Should I be worried about AI and my child's future ?
By Sharath Jeevan OBE
Founder of Stir Education, motivational speaker & author
As the founder of Oxford's Generational Success Lab and the parent myself of two teenage boys, I have to be say that I myself am worried.
The disruption to professional white-collar starting roles is likely to be significant in the short term. This is something we are already seeing, with almost forty percent fewer entry level graduate vacancies this year compared to last year.
As a parent myself, I am thinking about three key things:
1. Is my child a path-shaper? Young people will need to shape their own path from a much earlier age. That means a very different mindset from when we could rely on a ladder to pull us up the career journey. They will need to find the right rungs - areas of opportunity or niches that they can occupy. And be able to carve a direction out of ambiguity.
2. Is my child able to be intrinsically motivated? In our generation, we could rely on employers to give us recognition, rewards or promotion. In more unstructured work environments, young people will need to develop their own goals for mastery and find motivation from within.
3. Is my child able to build new relationships easily, especially across generations? Today we segregate ourselves by age in everything from our social lives to sport. But young people will need to be able to find mentors and sponsors who can champion them and find opportunities. That means at times being open to critical or tough feedback, and different ways of seeing the world.
I'm not saying any of this to scaremonger. That is not to say that I don't believe that destinations like a good university will not still be important. But I think that these mindsets and behaviours will less of just the core icing, but will become an indispensable part of the cake itself.
Oppidan's Character Education focus is perfectly aimed at helping parents develop these, but as parents it's important we play an active role too in supporting our children through role modelling and relationships. And while the career world for them will be less structured, if navigated intentionally, it can be made more fulfilling.