How much careers/school choices guidance do you give your teens?

[Brac]

DD is 13 and in year 8 and looking at options for the first time. At her school they make some choices about what they study in year 9 to give them a chance to do some subjects in depth before they make final GCSE choices.

They don’t have a great deal of freedom and none of the choices they do make has any effect on what they can or can’t do for GCSE, but it’s start of thinking about where she wants to do in the future. Her class also got into a chat with one teacher about 6th form/college etc.

So far she has been a complete all rounder, but she has a particular interest in art. Well, digital art specifically. She wants to be a character designer, and spends hours on procreate. Her school is a specialist science school so she is already talking about wanting to go somewhere else after GCSE.

I have no idea how much I/we should be pushing her one way or another or at all. The art thing isn’t exactly a fad, but she’s never been interested in learning about art, though she has clearly developed her own skills over the last couple of years.

She talks as if art is going to be her life. Which it may well be! But, you know, she’s 13. Should I be encouraging her academic side? She’s a good student, she could do anything she wanted at this stage.

I haven’t got a clue how to guide her. I didn’t figure out what I wanted to be until I hit my thirties…

Don’t push her. She has interests and skills- encourage her to develop those along with her core subjects to give her choices.
Explore possibilities with her. Get her to show you all about her interests and support/ encourage with visits/ experiences.
Seek opportunities. Jobs she will do don't even exist yet.

I’m always interested in what she’s doing, but have no idea about visits/experiences. She’s not interested in museums/galleries. She watches you tube tutorials.

You definitely shouldn’t be pushing her in any direction! IMVHO.

Your job is surely to encourage and enable all legitimate interests (even if short-lived) while at the same time ensuring she understands she’ll have the widest options, and the best chance of success in adult life, if she works hard at all her subjects right now.

Does she have access to relatives, friends or colleagues of yours with interesting / successful careers? Particularly in areas related to art, but other things as well?

It’s still a while until she leaves school, but there’s no harm in taking an initial look with her at degrees and apprenticeships in various things - to see which academic pathways / A’ levels / whatever might be most helpful.

It’s a leap in the dark. The best careers advisors acknowledge that many of the jobs your daughter might be doing at 30 probably don’t exist yet …

Good lord! thesandwich said everything more succinctly while I was slowly tapping keys.

Your job as a parent is not to persuade them in one direction ro another, but encourage them to a) do their best and b) keep viable options open, not shut anything down.

She may very well have a career in digtal art, it is a growing area. No time developing in the creative subjects is ever wasted, as it makes you stronger in all other apects of life.

So just try to encourage her generally and be excited if she does anything in her spare time. Regarding vists etc. - have a look for exhibitions of digital art perhaps?

When DD did her options last year (Y9) we encouraged her to go for a well rounded GCSE instead of putting herself fully into the creative drama and photography side.

While both are great choices we personally found it would limit her too much going forward.

We talked long and explained that both can be done outside school, it’s never too late to learn photography as a hobby at one point. For us it was more important to let her explore other areas and she decided on sociology which she discovered she absolutely loves.

A parent shouldn’t restrict but we do have more experience and should give advice. I would have agreed DD’s decision if she would have chosen her original ideas but I am glad she listened.

@TottersBlankly😉 thank you!

She only has limited choice at GCSE even, 6 of her subjects are fixed, with another slot taken by Geography or History. I think she only has two other choices? Is 9 or 10 subjects standard? So one choice is def art. If she wants to do drama or music as her last choice I still think that’s pretty rounded.

My Ds recently picked his GCSE choices. I played a big role in helping him choose in terms of giving him my advice. I really encouraged him to go with his strengths and interests. Growing up I got no guidance and ended up doing things I thought I should do rather than playing to my strengths. Disaster.

Ds and I had long chats weighing up pros and cons of everything.

I can’t even remember how I chose my GCSEs! I did sciences for A-level so I guess if I was on that route it didn’t matter too much what my other choices were.

@Brac

She only has limited choice at GCSE even, 6 of her subjects are fixed, with another slot taken by Geography or History. I think she only has two other choices? Is 9 or 10 subjects standard? So one choice is def art. If she wants to do drama or music as her last choice I still think that’s pretty rounded.

Same here, DD had only two actual choices, everything else was fixed. I prefer it as I think it's too early to narrow the field too much.

It may be worth looking at the various 6th form admission guidelines (they can obviously change). Friends found out that their DD could only do one science A-level as she only does combined science for GCSE while DD doesn't have these restrictions at her school or at the one for 6th form she also considers.