13 year old daughter and options

[hammerman]

My daughter is approaching the time she has to choose her options and hopefully a path to her future career. However this is proving a little more stressful than it should.

She's doing ok at school...she'll never be a nuclear scientist but im happy with her progress. Trouble is, i want her to choose her career path with the current economic climate in mind and the fact that school leavers are in the top percent of unemployed people.

She's good at IT (computers etc) but she hates it and doesn't want to go there. I've tried explaining that she will have the possibility of earning good money and the jobs are generally out there.

However she either wants to do photography or hair and beauty (the latter being what her older sister...my step daughter, did). I wouldn't mind her doing hair and beauty but there's just not the money or the jobs out there. I'd prefer her to do photography as a hobby and then develop it from there.

I know you can't tell me what to do but surely some of you must be in the same situation.....what will you advise your kids ?

regards

HM

[cathfromsaron]

many jobs need good IT skills, even if she works outside 'IT' per se, so yayy to that!

she could have her own salon if she trains in hair and beauty, but if she can get gcses first, i wouldn't go into that too soon!

health, admin and retail are other sectors! media studies courses have excellent photographic modules BUT my daughter has a 2:1 in photojournalism and has never found work! but she still keeps photography and a paying hobby and enjoys it!

she needs to keep her options as wide as possible at this stage!

cath x

[EvianBaby]

Actually I'll use myself as an example of my above comment.

I failed my maths GCSE spectacularly and went on to do hair and beauty. 12 years after leavin school, with other non hair/beauty related jobs in between I now run the accounts of a company. I'm not sure they ever asked to look at my GCSE results thankfully ;)

[bednobs]

good point cath - what if she tailors her gcses to the career choice she wants then decide she doesn't actually want to do that? (that's a trick question by the way, because the answer is it wont matter - see my previous answer)