Konnie Huq on how talking to teens about their future is vital

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An economics diploma from the University of Cambridge isn’t probably the most vital qualification to work as a Blue Peter presenter, however having such a feather in her cap by no means did Konnie Huq any hurt.

Despite having no thought of which profession she wished to pursue when she was in school, and having various passions for each sciences and performing arts, after ending her diploma, Huq landed a job presenting the enduring kids’s TV present and ultimately grew to become its longest-serving feminine presenter.

“When I was taking my GCSEs, I had no clue, really, about what I wanted to do,” she remembers. “And even my degree choice was sort of ‘eeny, meeny, miny, moe’ – I’d done all science A-levels, and I didn’t want to go into sciences as a career, so I just chose to do economics. I’d never done economics before, I didn’t really even know what economics was!”

Huq now has two kids of her personal – Covey, who’s practically 12, and Huxley, 10 – with the author and TV presenter Charlie Brooker, and the youngsters are quick approaching the time once they’ll want to begin considering about what topics they actually take pleasure in in school, and if there’s any profession paths they could like to observe.

It’s for that motive, and the truth that she might’ve executed with some assist navigating her personal instructional decisions, that Huq, 48, has teamed up with one other former Blue Peter presenter, Simon Thomas, to again Talking Futures, a nationwide marketing campaign and on-line useful resource that helps mother and father speak to youngsters about their future training and profession choices.

“A resource like this could have been such a helpful tool for when me and my peers were growing up,” Huq displays.

“Basically, the campaign is all about talking to your young people about what it is they want to do in the future and what paths they want to go down. I’ve found from talking to my parental peers that lots of people aren’t actually aware of all the new education options available to children growing up – there’s so much more than when we were young, because we’re living in a different world, essentially.”

Huq explains that the Talking Futures web site presents assist to mother and father, and there’s a chatbot that tailors recommendation to every little one’s distinctive circumstances.

“It just helps you to navigate what will suit them, because these secondary school years are pivotal to getting them on the right path to what they want to do after school and beyond,” she says. “Often, your whole life can go down a different pathway because you might not have realised something that was available to you. So it’s really, really important to have these conversations.”

And Thomas, who now hosts Sky Sports Soccer Saturday, says: “Having a 14-year-old myself, I fully understand the struggles in engaging teens in conversations around their futures.

“It’s important for parents to get into the habit of having career conversations regularly, and it’s something that I broach with my son fairly often. Time flies, and it’s good to know what your kids are thinking early on – you don’t necessarily have to define a certain pathway, but explore the various possibilities so they know what’s out there.”

Research for the marketing campaign – which is run by the charitable careers and training organisation, the Gatsby Foundation, discovered seven in 10 mother and father have seen a big distinction within the careers obtainable to their kids in contrast to once they have been rising up, with virtually half (47%) admitting it may be troublesome to assist their kids’s training and profession choices consequently.

And 64% of the mother and father questioned mentioned they discover it simpler to have tough discussions with their youngsters once they’re occupied with one other exercise like cooking or baking (52%) or strolling the canine (39%).

So as a part of the marketing campaign, Huq and Thomas have made a collection of ‘Earn Your Badge’ movies during which they deal with well-known Blue Peter duties, just like the creation of Tracy Island, whereas sharing steering on subjects like profession pathways.

“It’s trying to encourage parents to do something with their kids,” explains Huq. “Often, when you’re chatting with them face-to-face, it can feel like you’re lecturing them or telling them off, whereas if you’re doing an activity with your child, sometimes it can be disarming and it can be much more organic and natural to bring up a conversation.”

The backside line, she says, is that folks simply need their youngsters to be pleased, and selecting the best profession path is a significant a part of that. “I want my kids to be happy – that’s all we want for our kids,” she stresses.

“But they might think ‘I’m going to be happy being unemployed, just gaming all day on my computer and eating McDonald’s’. So it’s a balance, isn’t it? You don’t want to force them into something they don’t want to do, but similarly, you don’t want to be irresponsible and let them have free rein to a point where actually it won’t be good in the long-run.

“If you can be in a job you enjoy, then you’re winning, because all we want to do really in life is to be happy. And if you’re not happy at work, that constitutes a lot of your life as a grown-up, so it’s very valuable for mental wellbeing.”

She stresses that as a result of mother and father know their kids higher than anyone, they can assist steer them to what makes them pleased, as a result of usually younger folks don’t know what they need to do in life.

She provides: “Your child’s future, it’s massive, but most people don’t even know what’s open to them. You know about GCSEs and then some do A-levels and some get a job. But it doesn’t have to be those pathways – there’s so many different options available.

“It’s such a common thing for a child not know what to do next, and as parents, we have a share in the responsibility for helping them go down the right pathway.”

Konnie Huq and Simon Thomas are supporting the Talking Futures  marketing campaign to assist mother and father speak to 11-18-year-olds about their future training and profession choices.