You Cannot Imagine Your Child’s Future Job
Do you ever watch your child and wonder what their life will be like when they grow up?
You know what I mean, that moment when a happy, childish laugh rings out through your home or you check in on them as they sleep soundly and peacefully and in that heartbeat, you can’t help but hope that they will always be this happy.
As parents, no matter how different we are, we all want the same things for our children. We hope that they will grow up to be happy, healthy, and successful. These seem like simple enough ambitions for our children right? Who doesn’t want that for their little ones?
The challenge that parents often face is knowing exactly what they need to give their children to enable them to grow to be healthy, happy, and successful.
We know instinctively that what worked for our parents will not necessarily work for us as parents because our children are growing up in a very different world to the one we experienced as children. And their futures look very different too.
In the past, for most people success lay in one’s ability to follow instructions, to complete given tasks well and on time. And so parents and educators focused their efforts mainly on teaching children the skills that would see them grow into employable adults because, although money is not everything in life, we know that financial stability is key to being able to live healthily and with less worry.
Today, we are living in an environment of constant change and according to some estimates, 85% of children will eventually grow up to work in jobs that do not even exist today.
As this article in Today’s Parent explains, familiar careers like those of lawyers and teachers will change radically meaning that future workers will need to retrain five times during their working life.
Our parents and grandparents did the best they could, with the knowledge they had. As parents ourselves, we know that the parenting styles of the past, which encouraged compliance above all else, will not help our children today.
They simply do not equip children with the skills they will need.
As they reach adulthood, our children will need to be problem solvers, innovators.
They will need to be able to think ahead, to ensure that they can thrive in their chosen field.
So how do we prepare our children for this uncertain future? How do we teach problem solving? Empathy? Creativity?
It seems like a daunting task, doesn’t it?
But don’t worry, because there is a simple way to teach your children all these skills. It is the same method used by our ancient ancestors who relied on oral storytelling to pass their wisdom on from one generation to the next.
When we harness the power of consciously sharing stories in our families, we encourage our children to experience the world from many different perspectives.
Stories help children, experiment and take risks in a very safe environment because the events in the tale do not impact them in real life.
Stories invite children to think about the challenges faced by the characters, perhaps think of other ways they could have solved their problems.
Does this sound like something you would like to try in your own family?
On Tuesday 19th May, I will be giving the second of two free classes on how you can combine stories and play in order to achieve the best benefits for your children. (If you missed Tuesday’s class, don’t worry just hop on over to our Facebook Group to watch the replay).
During these classes you receive:
- Clarity on the different types of play that exist.
- Clarity on the type of play that your child enjoys and learns from most instinctively but which you may have forgotten how to have fun with because most adults are boring…sorry, truth hurts
- Simple stories and story activities for each type of play.
- An opportunity to receive direct coaching from me!
I look forward to hearing from you soon!
