10 Careers Working With Children

All careers that involve working with children are important – they are our future and they need to be nurtured and protected. Many women would love to pursue a career that involves working with children on a daily basis. I have always loved babies and children. When I was young I wanted to work with babies, in fact my high school work experience I chose to work in a creche for a few days.

There are many ways to work with kids, some pay well and other’s not so great, but what all careers with children do have in common is that they are so rewarding. What better thing to do than to play a role in a child’s life and hopefully help to shape their future?

Here are some awesome career choices for working with children:

Child Play Therapist

Children cannot cope with trauma and difficulties like adults do. When children experience difficulties they express their anxiety and pain through playing. This may be through role playing, drawing, playing with clay or sand.

A play therapist works with children between the ages of three and eleven years old, and from time to time with teenagers too, that are struggling with psychological difficulties and complicated life experiences.

Psychological difficulties can include anxiety, aggression, depression, ADHD and learning difficulties. Complex life experiences can include family breakdown, grief, abuse, trauma and domestic violence.

A play therapist will help the child to decrease any internal conflict, gain increased insight and to increase coping, resiliency and emotional literacy.

Very often a child play therapist will work within a team of multidisciplinary specialists including social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, psychotherapists and psychiatric nurses.

In order to start a career as a child play therapist you will need a masters degree. An honours degree is required in a relevant subject such as social work, psychology, occupational therapy or teaching. You will also need two years experience working with children with various ages and families in a voluntary or professional capacity.

School Teacher

Teaching children in school can be both challenging and extremely rewarding. Being a teacher means you get to teach children so much more than school work. You will help them with their manners, their values, how to socialize, how to work hard and how to achieve goals, as well as the obvious skills like math, language, science and more.

If you would like to become a teacher you will need a bachelor degree. If you are interested in becoming a teacher’s aide you can take a teacher aide course at a institution such as ACTAC.

Au Pair

An au pair is typically a young, childless person (between 18 – 30 years old) from a different country that stays with a family with the main role being to assist with childcare, but also very often there are other duties included such as light housework. Au pairs receive a monetary allowance while living with the family rent free.

Different countries have different requirements for becoming an au pair, you can research that online and find au pair companies that assist with finding you placements.

Pediatrician

A pediatrician is a doctor that manages the health of your child, including behavior, physical and mental health. They are trained to diagnose and treat childhood ailments and illnesses from minor health issues to serious diseases.

Pediatricians have completed medical school and have completed a 3 year pediatrics residency program.

Child Social Worker

Child social workers assist children of families struggling with social issue such as drug abuse, poverty, unemployment, mental illness and homelessness. Their main objective is to ensure the safety, health and well-being of those children, protecting them when necessary and providing help to the families.

The majority of most social workers work within schools, family service agencies, the federal government or state agencies.

In order to start a career as a child social worker you will need a masters degree and an honours degree in social work.

Children’s Party Organizer

Starting your own business organizing children’s parties won’t required a degree and it will be loads of fun, while providing something that children need. – an awesome birthday party. You don’t need any experience to get started, you just need to know how to plan a good party and market yourself in your area.

Child Photographer

Being a child photographer means you get to capture the beautiful and innocent faces of children all day long, plus you could even specialize in certain fields like newborn photography.

Turn your hobby of photography into a full time career by taking a photography course. It won’t cost an arm too much to set yourself up as a professional child photographer once you have the experience and the know how. You could even get contracts with schools to do their yearly photo shoots!

Child Occupational Therapist

Occupational therapy helps children with various needs to improve their physical, cognitive, sensory and motor skills, as well as to improve their sense of accomplishment and self-esteem.

In order to become an occupational therapist in many places worldwide you will need to achieve your bachelor’s degree, then your master’s degree before passing the National Board for Certification of Occupational Therapy. Then finally you can apply for a license to practice as an occupational therapist.

Art Teacher

If you love art and you love children this could be exactly what you are looking for. You will of course need to have some art skills as well as attend some art classes to broaden your skills and knowledge. Then you will need to get your Bachelor’s degree followed by teaching qualification and then you will need to obtain your teachers certification.

Speech Therapist

Many children struggle with speech related difficulties. A speech therapist helps children that have speech difficulties, as well as children that have dyspraxia, dyslexia and auditory processing disorder.

Speech therapists can assist with fluency, articulation, resonance, oral feeding, receptive language, expressive language and pragmatic language problems.

You need a Master’s degree and certification to become a speech therapist.