Give Your Child an Early Exposure to Careers Avenues

The best thing a parent can witness is watching their child become independent

“Education dislocates very many people from their natural talents.

Human resources are like natural resources. They are often buried deep. You have to go looking for them. They are not just lying down on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves. And you might imagine that education is the way it might happen. Unfortunately it is not.
– Sir Ken Robinson

Imagine the confusion you had while choosing a career. You might be graduated before 2020. With lots of career streams coming out, think of how much confusion today’s kids will have.

What’s the way out for them?

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

-Albert Einstein

We cannot expect schools to teach kids what career to choose. And kids won’t listen to parents. So, how to make them aware of the career avenues and opportunities available? How can we make them understand the importance of hard work? How can we make them an independent risk takers to discover their potential?

Well, one of the best ways is to expose them to what’s awaiting for them.

What if you gradually expose them to career avenues each year?

Summer vacations and long holidays is good time to give them a gist of each career.

Say on one vacation, you send them for a summer camp. On another vacation you send them to jungle trek. On yet another vacation, you take them to a trip.

While they do all of these, you question them about their learnings. You ask them to journal their experience.

In the book, Tools of Titans, author Tim Ferris shares his podcast summary of one of his guests – Chris Sacca, a Venture Capitalist and founder of Lowercase Capital.

Chris remembers his childhood times. He calls his vacation – Sweet and Sour Summers. Here is an interesting insight to learn – In the first half of the summers, Chris’s parents would send Chris and his brother to an internship with a relative or a friend of the family who had an interesting job – offices of lawyers, journalists, writers. And in the second half, they would go to do tough jobs – construction work, welding, fixing things, etc. The early job helped develop skills like confidence and storytelling. Chris says, “Our internships was part of a masterplan – there’s a world of cool opportunities out there for you, but let’s build within you a sense of not just work ethics, but also, a little kick in the ass about why you don’t wanna end up in one of those real jobs…”

In India, we rarely see this happen.

We restrict our children to sit at home. We give them ultimate freedom to sleep, eat, play video games, repeat. This leads to a habit of getting cheap dopamine. Kids get rewarded without putting effort. In real life, this don’t happen. We won’t get money without work. So why we let children free?

Instead, why not prepare them to show up strong in the world?

Here are probable ways in which you can nudge your children to become better citizens.

How to launch your kid for a thriving career

To flourish in life, your children need to earn. They need to become financially independent. To understand money, they will need to understand work. What if you give them an opportunity to work somewhere and learn about the business world?

As per the reports, only 0.2% of youngsters get exposure to internships and apprenticeship in India.

What if you promote/challenge your child to take up an internship?

Here’s what can they do:

• • They can do internships in a startup/company,
  • They can be an apprentice under a writer, content creator, videographer, fashion designer
  • They can be exposed to industry happenings through 10xTechClub

Let’s learn each in detail:

Why and How to expose your child to a startup culture

Unlike business, a startup is something that comes up with an innovative product that does not exist yet.

Opening up a chat stall is not a startup

Opening up a grocery store is not a startup

Starting a construction business is not a startup

These businesses exists

But

• • Starting an ice-cream outlet with a Pani Puri flavored ice cream is a startup – See Kiga Ice Cream
  • Starting a zero waste grocery store is a startup – See Adrish
  • Starting a co-working café is a startup – See Mauji Café

These are innovative ideas that never existed. There was a risk in trying out these ideas and now they are up and running. That’s the success startup.

Working at a startup benefits you child in two ways.

1. 1. She learns about how a typical business work
   2. She learns about how innovative products are built

Innovation need not to be something very big and fancy like a particle accelerator. Even small contribution like converting and selling recycled single plastic waste into bags. See https://www.ecokaari.org/

Now let’s learn how apprenticeship benefits your child.

An apprentice is someone who works under an expert at a minimal wage as a helper while learning the trade.

Think of Ryan Holiday, a successful author who writes extensive on stoicism.  Ryan was an apprentice under Robert Greene, a popular author in the domains of strategy, power, and seduction.

Being an apprentice lets your child understand the ins and outs of the trade first hand. He sees what it takes to be an expert.

You child could be interested in anything from photography to writing to fashion designing. If he really wants to check whether it is passion or just a fantasy, he can always try it out in the practical world. Just try and later he can decide whether to continue on his passion for the subject or look into another career field.

Finally, there is one more way, a hybrid one, that can expose your child to multiple career avenues. And that is – Trying it out.

We at 10xTechClub are pioneers in this domain.

In our experiential lab, we guide and mentor youngsters about emerging technologies. We do not teach them anything. We just nudge them to invoke their curiosity and let them find the answers.

Along with introducing your child to more than 15 technologies, we guide them in entrepreneurship, growth mindset, and design thinking. Over the span of 10 months, we equip them with the latest technology trends where they can set their foot into. This exposure benefits children in multiple ways

• • They make growth minded friends
  • They learn about career avenues
  • They learn entrepreneurship
  • They learn multiple skills including writing, public speaking, and innovation
  • They get real-time industry exposure through expert sessions and visits
  • They figure out their career trajectory and are prepared to face challenges

And the best thing is, we do this as a co-curricular.

How are you preparing your child for a bright career?

At our offline labs, we run cohorts for 11- 20 year learners. Our collaborative class integrates emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, growth mindset, and design thinking into each learning session.

  Join us for a fun and exciting demo session to see what we do. Register for a free demo class happening near you.