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simple question for you:
why is this so important to you?
can you see how this is about you getting your needs/wants/desires met, instead of what the needs of a child are?
with your darling wonderful 8-year old child, consider these instead:
love, encourage, nurture, take delight in, play, explore, listen to
It's important to me because I do love her and want her to have fun while developing skills along the way. I simply want her to understand the possibilities that exist.
We constantly play and we have blast doing so. She's so excited to play tennis with me this weekend and is so sure she will beat me. We will see about that.
If I see she's naturally good at something and enjoys it, I'd like to encourage her to pursue it, especially if it can benefit her in the future. This isn't about me. This is about her.
Illusive Man, a great piece of advice a friend's grandmother gave us all was "eat a colorful plate".
And that means both food, and life. If you're eating a colorful plate, it's healthy. Bright green, orange, yellow, brown.
But the deeper meaning is do a lot of stuff in your life. Pick this, and that, and that, and that, and try out them all. Have a little taste of everything.
If you pick 3 or 4 things when she's 8 and try to force her to concentrate on them (your original list was exceptionally limiting, actually, virtually no one is a career gymnast and certainly if she isn't an accomplished gymnast by her age it's out of the question).
The people who are the happiest, who live the most dynamic lives, are open to doing new stuff all the time and they don't focus on something from the age of 8 unless THEY are the ones who focus themselves on that. Unless THEY are driving that bus, and not their dad.
Can I suggest you role model sticking with things you are interested in, and leave it at that?
I'm a firm believer that our God-given talent is embedded in us from the beginning. She sounds bold and fearless. Foster that. Protect her but allow her to take risks. There are many careers out there that she's unaware of. Have fun!
Is it wise to try and push your child towards a career path as early as 8? It seems people who are successful knew exactly what they wanted to do when they were young.
I'd like to help my daughter figure out a career path now. I've asked her to name 5 jobs/careers she'd like to have. Here's what she chose:
With this info I plan on focusing completely on these 5 with classes, events, playing with her, camps, etc. Do you recommend focusing her on these 5 or exposing her to other possibilities as well? I don't want to mess with her focus.
Hold on there, pardner!
You should be asking yourself what she has NOT been exposed to yet that maybe she should be. Maybe she would choose professional violinist...if she had been exposed to classical music. Maybe she would choose to be a lawyer, if she'd seen a couple of trials in person (you can go watch trials at the courthouse). Maybe she'd want to be a forensic scientist...one who has a specialty in science and uses that for evidentiary purposes.
I've noticed that many people did indeed have an infinity if not a plan for going into a specific field, when they were kids. BUT...they had been introduced to those fields.
Would Michael Phelps have become an Olympic swimmer, if his family hadn't introduced him to swimming? Imagine what he would have done, if his family hadn't introduced him to swimming (other than splashing around or playing volleyball in a pool).
What would ice skaters have done, if their families hadn't given them lessons in ice skating? Would their natural talent have been easily used for something else? Or would they have missed out on knowing that they had a special talent for ice skating?
Would she choose to be a writer, if she knew more about how writers got their start, how they came up with their stories, and the like? Like J K Rowling's incredible story? Agatha Christie started writing mysteries because she was an avid reader of them first. Imagine Christie having not been an avid reader of mysteries in the first place. She may never have become an author herself.
Most people do not know what they want to be when they "grow up." The people that do know from an early age AND have a natural aptitude for what they want to do are often successful. You can't force that. I believe that is pretty rare.
My aunt was into art from an early age. She had a natural aptitude that her parents recognized and was taking art lessons with professionals before she was 12. She has had a very successful career in graphic design for 30 years. All the art lessons in the world would not have helped me...lol
Kids need to be well rounded and should have the opportunity to do a lot of activities -- just for fun. If they have a natural talent it will emerge quickly. My kid wanted to be a veterinarian with almost everyone else in her class in Kindergarten. Today she has zero interest in that.
Some of the choices on the list are just not very realistic.
