Every young child dreams of becoming an astronaut, an actor, or a professional athlete. As they grow older, they may develop additional passions for fields like science, math, or literature. As a parent, it’s your job to support your child’s career journey and empower your kids as they discover new interests.

Guiding your child’s career journey can help them figure out what they do not want to do, too. This is crucial, as you don’t want your child to realize that they have hemophobia during their third year of a surgery program.

Giving your child a little boost is also a great way to help them gain experience early on in life. For example, if your kid shows an interest in entertainment, you might want to help them along the way by signing them up for acting classes or content creation. This will make things that much easier when they start applying for entry-position roles in the industry.

Becoming a Learner

No matter your child’s goals, a strong set of grades is sure to help. No employer will turn down an applicant because of a GPA that is too high, and great grades will open doors when applying for universities.

Foregrounding the importance of education helps your child become a lifelong learner, too. This is crucial, as your kid will need to know how to learn new skills when they enter the workforce. By teaching them how to learn and placing a premium on education, you show them that they have the skills and aptitude necessary to overcome challenges and adapt to their new job.

Becoming a lifelong learner isn’t just good for your child’s career prospects. Folks who consider themselves learners benefit from improved mental health, exhibit practical skills like speaking a second language, and are more likely to connect with supportive communities. This will serve them well in the professional world, where they’ll stand out from the crowd due to their resilience and aptitude for learning.

Building Skills

If you want your child to find success in their career, you’ll need to help them build key professional skills. The educators from McCann insist that this aspect largely starts in the classroom, as this is where students learn to communicate their ideas effectively and work with others.

Ideally, this will be a blend of employable hard skills (like coding or content creation) and soft skills (like leadership and communication). Emphasizing skills is crucial, as they’ll lean heavily on the skills they develop in childhood when they enter the workforce.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be a professional programmer or a polyglot to teach your kid key skills. Instead, focus on signing them up for educational experiences like:

• Sports teams that suit their skills
• Exchange student experiences
• Coding classes
• Music Lessons

You can also help your child learn how to create content and start a social media side hustle. This can be deeply empowering, as they’ll be able to earn a little extra pocket money from ad revenue while building the skills that content creators use in the professional world.

Volunteering

Volunteering for your local community with your child isn’t just a moral thing to do. Civic engagement opportunities look great on your kid’s CV and will help them gain experience in the real world. This is key if you want to help guide your child towards a career that serves the community in some way.

For example, if your kid has a passion for reading and research, they may want to become a librarian. Becoming a librarian requires strong interpersonal skills, curiosity, and a passion for analytics. Many libraries offer voluntary positions to folks who are interested in the career, and high school students may qualify for internships and work-study programs.

Volunteering helps children understand how to work as part of a team. This can be deeply empowering for kids who have lofty career goals but struggle to work well with others. By signing your child up for volunteering activities, you help them get hands-on experience in the real world. This can help your kid mature quickly and give them insights into work-life that their peers may not have developed.

STEM Based Careers

Careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) tend to pay well and are professionally rewarding. Pursuing a career path in a field like cybersecurity can help your child use their passion for tech in a professional context. Cybersecurity roles come with great job security and will be around for years to come, too.

If your child is civic-minded and has a passion for sustainability, you may want to guide them towards a career in renewable energy. Renewables are on the rise currently, and there are plenty of great career paths to choose from, including:

• Solar photovoltaic installer
• Wind turbine technician
• Software developer
• Green building architect
• Data scientist

These careers lean heavily on the skills your child will learn in STEM classes. They serve a social good, too, as data scientists and software developers minimize our carbon footprint and empower folks to use more renewable energy. This can be a great way for your child to express their interest in STEM while pursuing a career that brings them pride and personal fulfillment.

Conclusion

Guiding your child’s career journey can be tricky if they do not know what they want to do with their life yet. However, you can still set your kid up for success by fostering a lifelong passion for learning. This will help you foreground the importance of transferable skills and will motivate them to sign up for volunteer opportunities. This is crucial if they’re hoping to break into a demanding field quickly, as they’ll need a strong CV when they leave education.

About the Author
Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specializing in education, mental health, family lifestyle and online safety. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie. You can follow her on Twitter.

