So, right now I'm watching a show on tattooing and it struck me that DD8, who is very artistically inclined, would probably make an excellent tattoo artist. I could totally see her owning her own parlor or being in high demand as an artist.

For these kids to be successful and happy, we have to release our preconceived notions of what success is and help our children overcome that as well, right? I don't want to be like my parents, who pushed me towards traditional careers, instead of urging me to follow my passion (which I finally have). And there are so many amazing people who never "fit the mold".

What outrageous or non traditional career do you think your kids would be great at?

I think DD9 would make an excellent bartender. She is a great listener and very empathetic, necessary as bartenders end up listening to a lot of sad life stories. I often thought she would make a great therapist, but her ADHD makes her unable to sit still. At least at a bar she could move around and mix drinks while she listened, LOL!

Demolition worker. At least, that's what he likes to do to my house every morning.

Dd11 is an aspiring Hollywood Make-up artist.

DW and I have long suspected DD6 would be a natural fit as a fashion designer, since she's always had her own sense of style. But when she was four she asked me to add "Little Rock Star" to her extensive list of nicknames.

We're supporting her passion. She's got a small drum kit, keyboard, and guitar, and she's taking lessons on the last one.

we just told DD8 yesterday that she would be a big hit in the circus with her own Trained Hamster routine! She has this dwarf hamster and sets up elaborate scenes with her Littlest Petshop & Polly Pocket playset! Poor Fluffy goes down the slide, over a bridge, on a swing, on a tetter-totter, gets weighed and examined in the doctor set! here is the set up she is using today lol
DD's hamster circus
and Fluffy after "the bridge"
the Amazing Fluffy
*note: DD doesn't have 3 arms, she has a friend next to her lol Otherwise she'd have more circus opportunities available to her!

Actually we live in a circusy town and she may try to join the kids circus, maybe start with camp this summer. It's really cool!

That is so cute, AntsyPants!

My DD plans to be an inventor, and to be equal partners with her BFF (who is an amazing artist, and will be the one who gets the ideas down on paper) and a yet-to-be-determined person with the skills to mock up prototypes.

DD10 - comedian except he doesn't like being on stage - class clown however makes him right at home ;-)

DD9 - roller derby diva - LOTS of attitude!

I did roller derby, what you need more than attitude is good medical insurance!

this is such a fun thread! Unfortunately Aiden just wants to be a professional. But I can so see him as a stage actor. He can mimic a variety of poses, voices, stances and emotions all on command already. He has the best old man "grandpa" walk I have ever seen for example!

Nathan will probably be a shelf packer at the supermarket - he LOVES to sort and tidy the shelves at the tills. LOL

DD8 wants to be either a writer or an art teacher.

Love those hamster shots!

Dd is torn between lolly shop owner, toy shop owner, and robotics engineer...

Of the three I, of course, am pushing her in the direction of lolly shop owner...

omg i totally forgot but when DD8 was little, maybe 4, she used to play these online surgery simulation video games (don't look at me funny! i didn't bring that on...you know how gifted kids are!) and she loved to do the knee replacement best, over and over. She said when she grew up she wanted to be a Baby Knee Surgeon. I don't know how many babies blow out their knees but she was pretty bent on that for a while! Talk about specializing lol

In reality she spends most of her time drawing.

DD9 is looking toward acting.

I think I'll send her down to the studios to be an extra with her mother.

I don't want to be a killjoy, but I don't agree. Most passions make excellent hobbies, but poor career choices. I certainly don't want my children to grow up to find jobs that reward them all day, only to go home and worry about providing for their children at night. That's assuming they can even find a rewarding job related to their passion in the first place.

Maybe my perspective is skewed because I didn't follow my passion, but my reward comes at the end of the work day, not during it. When I considered following my passion, I thought how annoying it would be to have to work with/under people who would take the fun out of it. I chose something I was good at that paid well, and left ample time to spend with my spouse and now my children. It's easy to leave work at work because don't care that much about it.

I continued my passion as a hobby because it meant so much to me.... until I had kids. Now they mean so much more to me that I'm not even the same person I was before. If I had sacrificed traditional success for something that fell off the pedestal I had placed it on, I would certainly regret the decision.

