What to Do Now to Support Your Teen, Tween, or Kid
As a family physician, guest lecturer at a local medical school, and creator of a pre-med curriculum for young learners, I’m often asked by parents how to support their child who wants to be a doctor.
The most important point to remember is that you don’t need to have any science background or be a professional of any sort to support your child. We all want to help our children follow their dreams! Most parents know as little about supporting a budding physician as I do about how to help my son, who wants to dance professionally. That’s OK! I do the same thing as you: I look for answers online. And I’m here to give you some ideas.
So here is the advice I give parents who want to know what to do when their teen or child wants to be a doctor:
Strategy 1: Nurture Curiosity Over Performance
Ask your child why the career sounds appealing and help them develop themselves in that direction.
Is it because they want to help people? Be a leader? Be respected? Because they think the human body is really cool? Because they love figuring out science mysteries? These are all reasons I’ve heard kids give for why they want to be physicians… and they are also all reasons that many doctors enjoy being doctors.
Use that reason as a jumping-off point for your child’s personal growth. If they want to help people, what are ways they can start helping right now in your own community? Perhaps they love learning about the human body? Then give them plenty of opportunities to learn more! If they dream of being a leader, what are some leadership roles they can take now? If you don’t have the time or access for any of these, look for organizations like scouts or online programs that can come alongside you.
Stress the importance of being well-rounded.
When I was in middle school, I read an article in which a medical school dean stated that she could make any good person into a good doctor, but she couldn’t make just any good student into a good doctor. She went on to say that she wanted students who were well-rounded and interacted well with other people.
I knew that without family connections or financial resources, I just didn’t have the same opportunities as the students I’d be competing against for a spot in medical school. So I focused on developing into a good person, not just a good student. It paid off when I got into medical school on my first try as the youngest person in my class. My good grades and good test scores didn’t set me apart…it was my wide variety of interests outside of science and the stories I told during my interview, which demonstrated that I have an intense interest in the lives and well-being of other people.
Teach them to fail.
Many competitive students never learn that it’s OK to be less than perfect… until they get to medical school and realize that no one can know everything. I often tell the medical students I teach that I almost failed anatomy in medical school (but went on to honor my clinical rotations). This was after a lifetime of being the top in my class, and it was terrifying to me to realize that I could fail. It shook my entire sense of identity. Who was I if I wasn’t the best?
Eventually, learning how to fail gave me the courage to take risks. That new attitude allowed me to be part of the early Direct Primary Care movement, establish the only free clinic in my city, and create the first pre-med curriculum for young learners. Every one of those had the possibility of failure, which I had to accept in order to take the risk.
Developing their character comes first but we also need to nurture their interest in medicine.
Strategy 2: Demystify Medicine Without Forcing a Commitment
When a child or teen wants to be a doctor, take their interest seriously … but not too seriously.
While many children say they want to be doctors, many will consider different professions before landing on something else. I didn’t, though. I decided I wanted to be a doctor when I was six and never lost sight of that goal. So try to find a middle ground of respecting their interest without locking them in.
“Being a doctor is a great career choice and there are so many others, too! I believe in you and that you will have a career you love!” Be careful not to tell them why it’s a great/terrible career for them. Instead, help them learn more and then evaluate for themselves if it’s a good fit.
Remember that people change careers multiple times in their lives. Even if your child ultimately makes it into medicine, there’s a good chance that won’t be their only career. In fact, there’s a good chance that many of the careers our children will have someday don’t exist yet. Think of how many of today’s jobs are due entirely to evolving technologies! So much of what’s common now would have been science fiction when we were kids!
Encourage them to explore a variety of healthcare careers.
While 20-30% of kids and teens either aspire to or flat out expect to have a healthcare career, most kids who say they want a healthcare career only know three jobs: doctor, nurse, vet. Imagine walking into the grocery store and only having three choices of what to eat! What are the chances it will be just right for you?
Exploring the hundreds of career options can be as simple as watching YouTube videos or exploring the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook. Focus on the reality of each career. What does the typical day look like? How long is the training?
It’s also important to challenge any myths your child may have heard about each career. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a young person eliminate a career as a possibility because of something entirely false. Or choose a career path based on something they saw in a show that won’t happen in real life.
Love them unconditionally.
A good doctor doesn’t excel in school because they are afraid of their parents being disappointed. A good doctor loves to learn and feels so strongly about their goals that it’s worth the hard work. Your child needs to know that you are still proud of whether or not they get into medical school.
Once you’ve provided the emotional foundation, you can focus on the practical tools they’ll need in order to take their next steps.
Strategy 3: Provide Access & a Clinical Framework
Help your teen or child learn more about being a doctor.
Of course, shadowing a doctor is great, but many kids don’t grow up in professional families with connections that make that possible. So for the rest of us, there is a local library full of books. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a single doctor living within a 5-mile radius of the neighborhood where I grew up. But I read biographies, essays, humor, anything I could find that gave me a taste of my chosen career.
One of the biggest hurdles when a teen or child wants to be a doctor is finding mentors; that’s why I recommend biographies. Documentaries can also be a great option. Nowadays, there are innumerable YouTube channels created by students, residents, and attendings that show so much more about real life than a professionally edited program.
I’ve designed MedPath to provide a lot of this sort of inside information! It gives kids a structured ‘inside look’ at medicine. It’s the mentorship and science learning that I wish I had.
Give them a science framework.
After teaching thousands of students around the world, I’m a firm believer that just as young brains learn a second language more naturally, young brains are also primed to learn the language and patterns of science more easily.
Here are some things I do with my kids:
- Grow a garden.
- Observe bugs.
- Ask questions and find answers.
- Do dissections.
- Learn the chemistry of cooking.
- Build simple machines.
- Play Valence Plus (a chemistry card game that teaches the basics of chemical reactions).
- Create a game of battleship using four laminated copies of the periodic table of the elements.
This ‘science language’ is exactly what we build in MedPath. Instead of just memorizing facts, we teach kids to think like clinicians. If you want a ready-to-go framework, find your child’s MedPath level here.
Supporting a future doctor doesn’t have to be overwhelming. I designed MedPath to be the roadmap for families like yours, taking the guesswork out of science education and career exploration. Whether your child is 8 or 16, there is a level designed just for them.
Give Your Child’s Dream the Foundation It Deserves
There are coding programs for third graders. Robotics teams for middle schoolers. Aspiring physicians deserve their own program. MedPath is the only physician-built, clinical-level curriculum for future healthcare professionals, providing a complete pre-med program for kids and teens.
