Forced Selection Leads To Disheartening Actions.

Parents and teachers consistently remind us that when it comes to selecting careers, we can be anything we want to be. The decision is ours and ours alone. But the reality is quite opposite; despite all the voices we hear around us, it is always parents within the family circle who make the strongest impression on children’s career choices. As my topic of writing is forced career selections by parents, I would like to highlight certain facts that how deciding your child’s career path can actually be damaging to their development and confidence. It can also make them ill not only physically but also mentally to the extent that they lose their interest in almost everything which is quite alarming.  This kind of attitude put a lot of stress to their children's mind and their relationship.  These attitudes of parents can also lead children to blame their parents when the time comes as they would not be satisfied with the job that their parents chose for them.

Can it lead to illness?

Although, parents want to prepare their child for a bright future but they often forget the hardships that a child is going to face in the future. It can make him physically and mentally weak to the level that he might not be able to do anything on his own, not only that the consequences are so intense that a child might isolate himself for the rest of his life. First of all, the diet routine of the child will, most probably, be disturbed. He will find himself overload with the work that he won’t care about his physical health. He’ll spend most of his time in understanding the lectures that he’ll not be able to find time for himself. Considering that, parents never think about how their decision will affect the mental health of their child. I’ve seen many cases in which the student literally suffer from bad mental health just because they are forced to select a career which is imposed on them by force. The harmful mental and emotional response will occur when the requirements for the field couldn’t match the capabilities of the student. It’ll ultimately lead him to bad mental health by being a victim of depression and anxiety. He’ll always think that he’s not made for this field because he can never perform well. Besides this, there’s a maximum chance that the child will isolate himself. He won’t go for outing anymore. He will probably not find anything interesting anymore like meeting up with friends or watching movies etc. All of this is just because he got over-stressed. Under these circumstances, there’s a fine possibility that the child will become a victim of bad mental and physical health just because his parents forced him to choose a career of their own choice.

Forced to compete.

In all honesty, when children lack ability but are forced to compete; they are placed in humiliating situations in which they might have fear of not performing well, where they continually fail and they might become a victim of inferiority complex. Instead of being confident about what they do, the repeated embarrassment can cause the child to become stressed, anxious and depressed. Sometimes children also develop a negative sense of self-image due to the poor performances. In a forced environment, he will not only compete with others but unluckily with himself too. For instance, when he won’t find himself capable of performing well in his class, he will mentally force himself to work hard. This is not a bad thing until it starts affecting you mentally and emotionally. Likewise, when he won’t be able to perform well, he will find himself in a fear that he might get failed. Obviously, when a child lacks the ability of performing well in a certain field then he’ll face failure. Lastly, there is a maximum chance that the child will think of himself as inferior to others. When a child sees his competitors doing so well in their respective fields, getting best compliments from their parents and teachers in student life, achieving their goals and becoming professionals he might consider himself inferior from others. He might think that he is not enough for anything and this is just because he has zero interest in what whatever he is doing.

The Children Should Be Given the Freedom to Explore Their Interest.

By the same token, when a career is forced on a child by his or her parents, he/she might follow them out of emotions but have the parents ever thought that what happens if their child is not able to fulfill it due to lack of interest?  Because every child has the right to choose his own career, he knows himself better than anyone else and he has his own interest and thoughts. Indeed, everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression then why force a child to select a career that he doesn’t like? He has every single right to choose his own career and he has the right to live his dreams. Children should have the right to hold opinions without interference. Besides this, a child can only know his interests and abilities better than anyone else. He knows his subjects and areas of interest and thus, can decide his career path easily. He will never be able to perform well in a field, or you can say task, that is beyond his abilities because how one could perform a task efficiently when he is not capable of doing so? One who knows himself better is able to understand things in a better way and is capable of choosing a right path for himself. Moreover, the interest of the child matters. In our daily life, we see hundreds of people who are not satisfied with their job or students who are facing hardships in their field just because they lack interest. They never wanted to choose this field but, unfortunately, are forced to get admission in a field of their parents’ choice. If the child follows a career path chosen by his parents and which is not of his interest, he will have to face a lot of challenges and pressure. In other words, if children choose a career according to the wishes of their parents, they will have a boring academic life as they would face a lack of interest. College life is the best phase of a student's life. To enjoy this phase and make it more interesting, a child should choose his/her own career path.

To sum up, I think it is important to encourage children to aspire towards whatever they would like to be and have a variety of different options to choose from. Children need to be able to make their own decisions! It is better to expose them in making decisions at a young age so that it will not be difficult for them in the future. They will be more exposed to experience and will not be afraid to take risk. A parent's main goal is to make their kids feel happy and live a good life, right? Therefore, let the kid be what she/he wants to be. What if you make a decision that would affect the child's future, without even asking what the child wanted in life? The parent should put in input, not make the decision because, after all, it’s their child’s life and he should live it according to his own thoughts and interests.