FWIW, the passion I made a hobby out of was actually my second passion. The passion I had for horses (and my desire to own a horse farm when grown up) vanished almost instantly when my father brought home a stereo system with a cd player and 15" woofers when I was in 6th grade.

I don't actually have much of a passion or anything I'm really interested in doing in life, so I'm always amazed when people have passions or things they are interested in accomplishing and actually want to get up in the morning.

Work is work and it's generally going to be dull and boring, mostly because you have to spend time doing things you have zero interest in actually doing. But you do it to make money so that you get to eat and not be homeless. Things that are enjoyable tend to not generate revenue.

I am just about falling out of my chair laughing here. Tears are streaming down my face. What an awesome kid! Thank you for sharing that one.

But you 'push' your children to follow their passions, what will they have to rebel against? Go for a traditional job out of spite?

I've learned the hard way to parent the child I have, not give him what I wish my parents gave me...

Of course we want our chilren to be happy and self supporting and self respecting. Right now I'm reading 'Flow' by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in hopes of being able to figure out what, if anything, I can do to encourage my child to grow up happy.

But I do like hearing about these non-traditional paths. At 3, DS wanted to be a Policeman who sells CD-Rom games.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

He wants to make tall buildings and wear a hard hat in case they drop a hammer. (well, he does like climbing on things). He also wants to be a rockstar, but I don't think he knows that's a job. Guess they're not really that out there. So, I'll play along and think of some fun jobs that fits my son's skills.
*he likes chasing & tackling, so he could be a alligator wrestler
*he makes up languages & talks about an imaginary giant, so, maybe a UFO hunter
*he likes beautiful people, nice cars, he has good taste and likes bossing people around, so, maybe a film director
*everyone else guesses football player or politician. I'll love him no matter what.

IMHO I'm googling the point of a good education and a good upbringing and I'm leaning towards believing the point is that it teaches them how to learn things and how to make decisions. I guess I'm front-loAding whatever influence I have and after a while they'll be adults making their own choices. Hopefully after a good education.

I remember not wanting to rebel against my parents for any reason, being that rebellion was a form of moral evil. At that age, I was aiming for moral perfection more than anything else.

My goal was basically to execute their will and to do what they wanted.

Of course, then they died and/or fired me, so it became a moot point.

My DS7 would like to be a Paleontologist after his career in the NBA.

Baby Knee Surgeon would be an awesome band name.

DD has wanted to be a teacher for a long time, but she also wants to be an ornithologist and an artist, and sometimes, the president.

My wife grew up wanting to be a teacher, but she was discouraged from doing it because teachers are generally "poor".

Now she wants to go back to school for it.

Go figure.

Right now with 2 kids in diapers, and one who is constantly trying to test his mortality, life is too demanding for my tastes. Back when I had one child, I was as excited to go home from work and spend time with her everyday as I used to be to go see a live concert from my favorite band.

Best laugh of the day. Thanks for that! If any of my patients are in need, I'll know who to refer them to ;-)

DD9 loves to do online surgery, too. A few weeks ago I walked in on her performing a cardiac catheterization and overheard her say, "Darn it, he needs angioplasty!" Warmed my heart!!

It doesn't surprise me that there aren't any online lawsuit simulators that kids like to play.

I think there has to be balance of course, between what you love and putting food on the table. But some of the most successful people that we all know and the ones I know personally have found success in their passion.

For example, I always loved nature. My dad always took us to natl parks and hiking, etc. So I was pretty surprised when he discouraged me from pursing a degree in Range Management. He always pushed 3 career options at me...nurse, electrician/computers or engineer. I have wondered often, why not say "Why stop at nurse, why not go for doctor?"

Now that I am a parent myself, I'm not saying you should PUSH them at a non traditional career, but rather give them support and the tools to see how their passion CAN become a rewarding and fulfilling career. Not everyone's idea of success is the same. My husband finds his job extremely satisfying, enjoys the people he works with, but is still super happy to come home to us. Me, I bounced around from job to job, always having the same problem that people thought I was flip or insolent when I used advanced language or tried some problem solving. That is looked down upon in "cog-land". So, I chucked it all and follwed my first love of sewing and fabrics. And while I am not rich, I know I model job satisfaction and career/fmaily balance to my kids. I set my own hours and don't have to worry about performance evals, etc.

