Plans are there to fail still we need to plan all our work.

Planning A Child’s Career

8 Ways To Secure Your Child’s Future

Planning a child’s future is never an easy task, especially when we have more career options and more avenues to show one’s expertise. Today it’s not enough if our children are educated, they need to survive in the competition. They need to have skills that never fade out or they know when to acquire new skills.

For any profession we choose today, we need money to pursue the same. Also, it is not always that the child will like that profession in future, whatever we choose. S/He may completely take a different route to do something else. In earlier days Doctors/Engineers/CAs/MBAs were lucrative professions, but not anymore.

Nowadays there are many professions that are coming up are different, some of the older professions are changing for better or getting abolished. Keeping pace with the new generation and new challenges are not easy. Parents need to be well-informed today to guide their child the best. Many times even the educated parents can’t guide them properly due to lack of knowledge. Teachers/mentors come as a help to us.

Planning a good future for one’s child is every parent’s dream. However, the main concern that bothers everyone is money.

How Much Money Is Enough?

How much is too much? No one knows the answer. We earn money and plan according to what best we can do. Some of us save money in different schemes with the hope that when our child reaches different milestones in his / her life s/he gets the help of that money. But that money may not be enough.

So we need to understand that when no amount of money can be enough for a particular career option, we need to think differently. Money-saving becomes secondary to many other factors expressed below. and even though there are websites we still need to plan their future.

Here are a few pointers that you can follow to build your child’s career –

1. Give him different exposure

Give him exposure to different environments, different career options from the beginning. We really don’t know if he will be a Doctor, a Cricketer, a Musician, a Magician or an Entrepreneur. So he needs to be exposed to different environments from childhood to choose from. It does not mean he needs to pursue each one to understand what option he likes. This exposure means seeing these shows, attending such programs or meeting such people who excelled in these activities.

2. Evaluate his interests

As parents, it is your responsibility to understand what he likes, and what he doesn’t. We need to quickly move out of those options that he doesn’t like. You may take the help of professional and trained counsellors for that.  

I understand no child can distinguish between the good and the bad, but his interests will show up, at least to the experienced eyes. There are some necessary activities that one needs to learn about swimming or self-defence skills and a child needs to pursue that for long even if that doesn’t become his career option.

3.Balance his time

Childhood is most precious to all!

Once gone, it never comes back!!

In his childhood, apart from his required school time, study time and time for other daily activities, a child should enjoy his games time and that should be ample. Put him in a good playschool right from the age of 2 yrs. This is because there he mingles with other children and learns to socialize, create a network from childhood. This is the skill that takes us through bad times. Also, this is important in today’s nuclear families. He should also spend quality time with his family members so that he learns to love them, understand what a family is.

4. Make the basic skills very strong

This is very important as this will create one’s future. So no matter whether he wants to be a musician, or a doctor or a cricketer there are some basic skills that are very important. For example, conversation skills in English. This is because any global skill is recognized by one’s English speaking ability. No matter whether one is cricketer or musician one needs to be good in English. As we live in India, knowledge of Hindi language is also important. In fact, in today’s world knowledge of a few languages is always helpful. Foreign languages like German, French, Japanese etc may also help.

Similarly body fitness. Anybody will be successful in future if one is physically fit, without any kind of illness. A healthy body is a primary need for a healthy and sound mind.

There are some other skills, like cycling, driving, painting, swimming and public speaking skills that are very important. Any professional can be very much successful with these skills. So training on all these skills should be on a child’s daily chart. Compulsory.

5. Monitor his progress

It is also important that we monitor his progress in all basic parameters while he grows an affinity for any particular career. This may happen only after he attains a certain age. Give importance and priority to his views. Reason out the odd ones but if his decision doesn’t change, go with that.

6. Take him to places

The only reason I will do this is real-life experience make our experience better, memorable. When we travel to different places, meet different people, see different cultures we start respecting those cultures. In future, it makes our life easier as we live in a globalized world today. This will make sure we don’t get a cultural shock in future and work in a better way to accomplish our goals.

While you take him to different places, it is very important to explore different things in that new place. In this way, a child’s life will be fun, adventurous and full of learning. He will start loving his life and his family too. He will be a better fit for the world.

7. Learning is fun

Learning can be fun for both the teacher and the student. And that is what we need to follow. While I understand that it is not possible to make one expert of everything but knowledge never goes waste. Since you can’t depend on any premonition of a child’s future or force anything on a child, you need to be very careful about his career choice. Let him take part in everything and if you find any natural choice for him, let him pursue that, if not it will grow gradually.

In fact, if we can concentrate on making one’s basic areas stronger and make one a better person to take on tough competition in future, one will be a successful individual. And for that, don’t pressurize him to stand first in his class. The race of life never ends at being first in class, it is much bigger.

Learning is made fun today, thanks to many edutainment channels and we really don’t need to name them. All kinds of interactive channels and programs bring quality education to our doorstep. Even fun programs can be so much learning. The Internet is another media that is never-ending. Only we need to remember that there is a world beyond chatting and social networking sites.

8. Acknowledge he is an adult when it is time

Anything forced upon one child cannot be successful. So when he becomes 16, respect his decision to pursue a career. Seek an opinion from other knowledgeable people like his teachers, but his choice should get a preference.

His preference needs priority because when he pursues a career that he loves, he gives his best into it. When he gives best into anything he is supposed to get the best results out of it. But parents also need to upgrade their skills and learn more about that subject or at least be so much knowledge that they can help a child in selecting the right future.

So, provide a strong base for him, a base on which he can build his future. Everything else will fall into place.