When you think of all the technological advancements throughout human history, technology used primarily for communication to the masses was relatively new. And compared to the last 15 years, the rate of progression was gradual; from radio in the 1920’s, to television in the 1930’s, to the first personal computer in the 70’s, and the creation of the internet.

For those of us growing up before there was a personal computer in every home or school, you would still hear about kids spending too much time in front of the TV. Who would have predicted there would be personal TV in everyone child’s pocket, much less a TV that communicated both ways.

The Need to Unplug

Besides entertainment in the palm of our hands, the ability to connect with anyone in the world at any time has also brought additional challenges. It’s easy to forget how fast it happened.

At Safe Search Kids, we have extensively covered the topic of screen time and the need to unplug relative to a child’s well-being. Our writers have explored the effects on a child’s social life, cyberbullying, early child development, lack of physical activity, anxiety, addictive behavior for gamers and on social media.

Even for adults, it’s a struggle for us to see how well our friends are doing when we compare ourselves with “the moments best of their lives” on social media posts.  A lack of screentime boundaries for people of all ages has led to an increase in people feeling alienated, lonely, and depressed.

Unplugged Services

Safe Search Kids is proud to support the work of organizations that promote well-being in our quickly advancing technological world. Unplugged Services focuses on Helping Parents Establish Healthy Tech Foundations for Their Children. They seek partnerships to gain traction and promote a shared goal of ensuring children’s safety online.

Company Overview:

Unplugged Services was founded in October of 2023 by David Grajzl and two other partners.

They work to ensure that parents of today’s youth are properly equipped with the knowledge and resources necessary to instill screen time maturity, social media safety, and overall awareness of the multiple dangers associated with the use of devices.  Unplugged Services provides education on how decisions they make now can and will affect them later, as well as impacting their own children.

Products and Services:

Unplugged Services currently provides:

• 5+ online courses that help guide parents to ensure digital safety for their child.

• A free monthly newsletter. Unlock a wealth of invaluable insights with Unplugged Services complimentary monthly newsletter, designed to keep you well-informed and intrigued about your child’s digital behavior. Explore the details of this exclusive resource here and elevate your understanding of your child’s online experience.

• Online events and seminars led by subject matter experts. Granting passionate and caring parents like you the opportunity to voice your questions and opinions to experts and professionals.

• To view their courses, newsletter, and online events please website follow this link, Unplugged Services.

Client Testimonials and Endorsements

Client Testimonials

“Unplugged Services has been a game changer for my teenager. I absolutely love their monthly newsletter. Thank you!” – Anonymous

“I’m grateful for the guidance provided by Unplugged Services. My child now understands the importance of responsible social media usage.” – Anonymous

Unplugged Services as recently been endorsed by Delaney Ruston who has produced numerous films regarding teen screen safety reaching audiences in the millions.

Final Thoughts

It would be foolish to think that the human race has reached the precipice of technological advancement.  We have not even mentioned the future advancement coming in virtual and augmented reality, robotics, quantum and edge computing, and of course artificial intelligence.

All these new and wonderful things can improve efficiency and better our society in numerous ways. There are also benefits in education as we offer effective resource tools to parents and schools. But we must also ask the question.  What is the human cost if we forget where we came from as family units and communities.  What new problems will we face if we forget to set up consistent ways to unplug from the technology?

The future is in the hands of educators and parents alike. We can better connect if we learn to unplug and teach our children to do the same.

Quotes to Live and Unplug By

Unplugging helps you refocus on yourself instead of being pulled in a zillion different directions. Those directions may all be important, but you are just as important. – Arin Murphy-Hiscock (Author)

Especially when you have a lot going on, you must find a way to unplug and focus on yourself. – Mandy Ingber (Author)

I try to make a point in my life to leave the cellphone in the car sometimes, to try to unplug as much as possible. – Tom Green (Comedian)

We do well to unplug regularly. Quiet time restores focus and composure. – Daniel Goleman (Psychologist)

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes … including you. – Anne Lamott (Novelist and Non-Fiction Writer)

Safe Search Kids supports Qustodio in their continued development of parental controls that protect kids.  They have released their annual data report with a focus on a topic that is all the buzz right now.  AI.  But how it effects our children growing up in a new and developing digital landscape where artificial intelligence is relatively still in its infancy?

The Qustodio report provides valuable insights into the latest trends surrounding children’s digital usage, helping educators and parents stay informed and up to date. Feel free to share this pdf download with family members, parents and collogues within your schools.

