Promoting Self Discovery

Imagine an elemetry student trying to decide his future occupation? Do you think they will pick the right one for them at such a young age? The reality is that for many young children people are pushing them to try to plan out their options way too early. While planning for the future is very much important, promoting college and career planning to children in middle or grade school robs them of essential development time. It narrows their possiblities, and can lead to stress and burnout way before they truly have to come to a decision. Instead students should be pushed to explore, play, and grow. Knowing the serious planning can happen later whilst they are more informed and truly know their passions.

Promoting college to grade students have become far to common. A growing number of parents and educators have begun encouraging young students to begin thinking seriously about college. This pressure stems from compitition to enter into many universities. But young children still have much more cognitive and emotional skills to learn. Expecting them to understand and commit to such long term goals is unreasonable. Forcing youth into structure gets rid of their inheret creativity and their personalized self-discovery. Childhood should be a time of exploration, where kids can try different activities to figure out their true passions, and then make future dicisions off of that. Another risk of early future plannig being is the burnout. Starting to early trying to obtain every achievement and the best grades possible, creates much stress while removing childrens free time. By the time then finally reach high school many of these students will not be energized by the idea of college, instead disengaged with little motivation.

Success is placed behind the common misbelief that college is the only way to achieve it, when in reality there are many possible paths. College is often portrayed as the ultimate goal, and for some it is. But in reality college takes time and money, and the fact that most college students are unsure of or never use the major after. That being proof that making the common belief that College is the only route creates roadblocks for the majority of people. By pushing higher education to youth you risk pushing them down paths they wouldn’t of picked for themselves, disregarding their true goals. Children also develop at different rates, where some may be able to organize and make dicissions at a young age, some may not be able to do the same even at eighteen. These expectations placed have no regard for everyones natural differences. Similar to how schools grade off of the common academic classes which just become someone fails one doesn’t mean they are unitteligent in their own interests.

True preperations for adulthood isn’t about following a rigid path, it is about learning who you are through the experences you have. Young people need time to explore their options, try out their interests, and importantly, to make mistakes. Trail and error is who maturity develops. When the youth experiments they develop needed critical thinking skills and life skills such as adaptablity and self reflection. Children should be given the space to learn and make these discovers themselves instead of being pressured to succeed by the adults around them. Rather than focusing on a specific long term goal such as a certain college, educators and families should focus on cultivating the childs interests. Make sure they are given the support they needed but most importantly give them the freedom to find out who they are themselves, something thats made difficult when all your time is spent trying to be the top academic achiever.

Pushing elementary and middle school students to plan their futures too early can be harmful to their development. While future planning is important, pressuring young children to choose long term goals such as higher education or career paths robs them of the time necessary to explore, grow, and learn their true interests. Leading to unnecessary stress, burnout, and loss of creativity. Promoting this false idea that college is the only true option misleads many into debt and burnout following a major a student isn’t truly intrigued by. This idea that college is the only goal after school puts down other valid options such as the trades, military, or entrepreneurship. Instead of focusing on rigid paths, we should instead promote and encourage children to develop their life skills while pushing them down a path of self discovery. By supporting curiosity and personal growth, adults can better prepare students for a more meaningful future.

“New Books” by LollyKnit is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.