Introducing Career Education beyond the Uniforms Starting in Preschool
Capitalize on Curiosity and make Work Fun!
Capitalizing on Curiosity
For those of you who have littles at home this summer, now is the perfect time to capitalize on their interests and teach them about jobs in a very fun way. Even if you don’t have little’s I swear this can be applicable to even your 17 year olds….and you. Especially when it comes to some fun summer side hustles.. So keep reading. Today’s post are practical examples about how to start exploring careers in a very fun way with children 3 and up. The pictures are from a children’s book I wrote about 15 years ago.
Animal Lovers
For some reason if a child is good with animals well meaning adults say “oh look at your future veterinarian” like all kids are going to be comfortable euthanizing or working with sick and injured animals who can’t tell them what hurts and whose owners can’t afford care. There is a real reason why veterinarians as a profession have one of the higher suicide rates.
Here is how to take that love of animals and PLAY this summer while exploring a few new careers and changing the language in your home from “when I grow up I want to be a veterinarian” to “I want to work with animals”.
Animal Control
Something as simple as taking all the stuffed animals from around the house and making them ID tags with shapes, letters, or numbers and then making corresponding houses out of cardboard boxes can help your child play match while learning about rescuing animals and getting them to the right home. You can make this as simple or as complicated as you like for the age. And don’t forget to have a few animals that don’t have tags.
Pet Groomer
The animals without tags now need to go to the groomer. You can label bottles from around the house with numbers and let your kids practice putting on water, shampoo, flea baths, conditioner, detangles, etc. in order or play with balloons and build some sort of a dryer contraption to simulate blow dryers. Got older kids, make their chore to help wash the family pets. Got even older kids? Have them offer a dog bathing service in the back yard, especially if you have elderly neighbors. Many of them have to hire someone to come to the house to bath the dog as they can’t physically wrestle with them. A great side gig for summer.
Pet Pastry Chef
Younger kids can use play dough and older kids can use polymer or air dry clay to craft super cute dog treats they can feed to stuffed animals or even sell as dog bone earrings. With your help older kids can research recipes for healthy birthday cakes and start a dog pastry business from home and advertise at the vet and groomer specializing in themed doggie birthday cakes. They can also keep it simple and make homemade bones in fun shapes, I bet your local coffee shop may love some coffee cup shaped bones for customers to treat their dog to and a donation box of treats at the dog park would be a hit just be sure to list ingredients.
Doggie Day Care Owner
Got a pet of your own? Let your kids make it a playground for the day or pay them to entertain the dog and train it. Depending on their age they could watch videos and teach your dog some obedience for some quick cash while testing out this idea that can also lead to pet sitting, but with a twist. Not only can your teen pet sit but teach obedience, take dogs on hikes, and socialize them with other pets while people are away. This is super fun with stuffed animals for littles too. they can make obstacle courses out of boxes and play with their animals in a whole new way.
Pet Stylist
We played this a lot during COVID, we made clothes for my son’s beloved bunny. We made him a shark costume, a turtle costume, a hot air balloon costume, etc. It was messy, and hot glued, and silly, but he loved it and so did I. We have great memories of him making drawings of what he wanted his bunny to wear and us working together to bring something to life with the glue gun or occasionally sewn, but not well. People are killing it on Etsy making costumes for turtles, and get this, snakes. Yes you too can buy a sweater for a snake. I actually had a student who loves to crochet and loves snakes and I suggested it, he laughed, and then I showed him the $$ potential and he was super intrigued and may start making them for his Snake Youtube channel. Have you seen the prices of things for pets at Petsmart, including stuffed toys? They are more expensive than kids toys sometimes. These are real jobs and something I think a lot of crafters could get into that they don’t think about, adding a squeaker and …….starting a whole new market.
Pet Photographer
Now that your stuffed animals or real pets may have some clothes, let your kids make some scenery and find props and use your phone to take portrites of your pet. They can enter them in your local county fair and even win prize money. A great idea would be for them to also host a photoshoot with their friends for stuffed animals or have a booth this summer at a farmers market or dog park doing real pet photos with some fun summer props. They can just use a digital phone and email people their photos for a donation. Also want to know something crazy, there is actually a company in Japan that takes stuffed animals on vacation and you PAY to get postcards of your stuffy on vacation…..hmmm, maybe you can start this on your vacay this summer. Take all your friends kids stuffies on vacation for a fee.
Why this is important?
Your kids are already playing, take advantage of it to introduce new ideas, careers, and start testing out what they gravitate towards and what they don’t while also doing something educational to reduce summer brain drain. You don’t have to give them a long lecture, just using rich vocabulary like,
“lets go to work”
“you get to go to work today as a _____”
“let me pay you your salary today, you earned $1 an hour and get to buy groceries now” (and let them shop from a special cupboard in the kitchen
“you did a great job at work today”
“you are really good with animals, you can have a job and make money doing ________”
“what did you like most about work today?”
“did you know when you grow up you can do this all day and get paid lots of money to do it?”
Activity
Pick one activity from above and try it next week. Was work fun? What did your little love and not love? What would they want to explore more? How can you adapt this concept to their interest areas? How can you try one of these side hustles with older kids this summer to make money and do some exploration as well? Or for yourself?