Customers contact me instead of my kid, what do I do?

This one is nobody's fault. A neighbor who wants their lawn done on Thursday texts the adult they already have in their phone, because that is the normal thing to do. It is not a comment on your kid.

The cost shows up later. A kid who never takes a message directly does not learn to hold a schedule, does not hear what a customer sounds like when the timing is inconvenient, and never once handles somebody who is unhappy about a job. Those are three of the most valuable things in the whole exercise, and relaying quietly removes all of them.

There is a second cost that matters more. If the customers are in your phone, they are your customers. Your kid is doing the work for a business you are administering, and they can feel the difference even when nobody says it out loud.

The fix is a sentence, used every time it happens. He handles his own scheduling, I will get him to text you. Then get them to text. Most adults adjust immediately and a few need it twice.

That only works if your kid is reachable, which is the real obstacle for a lot of families. Depending on age that might be a shared line, a number on a family plan, or a separate line set up for the business. My son needed a separate phone line for his pressure washing work and he could not open one himself, so I did. That is the right kind of help, because the wall was his age rather than the task.

For a younger kid, stay on the thread rather than off it. You can be visible on the message while they compose what it says. The point is not that you disappear, it is that the words and the decisions are theirs.

Then hand over the small administrative pieces one at a time. Confirming a time. Saying when they will arrive. Telling somebody a job will be late. Each one is uncomfortable once and routine afterward.