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Stop giving your kid bad advice
Ivy Xu
August 27, 2024
Source: Tenor
Put your hand up if you’re one of the millions of parents dropping a kid off at college over the next few weeks. 👋
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Vice Provost at The University of Pennsylvania, thinks you’re probably giving your kid terrible advice. 🤷
In a recent op-ed for The Atlantic titled “The Worst Advice Parents Can Give First-Year Students”, Dr. Emanuel draws on his nearly 50 years of experience in the world of higher education.
“It all begins with that first drop-off, which is happening on campuses across the country over the next several days.
And before the last goodbye, many parents will take their son or daughter aside for some parting advice.
Usually, it will be wrong.”
Hot take. 🤷
Let me explain his position — which I happen to wholeheartedly agree with.
Here’s what they’re getting wrong
Kids who are entering college this week can expect to retire in 2075.
That doesn’t even feel real, given that most of the people reading this right now will not live to experience the world in the year 2075.
Yet, according to Dr. Emanuel, the most common advice he sees parents shell out to college freshmen is to double-down on a college experience that will result in the most secure and high-paying first job — according to the world as we know it right now.
“Similarly, for the past decade or more,” adds Dr. Emanuel, “well-intentioned parents have been pushing their children to learn how to code.”
🤖 But as we all know, recent advances in AI are threatening the jobs of software engineers around the world — especially the young and inexperienced ones.
To this end, parents are far too short-sighted to imagine their kid’s career, which will need to endure for the next 40-50 years.
“Pushing a student into one of today’s hot careers is unlikely to produce a lifetime of self-realization and happiness.
And when parents focus on narrow careerism instead of seeking to raise inquisitive and ethical children, they not only risk preparing kids for the jobs of yesterday; they also tend to create bored and unfulfilled careerists.”
So what should the advice be?
Dr. Emanuel turns to a great American hero (and rockstar Philadelphian) to answer this question — Benjamin Franklin.
Source: Canva
Ben Franklin was an epically curious person who never quite settled into a career.
He was an inventor, politician, and businessman. 🧠
“He discovered the conservation of electricity and invented a lightning rod, cleaner-burning stoves, and bifocals.
He created America’s first lending library, first hospital, and first home-insurance company.
He started a volunteer fire-fighting company, and the university that employs me.
And he served as a politician and diplomat, negotiating an end to the American Revolution.”
Ben Franklin didn’t achieve these things because he was inherently smarter than everyone else. It was because he didn’t restrict what he learned to follow a predetermined path.
He followed his interests, asked questions, and soaked up knowledge across a multitude of academic and practical disciplines.
“The college years are the best time to take intellectual and experiential risks,” Dr. Emanuel reminds us.
Those risks are what teach enduring skills — like resilience, innovation, and exploring the unknown.
Those are the skills that will be in-demand forever. 👊
So as you’re kissing your kid goodbye, and leaving them on the quad to begin their new life, help them imagine their lives beyond the next 5 years — and into the next 50 years.
Encourage them to take risks, to fail, and to always be curious.