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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. Now, there's new research out that shows that children no longer want to be pop stars when they grow up. They want to be influencers. So is this something we should discourage? Does it actually really matter what your ambitions are when you're a young child?
Well, joining me now to tell me more is senior clinical psychologist, Dr. Anne Keogh. You're very welcome to the programme. Anne, can you tell me about this research and what exactly it says?
Chapter 2: What new career aspirations are children expressing today?
Thank you, Ciara, and it's a great topic. I suppose to summarise the research, when we ask young people nowadays what they want to be for their job when they're older, many are saying they want to be social media influencers or content creators like they watch online on YouTube and TikTok.
So people are misinterpreting that in some ways to say that people don't want or kids don't want to do regular jobs anymore. They just want to be famous. And that's not something new. We can all remember, you know, back in the day, everyone wants to be a footballer or a pop star or an actor. So kids will dream big. They love to be famous, admired and successful.
Chapter 3: Should we discourage children from wanting to be influencers?
And that's a normal phenomenon.
What age were these children?
I suppose they've asked all ages and truth, but they tend to ask young teens because they are the ones who are starting to think about them in the world and what they'll do with their lives, if that makes sense. So it's a common question to ask all kids. What will you do when you're older?
The smaller ones dream massive, you know, I'll be an astronaut or I'll be whatever the president of the world. Nowadays, they can say things like I want to be the biggest social media influencer. So, you know, or name a famous person they like. Mr. Beast would be an example of that. So it's not unusual for kids to want to do that. But I suppose they are spending time on social media.
And then the concern comes from parents and adults. What if they don't want to have a normal job like a teacher or, you know, whatever that might be?
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Chapter 4: What does the research say about children's dream jobs?
a nurse but it's not changing children's beliefs if you like.
Okay but it seems to be with this research that social media was really influencing young people and their career choices much more than family let's say or friends or teachers has that always been the case too?
Well, the media in general, like if you watch the World Cup now, kids are going to want to be a footballer. But you're right, social media does make some, it makes being a social media influencer look very appealing. So it doesn't just show the career of that, it performs the career. Now, in some cases, it'll show obscure careers too.
You can watch social media about being a fisherman and it makes it look, you know, really exciting and interesting. But what it does for young people is it makes the job feel achievable because you're actually seeing some of the ins and outs, definitely not all of the ins and outs. And young people will confuse that.
I'm seeing a text here. You need genuine talent to be a musician or a pop star. No wonder they want to be influencers. Easy money for grifting. Now, I know a lot of influencers out there would absolutely disagree with that and say there is a real skill to creating content and they work really hard for it. But as a parent, do you think it's important to discourage that?
Well, I think I'd invite parents to ask kids, what do you like about it? Like, what do you think are the good things about that job? Because there are plenty of good things about that job and plenty of very hard things about that job, rather than saying you shouldn't be that.
So our job as parents is not to stop kids dreaming big, whatever that may be, but it's to help them see what that big is, what's in that. So kids are attracted to the creativity, the digital skills, communication, and these people sound and look like entrepreneurs. It's really exciting.
But then as parents were moderating that, so things like a careers day in a school or, you know, actually talking about your job or an exciting job a friend of the family has, give kids the insight that they want about what happens in real life in these jobs or shadowing if you have a young teen to go and see what actually happens in the job.
What about those younger children? You know, the five, six, seven, eight, nine year olds who are saying like that, I want to be an astronaut. I want to be president. I want to be an influencer. I want to be Taylor Swift. Do you just say, yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. You're well able.
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