Competing in a global world

[Jinsei]

I have read a number of posts recently about how much more competitive the world has become, and the importance of preparing our kids to thrive and succeed in the global market. I don't doubt the truth of this, but I'm curious to know what people think will help the next generation to compete.

For me, this means focusing on the soft skills such as communication, teamwork and people skills, in addition to the more traditional qualifications etc. Cultural awareness and language skills are also important in my view. And IT literacy is another obvious one.

But I'd like to know what others think. What skills and competencies do you think your kids are going to need in order to succeed in their future careers. And do you do anything to help them acquire/develop these skills? If so, what?

I know families whose DC are destined for careers in the arts because absolutely every single last member of their family and all their family friends work in the arts - everyone can sing, dance, play multiple instruments, paints, acts etc all the time. I don't think that normal suburban or provincial families doing routine work really prepare DC for that kind of life...

Bonsoir
That just doesn't make sense. Take sport. Manchester United don't automatically offer places on their first team to the offspring of former players. David Beckham's sons may or may not be talented footballers but nobody would dream of giving them a place in the Manchester United squad based only on their parentage.

Manchester United knows it makes no sense to choose from a limited pool of kids who parents and aunties and uncles are in the same field.

I accept that the arts might work in the way you describe but it really is not rational at all. And the big money spinning businesses would never be so biased.

I don't think sport works in the same way at all. You don't live in a house full of sports fields and teams in the way that artists live in homes full of instruments, singing, painting etc.

Parents have a big influence. The reason my children have their music scholarships and loads of grade 8s is purely because everyone in the family is terribly musical. It's not chance at all. If instead I were into painting they might be too (Brian Sewell recently in the press said his mother used to take him to stare at particular paintings).

Many many children choose their parents' careers. It might be really boring but it does tend to happen. The baker's son becomes a baker. The teacher's child teaches etc etc.

However in terms of recruitment companies want the best so they try to ensure the pool from which they recruit is wide enough. Those recruiting too narrowly lose good people.

@Xenia I'm certainly not being snobby about the professions - and most definitely not about my own profession - but I can see the way the wind is blowing and I can see that 'playing the game' is no longer a safe, risk averse route to security. There is no job security any more. And the roles people play in some of the traditional professions, and most certainly in mine, are changing all the time. My role, niche, call it what you want, simply did not exist when I began training. In a very real sense I have defined what I do (and what the other people like me do) from the outset, but that is just a tremendous coincidence, which may yet be unpicked by M. Barnier and his colleagues. The reasons why I and my colleagues aren't encouraging our children to follow in our footsteps is probably primarily because we are all pretty risk averse and to do what we did is no longer the risk averse thing to do. And to be honest, if you are creative or artistic and you are going to be taking risks anyway then you might as well take risks doing something you love rather than following a corporate life.

Some friends of ours built a house recently and their basement is just one huge soundproofed music room and a huge dance studio, because that's what the parents love. Their DCs are all music and stage mad (and very, very good) - it's hardly coincidence.

@Bonsoir I know a lot of arty people whose families are just as you describe. However I also know a lot of people who are very successful in what we can loosely term the arts whose parents were things like vicars, businessmen, policemen, etc. The most successful people I know had parents like that. Now, I accept that my circle of acquaintance is skewed due to two factors - the uni I went to, and a particular hobby/interest which was geeky and embarrassing in the 80s but has proved very very useful for several of my friends from that time in getting into writing, production, directing, music, etc. But all of these people had ordinary backgrounds, so clearly it can be done.

greythorne I think there is quite a bit of evidence that sportspeople tend to breed sports people.

I think it's not about nepotism and more about environment. If your DC are brought up in a certain way, surrounded by certain things, those things become part an dparcel of their lives. It all seems natural and doable.

My Dc think it's perfectly normal that we have a photography studio, that their DF plays sax in a band and they see their Mum's books on the shelves in WHSmiths.

Crikey, I hope kids don't have to compete in this brave new world some of you describe. There is so much pressure on your children - the path to madness lies that way.

Our communities need people who have a social conscience and an interest in them and their inhabitants. Not people who are solely concerned with highly renumerated careers in business/arts. This thread is so unbelievably elitist.

I quite accept that being good at sport or art or journalism or anything else is in part inherited and in part environmentally encouraged. But saying that the person who gets the job organising the Royal Ballet Company's travel arrangements should be someone whose mother was once a member of the corps de ballet above anybody else who might be perfectly well suited, tempermentally and by experience, is unfair and should not be encouraged.

Well fizzy I have been poor and I have been rich, and I can tell you which one was the most stressful.

Why can't our DC make plenty of cahs and be commnunity minded? Did I miss the memo?

FL, that is why your family and you will not be in those high earning careerse. That's fine. No one says you have to. Some people on this thread though want to and enjoy being in that world and perhaps want it for our children. It's just a choice really. Actually if you earn a lot you tend to set up your own charities in Africa or whatever and give a lot back. If you can hardly make ends meet it is much hard ero follow social conscience and do good. In fact may be I am making out a case for women to earn a lot so they can do more good on the planet.. nice idea.

Elitism rules.. literally, laughing as I type. Long may it be so.

Me too wordfactory but the other way round when my family business went bust. I am not rich now and I, too, am happy as are my poor monoglot children (although one is brilliant at a particular sport which has nothing to do with her gene pool!). And I am guessing we have differing ideas of community mindedness.

