Role Of Parents In Children's Choice Of Careers

 Parents play a significant role in shaping their children's career choices, influencing their decisions through guidance, support, and exposure to various opportunities. In tandem with John Bowlby's and Mary Ainsworth's  Mother-Child Attachment Theory, from the early age, children look up to their parents for survival and role modeling. As they proceed to the teenage and adolescence stages of development, they still believe that their parents' values, interests, and experiences are enough to shape and guide their career choices and aspirations, little-knowing that their parents may advise them wrongly, though candidly unknowingly. Parents can have a long-term impact on their children's career choices by providing them with opportunities to explore different fields, encouraging them to pursue their passions, offering guidance and support as they navigate their career decision-making processes.

One of the foremost ways parents can influence their children's career choices is by exposing them to various experiences and opportunities. For example, parents who take their children to their working places or involves them in projects and activities related to their professions can assess their children's interests in their professions. They may begin to understand whether their children have interest in any department of their professions or not. Similarly, parents who engage their children in extracurricular activities, such as sports, music, or art, can help them discover their talents and passions. By providing children with a range of experiences, parents can help them develop a sense of what they enjoy doing and what they are good at, which can inform their career choices. Parents can also play a critical role in shaping their children's career aspirations by offering guidance and support. This can involve having open and honest conversations with their children about their interests, academic strengths and weaknesses, and helping them explore different career options. Parents can also provide valuable insights and advices based on their experiences, helping their children navigate the ups and downs inherent in their chosen career paths. For example, a parent who has experience in a particular industry can offer guidance on what to expect, how to break into the field, and how to succeed in that field.

Besides the provision of guidance and support, parents can also influence their children's career choices by modeling certain values and behaviours. For example, parents who prioritize work-life balance, creativity, or social responsibility can instill these values into their children, shaping their new career aspirations and choices. In the same way, parents who demonstrate a passion for learning and professional development can encourage their children to pursue ongoing education and training programmes, helping them stay adaptable and competitive in the job market. Examples of parental influence on career choices can be clearly seen in many ways. For example, a child whose parents are both medical doctors may be more likely to pursue a career in medicine. There are families in Nigeria, for example, where there are six (6) medical doctors--pediatrician, gynaecologist, surgeon, and others. There are families in Nigeria too that have over six lawyers (with some attaining the lofty Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, status). In some families, almost all of them are accountants. In the same vein, a child whose parents are renowned and successful entrepreneurs may be more likely to start up his/ her own businesses right early. In all of these cases, the parents' experiences, values, and guidance will characteristically come into application to shape their children's career choices and aspirations. Having said that, there are exceptional cases whereby parents may totally object to their children's new areas of interests and specializations. They seem to tie their children to their aprons even at the point of choice of careers. Some parents may have germaine reasons for not allowing their children to follow a particular path of careers even when they (parents) had distinguishuished themselves in such professions. Professional musicians may not want their children to go into the music industry as full-time careers. But, if the child chooses to do it, so be it. 

Professional footballers, politicians, engineers, diplomats, and academicians may want their children to choose their careers, if they like to do so. But, I am not convinced in my heart that professional boxers and armoured tank operators spearheading heavy artilleries in the battle-fields would advise their children to toe their paths of careers due to the high risks associated with those careers. One mistake that parents always make, particularly illiterate parents, is that, they want their children to become medical doctors, civil and mechanical engineers, pilots, lawyers, charterd accountants, geologists and petrochemical engineers, just because they know that such people are usually rich. They do not always care a hoot to know if their children are inclined to the subjects which are prerequisites for the study of such lofty courses or not. Just because parents have close friends whose sons or daughters belong to the above mentioned categories, they want their own children to be like them too. They always forget that their own children can become more important figures than their friends' children if allowed to choose their own careers by themselves! The way and manner most parents go about their children's choice of careers is nothing short of imposition, slavery, and bondage. Yes, you too know it very well. First of all, ask your son or daughter what he/ she wants to study in the university or tertiary institutions. Give the child a chance to answer you. Let the child defend it by himself or herself. Find out the root causes of that choice. Does it have an appendage or colouration to wealth acquisition, interest, or desire to serve humanity? Is that intended choice of career associated with your child's peers' choice of careers? 

