Category: Parenting

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.

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.

Video: How Generative AI Works

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!

Financial literacy is an integral part of adult life.  As a parent, you may be worried about your kids receiving adequate financial education in order to enter adulthood ready and aware of the many aspects of financial self-sufficiency.

Teaching your kids about finances from a young age can be tricky.  They may be less inclined to entertain themselves with concepts they have little practical experience with and may find hard to grasp.

However, a certain degree of financial literacy can be incredibly beneficial at a young age, as it lays the foundation on which to build on as your kids grow older and get closer to adulthood.

For this reason, you may be wondering about the basic materials to get started to learn about trading and investments, as well as other key financial concepts.

The internet offers plenty of value in the form of online courses, blogs, webinars, and more to get you started. So, you can gradually introduce your kids to basic ideas and gradually implement more complex subjects as they go along.

How to Teach Your Kids About Finance and Investments

One thing to remember when starting to teach your kids about finances is patience.

Keep in mind that they may find certain ideas difficult to grasp and you are likely to need simplified explanations for complex topics.  Patience will play a key role in maintaining the interest of your kids without discouraging them from absorbing complex information.

However, there are a few key factors you can consider to make the process both engaging and effective for your kids.

Create a Sense of Progression

In order to keep your kids engaged in the process of learning about finance and investing, make sure to set up the learning process in a linear manner that shows clear signs of progression, which will give them a sense of accomplishment once they learn a particular concept.

Learning how to teach your kids about investing can be a challenging task at first, but setting clear boundaries and rewarding them for their newly found knowledge can go a long way in keeping them engaged.

Do Not Overwhelm With Information

Depending on the age of your kids, too much information may overwhelm them. Therefore, it is essential to come up with some sort of a curriculum that balances the daily workload for your kids. This allows them to have the free time to reflect on what they have learned and the learning process does not turn into a cumbersome task.

Dividing the learning resources into smaller, more manageable tasks will also reduce your stress during the teaching process, while placing less strain on your kids as well. There are also apps that can help kids learn financial skills.

Reaffirm Covered Topics

It is essential to reaffirm already covered topics by small tests and questions that will help your kids remember key concepts time and time again.

Practice makes perfect, which is why it is important to mention covered topics in daily life from time to time.  This also helps the youngsters better understand the practical meaning of the concepts they have studied.

Practice Makes Perfect

When you are teaching your kids about investments and trading, nothing can be as effective as allowing them to trade using a demo account.

The simulated funds will give them a clear set of boundaries and they will be able to learn through trial and error.  Your kids will get a better sense of what works and what does not, as well as the very real financial risks associated with reckless trading and uninformed decision making.

Benefits of Teaching Your Kids About Finance and Investments

The advantages of teaching your kids about the importance of financial literacy from a young age can make things much more manageable for them once they have reached adulthood.

While the process of teaching might seem challenging at first, seeing some progress is likely to motivate you, as well as your kids to keep going.

Adding gamified elements to the teaching process can also make it more enjoyable and fun, as opposed to it feeling like a chore.

Being patient and thorough with your lessons, while also allowing your kids to trade using demo  accounts, can provide a good mix of theory and practice and lead to a balanced learning experience.

Cognitive development begins right after birth. Then, from basic actions such as grasping, looking, and listening, they start to think symbolically. Later on, they learn to use words and pictures as representations of objects. It’s a fascinating process that shapes the way children perceive and interact with their surroundings.

Many factors affect such a development, especially during the preoperational stage, which happens around two to seven years old. One intriguing aspect of it is its relationship with mathematics. Yes, you heard that right! No wonder scholars have introduced math coloring to help young minds develop more effectively.

Math coloring is simply coloring with a mathematical twist. Remember those sheets with pictures or illustrations that relate to math problems or concepts? Chances are you’ve encountered them in your younger years, too.

But how exactly does math coloring impact cognitive development in young minds? Let’s explore below.

