Ask the Expert: How Soon Should I Talk With My Kids About College?
How early is too early to talk with kids about college? Experts say preschool age is a great time to start. Talking about jobs that align with a child's interests allows them to envision themselves in different occupations while opening the door to discuss the "special places" where people learn the skills required for these careers.
Waiting until children are older can narrow their view of the nearly endless list of occupations available to them, said Jennifer Saporito, who has been an educator for 29 years and works for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Through her work as a college and career counselor working with middle school students, Saporito interacts with children who often have similar career goals. They gravitate to a short list of occupations, including police officer, firefighter, doctor, lawyer, YouTuber and NBA basketball star. Rarely do other career choices surface.
"They've been kind of pigeonholed into these careers because they think it's glamorous," Saporito said.
How to Introduce Young Children to College at an Early Age?
- Point out jobs while you're out and about. Discuss the impact each role has on the community.
- Talk about the different places where people learn their special skills and visit nearby college campuses.
- Ask them questions about jobs that interest them and why.
- Remind them they have many options for their future.
Talk About Jobs
The concept of college is something parents can begin talking about, in an age-appropriate manner, when kids are as young as 3 or 4 years old, said Oona Fontanella-Nothom, Ph.D., assistant professor of early childhood education at Cal State Los Angeles.
At this age, she said that children begin to grasp the concept of jobs and start to picture themselves in an occupation.
Explaining what is involved in a job includes talking about training, which often includes attending college. At this stage in their development, children start to understand what college is and its importance, Fontanella-Nothom said.
Talk About College (And Visit!)
Outings can play a part in talking about careers. For instance, a visit to the zoo can offer an opportunity to talk about the employees who work with the animals, what their jobs involve, and the "special place" where they learn to care for the animals, which is college, Fontanella-Nothom said.
She said the more parents talk about different occupations and college, the more comfortable children feel about higher education as they begin to see it "as something valuable and attainable.
Getting children interested in college involves developing an appreciation for learning, said Sandra Kaplan, Ph.D., professor of clinical education at USC's Rossier School of Education.
"We're learning all the time," Kaplan said. College "is another place to learn."
Much like a child's sandbox, a college is a place for exploring and using one's creativity, except it's "a really big sandbox," Kaplan said.
Often, young adults show up to college, but they aren't prepared for it because they only see the institution as a place for academics when it's much more than that, said Angela "Laila" Hasan, Ph.D., professor of clinical education at USC's Rossier School of Education.
Exposing children to college from an early age prepares them for a more open-ended college experience.
A visit to a college campus— whether a vocational school, a community college or a four-year university — provides opportunities to interact with faculty, coaches and others, Hasan said.
Such interactions allow children to see that their relationships with college professors will be different from how they interact with teachers at the elementary, middle or high school levels, she said.
Hasan said that students don't go to a professor's office because they get into trouble. At that level, students are encouraged to approach faculty to ask questions, discuss concepts and exchange ideas. As their child's first teachers, parents and caregivers can foster this kind of open relationship with grown-ups early on by encouraging them to ask questions and engaging in pretend play with them.
Expert Tips:
Talk About Skills
When discussing careers, it's important to talk to children about the skills someone needs, Kaplan said.
For example, suppose a child is interested in firefighting. In that case, one can share that a firefighter needs to have some medical skills to help a sick or injured person during an emergency, as well as a grasp of engineering principles to help out at the scene of a collapsed building, for example, Kaplan said.
"A firefighter has a tremendous amount of knowledge about different things," she said. "Students don't understand the multiple things someone in one field must do."
Children also need to understand that skills can be transferable, Hasan said.
If a child is interested in being a police detective, a parent can explain that such a career requires being observant and the ability to track down information, she said.
"You could be a researcher with the same skills a detective would embrace," Hasan said. "Look at particular things, at what they do, and see how those same skills are used elsewhere."
It's not enough to introduce children to different occupations, Saporito said. Parents must explain most jobs aren't glamorous, yet they are needed, and those who do them make a difference in people's lives. For example, bus drivers help transport thousands of people to work, school, and important appointments. Phlebotomists are members of medical teams that provide health care, and construction workers can build all kinds of things.
As children get older, they start to be drawn to jobs, Saporito said. When that happens, parents should ask children what it is about those occupations that appeal to them.
For example, Saporito said if a child wants to work in a restaurant kitchen, parents should ask their child why. Is it because they like to prepare meals, or is it because there are tools and equipment there that they want to work with?
"Let the conversation go somewhere and find out from kids why they'd like to do that job," she said.
Such conversations allow parents to learn about their child's interests and make it possible to introduce them to other jobs they might find appealing, Saporito said.
Talk About Options
It's essential to explain to children that they have many options to choose from, Saporito said. In some instances, when students realize their glamorous dream job may be out of reach, they can become discouraged and lose interest in education.
A disappointed youth may end up dropping out of school and turning to low-wage jobs with little or no opportunities for advancement and potentially a lifetime of economic struggle.
Fontanella-Nothom recommends parents avoid pressuring children to go to a specific school or pursue a particular career track. Sometimes parents begin telling their children they will go to a specific college from a very young age before their child is ready to choose a career or has an academic road map to get there, she said.
When the child is older and has selected a career, the college the parent wants their child to attend may not be the best choice.
Children should understand there are different colleges, and each has areas of study in which they are particularly good at preparing students, Hasan said. Students should understand they will want to enroll in a college suited to train them for their career choices.
Another reminder for families considering the cost of higher education is that many low-cost schools, scholarship opportunities and grant options make college more accessible to students at different income levels.
"You have to look at college with a wider lens," Fontanella-Nothom said.
Special thanks to Jennifer Saporito and other parents and educators in central Los Angeles who helped inspire this story by guiding young children's academic road maps.