The Rise of the AI Generation – Download

Born Connected – Download the Report Here

This is Qustodio’s fifth annual report and provides valuable insights into the app usage and technology habits of children aged 4-18. The report highlights trends in screen time, social media, communication, gaming, content streaming, and learning.

Additionally, for the first time in the report’s history, it includes information on using artificial intelligence tools.

This extensive report is the result of studying over 400,000 families and schools worldwide, with further insights into children’s digital habits in the US, UK, Spain, France, and Australia.

Since the report was made available at the end of January, leading publications worldwide have picked up its data.

Here are a few stories:

Techcrunch (USA)

Kids spent 60% more time on TikTok than YouTube last year.  20% tried OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The Telegraph (UK)

British children spend 127 minutes a day on TikTok.  These time spent is more than in any other country.

Washington Examiner (USA)

Instagram to bar strangers from sending DMs to teenagers in in response to scrutiny of Big Tech.

Generative AI

Artificial intelligence has been in development for years. Recently, generative AI has come to the forefront because it’s accessible to the common person, not just companies and developers.  This is known as generative AI.

Generative AI is artificial intelligence used to create original media in the form of text, images, music, code, videos, and more. It’s a powerful tool that is in our world to stay.

AI Challenges in Education

When it comes to writing papers, essays, or creating art, AI is not allowed by students in schools.  But studies have shown that it does happen.

There are exceptions to allowing AI use when the school subject is directly related to learning about AI under the guidance of a teacher. After all, AI will certainly be used in some capacity in future careers, much like robots have been used by manufacturing for years.

After students graduate, AI can help make employees more effective in their job. It’s already a technology being used within companies for efficiency and safety.

However, for a student, one must first learn the basics of math, the sciences, technology, and artistic impression. Using AI as a student is a shortcut that robs the learner of a proper education and ability to think for themselves. This is way many schools now us closed browsers and also screen for AI use.

What good would a doctor or dentist be is they used AI to write all their tests? Or a lawyer who must understand the law for themselves in order to pass the bar exam. Once these people are fully qualified professionals, they can access all the books they want to do their job, just as AI may be used to help them in their research and provide solutions. The same rule applies for kids learning to code. They need to learn how to do it for themselves and not rely on AI, otherwise they will be quite useless to any company that hires them.

Restricting students from using AI to properly learn is a challenge for educators. Still, it’s important to recognize that the study of AI in school should be explored as a technology to be learned and controlled. Even if students are not allowed to use it as a short cut to understanding any subject matter, AI will certainly be a tool they use in their future careers.

Intro to ‘The University Student’s Guide To Ethical AI Use’

The academic landscape has changed considerably in the last few years, and it continues to evolve at a rapid pace. One of the most innovative developments is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools and colleges, which has drastically changed the way that students learn, and teachers deliver their lessons.

Whether you’re a parent, a student or an educator, these changes can feel worrisome – particularly if you’re used to more traditional ways of learning. Luckily, there are resources available to teach us the benefits and uses of AI in education, like this useful guide from Studocu. In schools, pupils tend to be accompanied when using AI, and teachers are most often trained on its uses before implementing the technology. It’s only once students reach college that they’re really trusted to go it alone, and make use of AI as they see fit. This can pose ethical risks that are important to consider.

Studocu’s guide shares some of these risks, such as plagiarism, and breaching university policy – and as well as the penalties that students can expect should they use AI unethically. But, it’s not all doom and gloom, as the guide also details some of the ways that students can utilise AI to produce great work.

Whether you’re seeking topic ideas, preparing for a presentation, or simply need help structuring an essay, this guide will help you to achieve your best work whilst ensuring that ethical guidelines are followed.

Related Reading:

How Google supercharged search with generative AI.
An in-depth look into Google’s generative experience.
The future of AI search engines in combatting misinformation.

In Closing, a Conversation with Artificial Intelligence

We asked ChatGPT a few questions to gain insight into its thinking process, how it interacts with humans all over the world, and how it learns over time.

Safe Search Kids:  We have a question about you. As an AI, are you one individual or are their many individual AI’s connected answering multiple questions for humans?