Why is cognitive skills development in early childhood important?

Before we try to discover the cognitive benefits of math coloring, let’s first understand why cognitive skills development is crucial, especially in early childhood. Well, that’s because it’s a critical period. At this stage, minds undergo rapid growth, and it’s also when humans form the building blocks of their intellectual abilities.

That’s why there are online learning platforms, like DoodleLearning, specifically targeting this stage in human development. Most of them offer free materials for different learning activities, including math coloring.

Specific Cognitive Developments Taking Place During Early Childhood Years

It’s during early childhood that things begin to catch your attention and you start to memorize events. Not only that, but it also marks the emergence of your ability to solve problems through critical thinking. There are many things happening in the cognitive area of your brain during this time as well, and these lay the foundation for future academic success. You’re preparing yourself for future social interactions, too.

The Impact of Successful Early Childhood Cognitive Skills Development

A 2022 study mentions that college students related their academic success to the revolutionary-relevant experiences they had from preschool to kindergarten years. What are these experiences? One good example, according to the same study, is hands-on learning. It follows developmentally appropriate practices. The National Association for the Education of Young Children defines it as play-based, joyful learning.

And that’s why, as a parent or educator, you can never go wrong prioritizing the development of cognitive skills in a child. The best way to do that? Provide opportunities for young minds to engage in cognitive growth-stimulating activities that make learning fun.

How important is math in cognitive development?

Next, let’s talk about math’s role in cognitive development. Obviously, the understanding and application of mathematical concepts can sharpen essential cognitive abilities, such as critical thinking and problem-solving. The big question is how it does that.

Specific Ways Math Influences Cognitive Development

Remember when you studied math concepts yourself, you learned to analyze problems and tried to identify patterns to come up with strategies for solving them? That’s an analytical and systematic approach to overcoming challenges in action!

Of course, math also promotes higher-order thinking skills that extend even beyond the subject. You also think logically and flexibly when trying to make connections in problem-solving activities, right?

And since math concepts involve shapes, patterns, and measurements, mathematics also helps with spatial reasoning ability development. The result? Improved visualization skills in young minds – a crucial skill for various everyday tasks like arranging furniture at home.

Integrating Math and Art

A lot of students perceive math as hard and boring. So, the next step is to make it as interesting as possible. One effective way of doing just that is integrating math and art through math coloring.

There are physical and even digital math coloring worksheets that feature mathematical tasks or patterns that a child can fill in with colors. How they use the colors will, of course, be based on their calculations or understanding of a certain mathematical concept. Sounds interesting, right?

Playful learning like math coloring indeed piques the interest of young learners and even enhances important skills such as communication and decision-making, as per the Federation of American Scientists in a 2023 publication.

Specific cognitive benefits of math coloring

There are several specific ways math coloring benefits cognitive development. These include:

• Attention and focus enhancement: Working on a math coloring sheet means concentrating on the task at hand. A child’s attentional capacity improves as a result.

• Spatial reasoning skills improvement: As already mentioned, math coloring also enhances a child’s spatial reasoning skills. Coloring in geometric shapes and patterns means recognizing and manipulating spatial relationships.

• Fine motor skills strengthening: When coloring, children hold pencils. Not only that, but they also have to make intricate movements when filling in small spaces. Doing so exercises the muscles and builds dexterity.

• Increased mathematical comprehension and retention: Colors and visual cues serve as math information memorization and recall aids. They make math coloring a multisensory and interactive learning activity. The result? A deeper understanding of mathematical concepts.

Whether you’re a parent or an educator, keep in mind that incorporating math coloring for cognitive development in children requires a supportive and positive environment. Allow a child to experiment. Celebrate their efforts even if they make mistakes along the way.

Conclusion

Math coloring makes learning mathematics enjoyable and effective. Beyond that, it has cognitive benefits that make a child more ready for the latter stages of life. It’s a valuable cognitive development tool any child is worth exposing to.