Lucy Clark, journalist and author speaks about the challenges of navigating her teens towards post-school options (4-minutes).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWv4L6GBGGU

A word of caution: Lucy is not an educator. Therefore, an understanding of the complexity of complying with curriculum requirements and the plethora of other supports our wonderful schools put in place for the education and wellbeing of their students is not reflected in this interview. Her interview is entitled 'Tackling the School System' implying a 'we-them' mentality,  underestimating the many exceptional school-parent partnerships. I believe the interview should be entitled 'Don't lose sight of your child within the system'.

Regardless, Lucy makes some good points, particularly about keeping sight of who your child is outside of the ‘what do you want to be...?' conversations. She also touches on how the worth of our children is in danger of being reflected by testing and assessment results, not the whole person (both at schools and by outside agencies).

This interview is a timely reminder that there is a whole lot more to every one of us, especially our children. So let's stop thinking about the end of school as the pinnacle point in life where our kids need to know 'what they want to do' or 'who they want to be'. Let’s encourage our kids to be curious. Let us allow them to grow and be who they are meant to be. Let’s celebrate the gift of time and opportunity, both of which go on for a lifetime. Let's celebrate the diversity of our kids and life itself, and how exciting it is to not 'know what you want to be'.

 Lucy’s key takeaways:

 #1 School is a lot harder these days

#2 Support your teen to follow their own path

#3 It’s OK to say things aren’t going well