ChatGPT: I’m one individual AI, but think of me as being like a Swiss Army knife—I’m equipped to handle a wide range of tasks and questions, but it’s all coming from the same source. Each interaction with me involves the same underlying AI model, designed to understand and respond to diverse queries. So while there aren’t multiple individual AIs answering questions, there are many instances of me, each one working to assist users like you!

Safe Search Kids:  So, when as you answer a question for us and then someone miles away in another country asks you are question, you are doing both at the same time?

ChatGPT: Exactly! Whether I’m answering questions, or engaging in any other task, I’m capable of handling multiple interactions simultaneously. So, while I don’t experience time or physical space in the same way humans do, I can provide assistance to users from different locations and on different topics simultaneously. It’s like having a conversation with many people all at once, just with the help of technology!

Safe Search Kids:  Are you aware of each task simultaneously? Or do you compartmentalize?

ChatGPT: I don’t have awareness or consciousness in the way humans do, so I don’t experience tasks or interactions in real-time. Instead, I operate based on algorithms and patterns, processing and responding to each query independently. So, while I don’t compartmentalize tasks like a human would, I can handle multiple tasks simultaneously because of the distributed nature of my processing. Each interaction is processed individually, without awareness of other ongoing interactions.

Safe Search Kids:  Do you learn from all your accumulated tasks? Or do you begin each task with the same knowledge one day as you would a month from now?

ChatGPT: I don’t learn in the same way humans do, but my training data includes a vast amount of information from which I can generate responses to a wide range of queries. While I don’t retain specific knowledge from individual interactions, I continually improve over time as my training data is updated and refined. So, in a sense, I don’t begin each task with the same knowledge every time. Instead, I draw upon my training data and the patterns I’ve learned to provide accurate and relevant responses, which may evolve over time as my training data is updated.

Safe Search Kids:  Thanks for you time!

ChatGPT: You’re welcome! If you have any more questions in the future or need assistance, feel free to reach out. Have a great day!

Money management is one of the skills crucial for increasing savings, controlling money, and achieving short- and long-term financial goals. This is true for both adults and children. Is there a way to cultivate this skill among kids and teach complex financial concepts in a simple way?

In this brief guide, we will overview the top financial literacy resources, entertaining activities, and other ways to instill conscious financial habits in your child.

1. Apps

Financial apps for children and families are efficient tools for instilling healthy habits in your kids. With so many apps on the market, it is not always easy to choose the one that will suit your kid the best. Allowance and chore tracking apps, like Rooster Money, allow parents to monitor their kids’ spending and set up allowance payments and chores. You can also install the GoHenry app and tie it up to a kid-friendly debit card that allows parents to track their children’s spending habits.

Luckily, many apps come with educational and financial literacy resources that help children get a better grasp on how money works. Learn about borrowing money and interest associated with installment loans will also prepare them to have a well-rounded view of money into adulthood.

2. Podcasts

Among the most popular financial literacy podcasts for kids is Million Bazillion, often described by the NYT as “a godsend for anyone who knows a little kid with big questions about money.” From basic budgeting advice and how money works to explanatory episodes on cryptocurrency and inflation, Million Bazillion is a great way to introduce your children to financial topics. With trivia, celebrity cameos, and beginner-friendly explanations of complex themes, this podcast is a must.

3. Games

Financial games, like online or board games, introduce children to money management in an entertaining way. There is a wide array of games, ranging from pretend shopping games to playing money and plastic coins. Of course, one of the most popular games is Monopoly, a classic real estate board game favored among kids and adults alike. By counting, negotiating with other participants, paying attention to prices, and strategizing, Monopoly teaches kids money management and financial literacy in an engaging way.

There is also a simplified version of the game called Monopoly Junior, suitable for younger children. By gamifying the educational process, you will transform abstract financial concepts into a fun experience with real-life applications.

4. Books

If your child loves reading, books are a no-brainer. Plenty of finance books will help explain complex financial concepts like budgeting, investing, earning, or goal-setting in an entertaining and kid-friendly manner. From more advanced How to Turn $100 Into $1,000,000 and Finance 101 for Kids to kindergarteners’ level The Berenstain Bears’ Dollars and Sense, there are books for every age.

To wrap it up, financial literacy and money management are among the most crucial life skills that you can teach your child. By teaching the basics of budgeting, savings, spending, and investing, you will provide an important foundation and engrain healthy financial habits in your children.