Does your child want to study Course A because his/ her close friends are studying it? As a parent, after knowing these facts from your child, you should be able to proffer the right advices. Find out your child's best subjects. In fact, this is where the right choice of career should begin. Reason: an art-inclined student should be considering courses like Law and Sociology and not Gynaecology and Pharmacy. Wrong choice of careers is very common today. Your child does not need to be another person. Another person cannot be your child. Everybody should be himself/ herself. If parents use veto decisions, coercions, or third degrees to impose wrong careers on their children, their children may end up not becoming anything in this life. They were forcefully made what they were not. So many students on the university campuses across the world, are studying courses they do not have interest in. It is either their parents persuaded them to do them, or it could be peers' influence, or they just wanted to be admitted into the universities like other students. How do you expect a student who hardly scores 30% in Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics to study Gynaecology, Civil Engineering, Piloting, and Aeronautical Engineering, and come out with flying colours? 

How can a student who cannot easily solve linear equations or simple algebraic problems study Piloting or Aeronautical Engineering where the knowledge of Calculus, Solids of Revolution, Kinematics, Areas Under A Curve, and others is compulsory? Students should not allow parents and caregivers to make choices of careers for them any longer. They must not impose any course or career on you. Tell them, "No!" Do not quarrel with them. But, be firm. Parents should stop afflicting their children in the name of choice of careers. It should not be so. I see it as nothing but bondage and slavery in disguise. Wrong choice of careers leads to inefficiency, incompetence, and it constitutes high risk to life. I once met one highly-paid engineer in one big construction company in Nigeria who told me that he hated his engineering profession. He said that he had no joy doing that job at all, whereas others were queuing outside the company under the debilitating and unfriendly effects of the Sun with their applications and Curriculum Vitae (CV) to be given that job which the engineer hated. Why do medical doctors forget 6 inches long scissors, napkins, and blades in the stomach of patients after surgery? Why are storey buildings collapsing everywhere today? Why are aeroplanes crashing midair from time to time in our age? There was a time Nigeria had two air crashes in two days successive days. Was that an evidence of competence and efficiency in Nigeria's aviation industry? Why are pharmacists manufacturing poisons all over the world today? Why are the bridges collapsing right in our eyes? 

Road constructions works today lack quality, standard, and longevity. Instead of the usual 18 inches thickness from underneath to the ground surface level where bitumen is finally applied, construction companies now go for only 6 inches thickness, and we accept it as a norm, standard, and quality. Some roads' thicknesses are even much smaller than 6 inches thickness because the construction companies want to maximize profit at the expense of competence and efficiency. After little rainfalls, weathering takes place to erode off the surface of the roads. The list of these incompetences are endless. What caused them? They were caused by poor standard of education, wrong career choices, greed, lack of values and empathy. Wrong career choices breeds the square pegs in round holes. These are the half-baked professionals. They were in school, but not educated. They passed through their courses, but their courses did not pass through them. They acquired the head knowledge of their courses, and the not skills and dexterity. They know the theory, and not the practical aspects of their chosen careers. 

In summary, while parents cannot dictate their children's choice of careers, they can provide valuable guidance, support, and exposure to various opportunities. Let parents critically assess their children's academic strengths and interests first before advising them on choice of careers. Children's choice of careers should hinge on their academic abilities and interests only, and not on unrealistic external inducements and persuasions. Parents should stop this indiscriminate imposition of careers on their children. Children should strictly choose careers they are able to cope with. Children should only study courses that they have interest in, and which they can defend. If not, the wrong career choices will definitely prepare them for a future of regret, disappointment, and failures. According to the picture in this post, 60% of working adults globally regretted their career choices. Do not let your children be like them. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. 

Please, kindly share this post with your friends and loved ones. Thank you very much.