Stop asking children what they want to be when they grow up

As children return to school for a promising new academic year, classrooms are once again filled with introductions. Teachers want to get to know their students, and children are encouraged to talk about themselves. Somewhere in those early conversations, a familiar question often appears: What do you want to be when you grow up?

It sounds innocent enough. But perhaps we are asking children the wrong question.

Ask a young child what they want to be and they may repeat something they have heard from their parents, name a profession they admire, offer a wonderfully imaginative answer, or simply say, “I don’t know.”

And why should they know?

We are asking children to predict the person they will become before they have had enough opportunities to discover what they enjoy, what they are good at and, perhaps most importantly, what makes them come alive.

Moving to music

Sir Ken Robinson famously told the story of Gillian Lynne, who struggled at school as a child and was thought to have a learning problem. During an assessment, a doctor reportedly turned on the radio and left the room with her mother. Almost immediately, Gillian began moving to the music. Watching her, the doctor recognised something others had missed: this was a child who needed to move in order to think and express herself.

Her mother enrolled her in dance school. Gillian Lynne would eventually become one of the world’s most celebrated choreographers, working on productions including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.

Whether at home or at school, children are often observed through structures created by adults. Sit here. Complete this task. Answer this question. Achieve this grade. Yet sometimes a child’s strengths become visible only when we change the environment and give them room to explore.

Allow children to be bored

One simple way of doing this is surprisingly difficult today: allow children to be bored.

Take away the device for a while. Resist the temptation to fill every free hour with another organised activity. Give them paper, books, building materials, music, a ball, or simply some unstructured time, and watch what happens.

What does the child choose when nobody is telling them what to do?

They may draw for an hour. They may build something. They may organise a game, invent characters, write stories, take something apart to understand how it works, or spend their time explaining things to somebody else.

These seemingly ordinary moments may tell us more about a child’s emerging interests than asking them to select a future occupation.

Looking backwards

Perhaps adults can learn something from looking backwards too.

When I think about my own childhood, I remember asking my younger brother to sit down while I pretended we were in a classroom. I would find a piece of glass, take a marker and start teaching him English and Mathematics. Nobody told me to do it. There was no grade, reward or career plan attached to it. I simply enjoyed teaching.

Many years later, I still find that same joy in the classroom.

Not every childhood interest will become a profession, nor should it. Children will change their minds, discover new abilities and sometimes abandon things they once loved. That is part of growing up.

But perhaps, as a new school year begins, we could change the question.

Instead of asking children, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, ask them what they enjoy doing now. What are they curious about? What would they spend hours doing if nobody were grading them? What would they like to make, explore or learn?

Then give them the time and space to show us.

Their answer may tell us far more about their future than the name of a profession ever could.

Bernadette Guirguis is Assistant Professor, Zayed University