Take Your Child To Work: Educational & Insightful

Recently, I had the opportunity to organize a “Take Your Child to Work” kids’ event for Authorize.Net.

This year’s (2006) national theme was Shaping the Future, and focused on the kids thinking about where they may be in their personal and professional lives in twenty years.Through a series of activities, the children were challenged to think about this question through a series of activities. The age range for the event was 7 years old on up.

Here’s what we did:

• Mock High School Reunion: Where the kids were able to think about how old they would be in 2026, what would their ideal job be and what did they enjoy the most. Second, what does their family look like and what do they enjoy doing with their families. The kids were then able to share their future selves with one another.
• From there, we took a tour of the offices and along the way the kids met employees, observed one parent working with his colleague, saw the office supply and snack areas, etc.
• During a panel discussion with three employees, the kids asked questions regarding what was important in their work and home environments, what they had envisioned as kids for their work and home lives, and how they manage to balance both.
• Later, kids were given a series of “Role Play” opportunities that had them think through for themselves what they would do. As an example, “Your mother is sick in another state and relies on you to help her. She is being released from the hospital on Monday and expects you to pick her up and take care of her for a couple of weeks. Still, you have a tremendous amount of work to do and your colleagues are depending on you. What do you do?”
• Finally, the kids created pictures of themselves now and what they are currently doing and pictures of themselves in 20 years time and what they will be doing at that time. All of their pieces were placed together to make a mural of their present and their future selves. This is the craft that commemorated the event.

After lunch, the kids got certificates that certified their participation in the day, and they also received a great goody bag of “Back To School” stuff ~ white boards, notebooks, pencils, highlighters, “Cereal to Go” cups, apple post-its, rubber band balls, fancy hole punches, etc.

As the kids enjoyed their lunches wth their parents and other staff members, I overheard them discussing the “role play” activity and what they decided to do. Overall, the activities challenged and engaged the kids in thinking about how they will go about their shaing their futures. If you are looking for an educational kids’ event that will challenge their minds and also be fun…this may be a theme for your company to engage the employees’ kids.