DJ-Radio Personality is not a viable career path. Broadcast radio is a dying medium. There a lot of unemployed DJ's out there due to automation, syndication and the fact the there are two companies that own most of the radio stations in the country. Do some research. Not a stable career path at all.
Most Olympic gymnasts start taking classes in pre-school and are in serious training programs by the time they are 10. Most gymnasts peak at 14-15. Taking classes at your local gym a few days a week might be fun but highly doubtful it will lead to any kind of a career.
Clearly you love your daughter and want the best for her. Give her the opportunity to do lots of different things. Let her be a kid and her natural talents will emerge.
I think it's too early to worry about that. if she has a passion that might fit into a profession it's ok to nurture the knowledge. More than likely her chosen profession doesn't yet have a major in school today.
Of course, it's always good to set expectation from an early age that they need to figure out how to support themselves and also to understand that as a parent you need to help them work towards being self sufficient.
I just met a fellow who was fairly aimless and just worked at pizza shops for much of his adult life before meeting and getting mentored in a profession that he could not possibly have chosen at 9 years of age.
He finally graduated and is in a solid career path at 36.
It's much too early to encourage her to focus her energy on specific "interests" or fields that she's more or less pressured into with the hope it could turn into something more substantial or lucrative in the future. Allow her the ability to explore a variety of interests and fields if that's her interest. Her mind may change as she matures and interests expand.
My older two were very much into drawing and reading at a young age, and they showed promise and talent, but pushing classes and structured learning environments simply weren't necessary. I got them books, videos and they watched Youtube tutorials as they got older. My oldest knew at 8 that she wanted to be a video game developer and animator, and that remains her primary interest today, at 13. She attended a science conference last month and her favorite part was the neuroscience and computer science workshops. She's already looked up colleges with a comp sci - game development major. She's also a voracious reader of fantasy, sci-fi and dystopian novels (just finished Dune) and took on the NaNoWriMo challenge, and while she likely won't finish her first book this month, her goal is to finish her first manuscript by 9th grade. She likes tech, art and writing and finds ways to pursue both. Her interests developed early on and we've encouraged them along the way. We don't force or "strongly encourage" interests they aren't suited for or have no interest in and our support has more to do with fostering intrigue, growth, drive, and creativity than potential future employment.
My 11 year old has always loved animals and told us when she was 7 that she wanted to do something related to animals. She's also a talented artist and enjoys writing. She draws and writes about animals and wants to be a wildlife biologist. She's also really good at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and the fastest runner in her school, and we encourage those interests. Her current interest is sabre fencing. But really "career path" wasn't on our radar as they developed their interests and passions. They know what they like and have ideas about what they'd like to accomplish. If a child's or person's natural interests lead to a career, fantastic, but it shouldn't be forced, nor is "grooming" the right method.
Let her be a kid and explore. She'll figure out what she wants to do, career wise, as she matures.
I knew what I wanted to do from as far back as I can remember. My daughter too knew her future calling when she was about three. She even had the university picked out. To the point that we had to push her to at least look at and visit other universities just in case.
My son on the other hand has gone through I don't know how many choices and is only now settling into what he wants to study.
Both of them did several different sports, scouts, etc along the way as well. Both our kids, but two very different paths to where they are.
If your child wants to be a career gymnast or tennis player, you are going to need to drop some serious cash to get her caught up to where she already needs to be in order to compete with the kids who actually have the natural ability and are already in 15-20 hours of training a week (yes, at 8 years old). And she’ll need to pick one because there aren’t enough hours in the week to train for both. I have friends with their 8 year olds in gymnastics/dance/cheerleading that takes up almost all of their free time, costs a fortune and the reality is that none of them will probably make it. I have another friend who dropped close to $10k getting her 2 kids into professional singing and acting. Neither has had any paid jobs.
There’s nothing wrong with letting her take a few classes to have some fun and maybe learn some other skills like teamwork, dedication etc. Just don’t throw every resource you have into it until you are certain that this is really a worthwhile investment. Put your money into a college fund where it can be of some real use when she is old enough to know what she wants to do. Encourage her to try new things, expose her to different things, let her come to that decision when she has the maturity and knowledge to do so.
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