Asking a child about his or her dream job in the future is common at family gatherings and reunions. While this question is often asked by well-meaning relatives and close family friends, some parents might be disinclined to engage their young children in the serious topic surrounding career choices. After all, there is plenty of time and opportunities in the near future for them to start exploring.
What few people realise, however, is that children are highly observant. They are, at all times, noticing patterns, taking in information and trying to make sense of the world around them. They observe adults doing work and therefore conceive ideas about the requirements of different types of jobs. Certainly, young children base this understanding on imagination and fantasy, and might even come up with whimsical explanations to how one can enter into certain jobs. Thus, they need guidance from parents and educators to facilitate their understanding of how people prepare themselves for the jobs they desire. There are a few approaches that parents can take to start their children on a path of exploration of their future careers.
Talk About The Steps Needed To Land The Dream Job
Parents can use goal-setting to encourage their children to achieve milestones along the route to land the desired job. For example, if a child wants to be a doctor, it is essential for him or her to excel in Biology in the secondary and pre-university levels. Most definitely, the child should display a strong interest in Science at the primary levels. Achieving stellar results in the subject is vital and the child can achieve this aim by having extra practices with assessment books dealing with challenging Singapore PSLE Science questions. The process of goal-setting will allow the child to acquire a deeper understanding of the prerequisites of the career.
Create Opportunities For Exposure
One of the best ways to acquire a more thorough insight of a job is to watch someone doing that job. For example, if a child wants to be a teacher, parents can prompt the child to tell them his or her thoughts on the requirements of the job, as well as personality traits that are suitable for this job. By observing different teachers in school, the child will be able to form a perception of the challenges of the job as well as the prerequisites needed to join the teaching force. A subject teacher must be proficient in teaching the subject and be capable of communicating concepts coherently. On top of that, patience is vital. A child who expresses an interest in teaching can gain a deeper appreciation of the job perhaps by peer-tutoring his or her friends. By making use of resources such as top school papers to tutor a peer, the child can discover his or her strengths and also hone the necessary skills in the process.
Encourage Curiosity
Parents can pique the interest of their child in a particular profession by posing questions that allow the child to ponder hard. The curious child explores, learning more about the various aspects of the job guided by parents or trusted adults. For example, jobs in the engineering and financial sectors rely heavily on Mathematics. A child may wish to be a civil engineer in the future, playing a part in building skyscrapers. Parents can pose questions like, “What decisions do engineers have to make?” and “What are the things do you think they enjoy in their job?”. At the same time, parents need to remind the child that he or she must excel in subjects like Science and Mathematics to be able to enter the profession. Hence, a strong foundation in the subjects from young is necessary. Taking reference from free test papers, we can observe that there are many questions that have real world applications. These questions are a requirement of the syllabus in order to allow students to apply concepts to real life situations. In the PSLE, students are required to solve a variety of Primary 6 Maths questions that test mathematical concepts, as well as their applications. Parents can also relate such questions to the career choices of their children whenever possible.