How Can You Inspire Your Child to Learn About Engineering?
As engineering is essential in infrastructural and societal growth, it is undeniably one of the most in-demand jobs in the world right now. Plus, the more our infrastructure evolves, the higher the demand for engineers would be.
However, you’re probably already aware of how amazing being an engineer is, and you want to encourage your children to give it a try. The problem is you might not really know how to do so.
Well, you’re in luck. Here are 2 simple steps on how to successfully encourage your kids to become inspired to learn about engineering!
Tell Them What It Is About In A Way They Understand
More often than not, kids don’t understand the full scope of what an engineer does. In the media, such as games and movies, they’re always presented as a person dressed in overalls holding a wrench or hammer. Maybe they build stuff? Or maybe they work on engines?
With this preconceived notion, kids that are not interested in mechanical stuff like cars and trains might not be interested in finding out more. If you are keen on encouraging your kids to take up engineering, it is up to you to shed light on the career in a way that really resonates with your child.
How do you do that?
First, you have to understand that engineering is much more than what kids assume the career is. Building stuff and working on engines is a small part of being an engineer. In essence, an engineer creates wonders that make the world a better place and achieve what everyone says is impossible.
If your kid loves learning about space, tell them that engineers made it all possible. Astronauts may have explored space, but engineers built the rocket, the computers, the cameras, the telescopes and all the cool stuff that lets astronauts do what they do best!
On the flip side, if your kid loves dinosaurs, you can show them a whole new world by letting them know that engineers made it possible for them to find out more about dinosaurs. Working together with scientists, engineers are able to create fantastical devices that can unlock the past, the present and the future.
Another example would be if your kids love to play video games all day. Instead of reprimanding them for it, tell them that behind the scenes of Fortnite, it was a bunch of software engineers that made it possible. A team of engineers built a game that they truly enjoy and immerse themselves in. You could open a new reality for them by making them understand that they can actually build a game that is as good as, or even better than their favorite video games!
The point is, engineering is an incredibly diverse career. So diverse in fact, that the explanation and understanding of the job scope is watered down to “building stuff”, which generally turns off many potential future engineers that might change the world. By explaining what engineering is on your kid’s terms and putting it in a way that they understand, and a way that they resonate with, you’ll be able to shed light on this noble profession much more. Through such methods, you’re able to further nurture the curiosity of engineering in your kids and encourage them to take up a lesson or two.
Related: Why Every Kid Must Learn to Code
Find Fun Beginner Engineering Courses For Them To Try Out.
Once your kids are more open to learning about engineering, the next step is finding a course that can speak to them on their terms. Because let’s be honest, engineering is an incredibly heavy industry that millions of people study their whole lives for.
It can be challenging and monotonous at times, which is not the first impression you’d want your kids to have of it. Luckily, you don’t have to send your kids to a university-level education as an intro to engineering. Instead, there are tons of online and offline courses out there that help kids understand engineering from a fundamental level and slowly build up their skills and knowledge of the subject.
For example, here at Engineering For Kids, we provide our students with interactive courses in various fields of engineering like aerospace or civil engineering, but also in technology-based courses like coding or Minecraft lessons. In Minecraft, we take a game that kids already enjoy and use it to teach them the fundamentals of engineering. Kids enrolled in our program learn to build city infrastructure from scratch either collaboratively or as a solo project. They not only learn new things about their favorite game, but they are learning real-life engineering lessons that will help them progress for their future career.
By sending your kids to an engineering course that resonates with their passion, they are more likely to follow through with it their whole lives and cultivate it into their adulthood.