Most of us [or should we say], all of us would have watched the movie 3 Idiots. There was a very interesting dialogue at the end of the movie where Aamir Khan advises Madhavan on why he should ‘pursue’ his dreams to become a wild-life photographer. I had a friend in my engineering college who was very good in Drama and very active in all the cultural festivals. He was a good student but after he passed out of engineering, he went on to pursue his dreams. He went on to become a Film Director [More about Jayprad Desai here]
Well, this is one a one-off scenario and we come across such stories where engineers pursue career in entertainment, Doctors become singers/reality TV stars, Bankers become Best-Selling Authors and many more… Divergence in the career path could either be ‘Imposition of Parental Pressure’ or ‘Late Self-Realization’. Many times, my wife Janukin [who is a passionate teacher] & myself have discussions over tea about her students, interaction she has with parents, her student’s likes & dislikes, their aspirations. One ‘common’ thing that we realized is that kids have varied interests which they would like to pursue as their career and they require their parent’s support & guidance in order to fulfill their dreams !! In a nutshell, Children have innumerable career options, thus parents need to be prepared for their decision and should Do their Homework
An interesting experiment titled ‘Do Your Homework‘ [#DoYourHomework] was conducted at multiple sites namely Crossword & KidZania. It was initiated with a group of parents and their children. Children were asked to draw a picture of what they would like to become in future while parents were asked to paint what they would like their children to become in future. They were told not to interact with each other during the course of the activity.
Two important things that can be learnt from the video are a) Children today want to follow their passion & areas of interest b) Parent’s role is to be prepared to fulfill their children’s aspirations.
There are tons of resources freely available for parents like ‘The Homework App‘ to ensure that they are on the same page as their kids about their future. The calculator feature would keep them informed about the education expenses and help them be ‘Financially’ prepared.
As they say ‘Learning should be fun’ and what better way than to make it Visual. There are books curated to inspire the children to explore the various careers by way of reading short stories on various professions, trying their hand with coloring or solving crossword puzzles on various professions. This could be a ‘Litmus Test’ for parents to know their kid’s interest.
As mentioned earlier, parents need to be emotionally & financially prepared to support their child’s education, hence it becomes very important to invest wisely. If you are a ‘Risk-Averse’ investor, you definitely have an option to invest in ELSS tax saving instrument and cut down your taxes paid. Do have a look at investor education awareness campaign, Save Less & Share More 🙂
As the legendary Steve Jobs said
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