I personally know SEVERAL people who are even high school dropouts with very successful businesses, etc.

It's just supposed to be a fun thread about what your gifted kid and how their quirks might make them more successfun in a nontraditional career

FYI-DD8 reports wanting to be an author, illustrator and wildlife vet...so when she keeps drawing and drawing then decides to go to vet school, I will be right there, backing herr up

DD4.5, on the other hand, says she wants to be a "rock star, scientist, super model princess" lol!

I think this is a very sad perspective to have. I have worked at a number of things where I liked what I did, and even when a majority of the actual tasks weren't exactly intrinsically rewarding, I was able to make it interesting, and I've always been able to feed my family. That said, my most enjoyable times working have certainly been when I have worked for myself, and I have pretty much decided that I am willing to sacrifice a certain amount of money to avoid having to work with/under impossible people.

I seriously urge anyone who is interested in deciding on a first career or looking to make a change to take a day to browse O-Net.

Pay special attention to the section on tools. They are available for free download, and link directly across to the occupational titles in the O-Net database.

Don't let her find out Lady Gaga was in the TIP program...

I heard that Stephanie was gifted. I'm not surprised. Even the first time I noticed her as a performer, I could just tell that she wasn't a tool. She's very articulate and you can tell it's all carefully crafted. She isn't a singer, she's a performer, an entertainer.

I promised myself that I would try my best to support them, even if it seems kind of crazy.

I'm sure Steve Jobs parents lost plenty a small electronic to lil Steve's curiosity

What everyone needs to remember is that we all know the names of several successful singers, songwriters, athletes, writers, actors. We don't know the millions that tried to make careers in those fields but failed. We all want to believe that our special children will be successful in overcrowded industries that only reward the most marketable... but statistically that's probably not the case.

Maybe we need a new thread:

"Disillusionment In The Modern Workplace - Is It Statistically Inevitable For Gifteds?"

Good one JonLaw, but is it going to be that different for Gifteds and non-Gifteds?

Did anyone see a young woman in the Wall Street protests interviewed, a recent grad in English from Boston?

She graduated in May and cannot find a job with an English degree. She commented that she could have taken something with more job prospects, like psychology (which took me off guard as a degree with more prospects), but said she would have been miserable not following her passion.

Just wondering how long she will remain happy about pursuing her passion, unable to pay rent and food.

LOL! As a psych major, I armchair-diagnose her as delusional.

If DD had any apparent aptitude therefore, I'd encourage her to go into a skilled trade in addition to college.

I read in a random book the author's quote that every southern belle takes acting, dance, or pagent classes. �Once her teacher told her during rehearsal, don't slouch- you're a snowflake, not a puddle! �She said she never was going to become an actress but once you've been a snowflake you'll never want to be a puddle.". Thus she justified childhood acting classes even though the success isn't directly marketable. �
I'm going to do it the old school way. �"You can be anything if you set your mind to it"... �"And mind your manners". Lol. �Supporting their crazy dreams when they're young s'posed to help the kids develop themselves, as much as you can afford to. �That's different than supporting, "I'm going to drop out of school and be in a band". I support exploring options. �Exercises like this one help to identify and support development of our children's natural strengths (a current goal). �I didn't know my son had picked out a job already, building skyscrapers. �He might not be an architect, foreman, or crewman, but he wants to be part of something big and create something that will last. �Alright, that might change too. �But what kind of strengths does that show me about my son that I can watch for. �It's a big risky job but well planed and safety first, with a hardhat. �I'll watch. �If this theme continues, or if I can put my finger on the underlying theme of the elements of the things he dreams about then I can help him see them and when it comes time to really get a job we can sort through his ideas and the current job market's opportunities and find in those stacks jobs that have the elements of the themes that he wants to do. In theory. �Yes, I've been reading them trashy modern pop positive psychology books. �<<grins>>