How Can We Prepare Children In Planning A Career?

Our children are the future of tomorrow. It is our responsibility as adults to make decisions for planning a career that would have a positive impact on their future. If you are a parent, a guardian, a policymaker, or an educator, you probably already know the importance of guiding our children. Also, this should be done ahead of time in a way that’s best for them as well as for their world-to-be. This article is focused on ways in which we can prepare our children for one of the vital phases of their lives- their professional lives.

We can’t predict the future but we can take a good enough guess to guide them in planning a career.

Guiding and planning a career with your child?

1. The job landscape is changing:

Most of us would not have thought that cybersecurity, data science, or artificial intelligence would be a mainstream profession in the early 21st-century. This is why the industry is facing an acute shortage of professionals like CEH experts, machine learning experts, etc. Moreover, most of us can’t know what new professions will become popular and highly demanded in our children’s future. They will be doing jobs that don’t even exist today. We need to make sure that our children are aligned with the changing times. They should have the capability to move with the fast-moving current of time. Bearing this in mind, we must also help our kids in planning a career, developing soft skills, and also shed the idea of sticking to regular job roles.

We should also help them embrace the fact that change is good and can be taken positively.

2. Hands-on learning

Depending solely on theoretical learning is a thing of the past. As much as it is important to learn the basics concepts from a textbook, it is also vital for students to have practical knowledge of their subjects from an early age. The practical application of their acquired learnings is the main area to be worked on. Hands-on learning, thus, becomes an essential part of a child’s daily curriculum. Whether it is coding, communication, or science, a truly hands-on approach must be an ingredient in every discipline that students interact with.

3. Planning three steps ahead

Planning a career does not just mean getting them ready for their early professional years. It also means to prepare them for their own professional future. This is something that they will be planning for in their early career days. Therefore, thinking three steps ahead should be our aim and strategy. This enables us to arm our children with the tools to challenge any unfathomable circumstances that may arise upon them. It also means that they must have acquired a basic knowledge of things that they can build upon as they grow up. This in turn creates a feature in their desired disciplines without stifling them by their inept and limited school education.

Make sure that our kids have an equal chance to be an artificial intelligence expert as well as a communication expert. To ensure this, a basic and clear understanding of computer systems as well as of verbal and non-verbal language respectively from an early age. Moreover, when they have extra time, we can also enroll them in courses that they would highly benefit from in the future, like communication courses, ethical hacking training, coding, creative thinking, podcasting, sports, photography, etc.

4. The habit of experimenting

The habit of experimenting is a true game-changer for every individual. Our need for curiosity helps us grow and learn new things. We must teach our kids to step out of their comfort zone now more than ever. The world that they will inhabit will be sensitive to even more change than what we see today. It will be necessary for our kids to shun the idea of playing safe in the professional field. We must encourage them to experiment with new ideas without the fear of failure. Additionally, we can push them towards planning a career as well as personal life.