What Kids Want to be When They Grow Up

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is such a timeless question. All of us must have been asked this at least once in our growing years. [...]

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is such a timeless question. All of us must have been asked this at least once in our growing years.

Once upon a time, the answers were most likely pilots, doctors, lawyers, teachers, scientists or astronauts. Popular career choices for children may not have changed much over the years, but they are definitely evolving as the world is changing. Occupations such as singers, video gamers, YouTubers or social media influencers are creeping into the list today.

We posed the question to our children who came up with a few interesting answers.

10-year-old Yu Jun Bo, who attends speech therapy sessions weekly under the Continuing Therapy Programme at SPD Ability Centre, wants to be a writer who travels to tell his tales.

10-year-old Jun Bo wants to be a writer
10-year-old Jun Bo wants to be a writer

Rachel Tai, 16, wishes to be a “horse-riding girl’ because she loves horses. Yi Hao from our Building Bridges EIPIC Centre at SPD Ability Centre aspires to be a teacher because he wants to teach Circle Time, a popular group activity that helps develop positive relationships between kids through engaging and fun activities! Raziq aims to be a chef so that he can have all the fries that he wants, Jeslyn fancies being a cowgirl while Danish hopes to be a goalkeeper because he likes to catch ball.

Rachel Tai loves horses and wants to be a horse-riding girl
Rachel Tai loves horses and wants to be a horse-riding girl

As the children explore and interact with the world around them, the same question will yield different answers at different stages of their lives.  But what is important is that we help them understand that they are capable of anything, especially in creating their own happiness.

As we celebrate childhood, innocence and honesty on Children’s Day which falls on 4 October in Singapore, we want to take a leaf from the young ones and never be afraid to dream, and dream big.