Perhaps this isn't the thread for me [grimace]

Fizzy - re your criticism about this thread being so elitist, I would have thought that the subject line would have told you what to expect. It's only doing what it says on the tin.

Whilst I am not so naive as to think this doesn't happen, the Daily Mail most people are with me and think it shouldn'thappen.

Alistair Campbell's son gets Labour job ...and in this instance, you could well argue his background wouldhelp him do the job!

And for balance here are the Tories at it, too.

Elitism at the expense of talent really does no good to anyone. Yes, money opens up more doors and frees up time but really Xenia!

I was just joking but there is a serious point. Lots of people have and always willh ave low expectations. Their children dont' achuieve much. They don't do their sport. If they don't want to bother practising the piano or want to give up any GCSE which is hard their parent lets them because "all I want if for them to be happy" (ie I am a lazy parent who cannot be bothered to supervised music, sport or homework etc)./ The more parents like that with low expectations the easier it is for those of us with children with high expectations.

I know Poosh!

Xenia that's absurd and insulting! set up your own charities in Africa or whatever I am interested in redistribution of wealth on the wrong thread and am going to hide it after a long day at the coal face (social worker).

that should have read redistribution of wealth but there is nothing wrong with saying it again

Fizzy I think you should reread this thread. You will find most of us have been saying that we need our children to have a strong work ethic, find what they love and make a career out of it, and be prepared to do grunt work. I don't think this is elitist at all. The reality is that most of the 2nd and 3rd world have caught up or are catching up rapidly.

Meta I totally agree with you. The turnover is far too high and it is harming the industry.

I am a lazy parent. :( When my DD1 told me at about 8 that she definitely wanted to do the 11+ for the superselective in our county, I said that was fine, but 'you do realise you're on your own love, though, right? I'm not going to be tutoring you or anything. Or even forcing you to do your homework. Your plan? Your responsibility'. In my own defence I was having a bad day. However I have never been allowed to forget that by any of the DCs and actually, it's now our motto. They want to do something? They do it. I'm happy to pay for their music lessons for example (well, I say happy. Prepared. Grudgingly). But I'm not sitting with the older two while they practice (the little one is still little enough to do that), or chasing them to make sure they do it. They practice, I carry on paying for the lessons. They don't? I don't. They know I mean it. They do their thing. As a system, it seems to work.

I think it's just the way of the world that the things that DCs are exposed to in childhood will in all probability develop them on dimensions that may give them an edge in later life. A couple of hours of music/art/theatre class a week at school will never provide the same opportunities for development that passionate parents and wider family can offer. Of course, if a child is truly talented and truly motivated there are opportunities, especially in large cities, to develop musically, artistically and so on. But parental investment is key. Greythorne - what you are doing yourself about your DCs' bilingualism? It's exactly the same issue.

Fizzy I take my hat off to you for being a social worker. I represented children the care system in my old life and I met many a social worker who I respected.

However, sorry, but there is no way I would want that life for my DC.

It is hard hard work, often a thankless task, badly organised form above, ill resourced (and likely to become even more so), ill regarded by the public, often dangerous, and yes, badly paid too!

I'm glad you want to do it, but if I could steer my DC away from it, I would.

Also, I really question how anyone is meant to have any meaningful impact on the redistribution of wealth (if that's what floats your boat) from postions like that. If you want to make a serious impact, you need to get involved in politics. At a high level. And frankly, if you want to get involved in say, the Labour Party, you will need a degree in PPE from Oxbridge. Then you will need to intern. Then you will need to get a position as a researcher or assistant to an MP. Les Millibands, Copper, Balls et al wnet down this route (Cooper with a scholarship to the states too)...

The very best thing you can do for others is to give them a job...

I agree with this:
"I think you should reread this thread. You will find most of us have been saying that we need our children to have a strong work ethic, find what they love and make a career out of it, and be prepared to do grunt work. I don't think this is elitist at all. The reality is that most of the 2nd and 3rd world have caught up or are catching up rapidly."

Yes, that is all. It was found that it takes about 10,000 hours to become good at most things. Bill Gates did 10,000 of hours programming + in his teens. The Beatles did 10,000 hours playing 6 or 7 hour shifts in German night clubs. I did a lot of reading/study and music practice in my teens. Countries with a strong work ethic tend to do better than others that don't have one and ditto families too.

(On music supervision I like it because I like to play the pinao to them so I would probably see it now they are better at it as my own pleasure..which is why the pieces which they do which are accompanied tend to be those we do most. Busy successful happy working mothers giving a good example to children of how to thrive internationally tend not to be too "helicopter" although they may be Tiger in their expectations)

Yes, giving others jobs certainly helps them. A 20 year old writes in today's Times about not having a job. She left school at 16 and just wanted practical work cooking and even the school subjects for cookery were practical - they only practically cooked three times at school. She also somewhat sadly says she is in meetings in a voluntary thing and does not understand the big words used. This is another issue.By age 3 in the UK children of educated parents have heard many many more words and know them. Some of my children who seem to have perfected the art of doing as little as possible and getting by (pity there is no PhD in that) seem almost by osmosis to know things, words used I suppose, ideas discussed just because they were in this house and not that of some other children in their class,. So I suppose talk to children, let them be there when you talk to others in the house about interesting issues, encourage a wide vocabulary. I am not sure I would encourage them to marry someone from another country because on divorce so often it means you lose your children so quite a risk. The children get shipped back to Saudi or japan and you never see them again.