What are you going to be when you grow up?

Why can't these children put their minds to their school work? They could all get better high school grades and end up in useful careers.

In many ways it is positive that we have such ambition for children
We have hopes that they can get past their experiences of deprivation and abuse, and pursue fulfilled and happy lives. And so they can, and this should be our goal for them. But the reality is that not all school pupils in the general population are going to graduate from high school, and it is unfair, therefore, for us to expect from all children in care that they are going to do better than their peers.

Our values about “useful careers" differ widely
We are taught as child care workers to respect the cultures and traditions of the children and their families, and not to impose our own values on them. When we refer to “useful careers" we should try to understand what this might mean to others. In a recent television documentary on the restoration of an eighteenth century building, a plasterer said: “I come from a family of plasterers – in fact for five generations this has been my family's trade." He said this with considerable pride, and he clearly brought great skill and commitment to his admirable restoration work. In today's world, too, no one would wish to undervalue or scorn blue-collar or manual work, which underlies all of the technology and comforts which we enjoy. There's many a joke that the doctor may earn well, but the plumber out-earns us all!

Career choice is closely associated with identity
A very strong factor operating in the children's lives is their sense of identity – of who they would like to be like, and what, in their minds, makes for the ideal man or woman. And most often, this ideal is built from significant adults in their own lives. For children in care, sometimes all they have is the dream they wish to fulfil to be “like my mother (aunt, father)".

When such role models are strongly established it is highly risky for us to discourage them for they are highly valued, and we will only succeed in creating intolerable splitting and conflict for the young person to deal with. Remember that a role model with whom a youngster has identified is likely to be healthier and less superficial than none at all.

Vocational testing takes into account many dimensions of difference
The simplistic idea of a “useful career" is not supported by the sheer variety of options and requirements reflected by an ordinary vocational test. This test (or rather set of tests) would look at intelligence and school achievement, but also at aptitude (itself a very differentiated concept) and such psychological qualities as temperament, adaptability etc. Thirty years ago one might have thought of “banking" as a “useful career", but work in a banking company today might involve any one of dozens of different kinds of jobs – from financial, accounting, actuarial and marketing, to technical, design, mechanical, transport, supportive, etc. So for a career in banking you may be white-collar or blue-collar, you may need to attend a university or college, or perhaps receive specialised training in computers or security; you may have to finish high school – or not.

Unravel your real aims for the youngsters in your care
When you think about it, when one of the children comes back to visit you in ten years' time, it won't really matter whether he or she graduated from high school, or whether they are in some 'respectable' job or other. What will really matter is that they are happy, fulfilled and coping reasonably well with life – at a pace and level which is stimulating, rewarding and comfortable for them. You would hate to be visited by a young person who had spent ten frustrating years struggling against his own nature in order to satisfy your expectations – and who now had to face you with the news that he had failed! There is more to life than school achievement and lofty job title.

When you are planning the curriculum for the future lives of the kids you work with, don't leave out the fun, the relationships, the life skills, the feelings of self-worth, the understanding, the generosity, the experiences of success, the acceptance and belonging, the confidence, the hope and the values which they will need to build their own adult lives and their own families. It is from these things that they will derive the motivation and the good sense to plan their careers – and the training and education they may need.

And if they get to this point, who cares if they are a year or two late? Many kids don't put their minds to their schoolwork because we have taken education and made it a grim thing in their lives to which (we tell them) so much else must be sacrificed.

Especially for youngsters in care, we need first to show them the value of the good things in life, so that they can be empowered to make their own good decisions.