-home parent. My son and husband wanted a dog so badly that I came up with a compromise. I told my son he could have a weekend dog sitting business in our home. That way, my son and husband would be around to do the heavy lifting and when the novelty wore off on Sunday night, the dog would go leave.
Well, several peed-on and barfed-on carpets later, not to mention deep grooves our new wood floors from the toenails of an 80-pound golden doodle, my son had made a tidy sum. Which was good since I was broke from carpet cleaning bills. I decided to open a Roth IRA for him. I put $1000 in a Vanguard fund that was what is called a balanced fund. Half stocks and half bonds. It wasn't nearly as aggressive as I would have liked because my son will presumably not retire before at least getting a "real job" (whatever that is these days!) I figured the fund had at least half a century to grow and weather any ups and downs in the stock market along the way.
If you want to show your kids how compounding works by asking them this seemingly simple question with an unexpected surprise, check out this article:
http://www.savingtoinvest.com/power-of-compounding-1-million-now-or/
(100% return and the period of compounding is one day – not so realistic).