: How to encourage my 5-year-daughter to become a Medical Doctor? I have a 5-year-old daughter. She has expressed a desire to be a Medical Doctor several times. Are there games, books, something on TV she can watch that will

As I said in my comment, I don't think there is any way to teach someone what being a doctor is like, because it is nothing like anyone who's not a doctor can imagine.

There are kid's books about doctors. There are games about the human body (I remember "Operation" and "The Visible Man"). There are YouTube videos about it. You can share these with her.

But if you're seriously going to encourage her, start with biology. What germs are, what different blood cells do, little by little how the body works. If she isn't interested in that, you'll have a better grip on why being a doctor appeals to her, and can help her in more targeted ways.

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Interesting!

My son wanted to be a

Policeman
Firefighter
Doctor
Dentist
Vet
Detective
Actor
Farmer
Pilot
Train driver
Truck driver
Chef
Paleontologist
Musician
Magician
Exterminator
President
Programmer like me
... and any other job you can think of, all before he was 5.

He expressed a serious interest in every single one.

I tried to teach him about a couple of them but he lost interest after 2 minutes.

Something you'll learn about kid psychology is that they'll express a keen interest in anything, at the moment - whether it's their future career ambitions - or a jigsaw puzzle they just solved.

Sure, it's good to embrace it - try and teach them! But it's also VERY important to expect or realize that they'll forget about it completely in a week's time, and pick up on the next fad.

If you want to steer them in one direction towards being a doctor, for whatever reason, then just give them only doctor-related toys - fake stethoscopes and that kind of thing, and take away other toys. Then give them a bunch of doctor-related picture books, and take away all other picture books. Try this for a few years and see if they take a liking towards being a doctor.

They might like it, or, you might have just limited their knowledge and curiosity of the world when it is most important in life. Think about it.

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You've said it yourself: She's five. At this stage in her life, it's pretty much pointless to try and ground her in a specific profession. IMO, you should instead focus on exposing her to a wide variety of activities. Yes, foster interests she has, but don't take any one thing she's interested in too seriously.

That said, of course there are games and books you can get her. You could get her a play doctor's kit, or make an ad-hoc one (see for example

If she actually uses her doctor's kit to play doctor with another child, react in a measured and calm way when the play involves nakedness and/or genitals.

Show her how to treat small injuries, such as scrapes from falling down; let her have some band-aids etc to practice and play with. Explain to her what vaccines are for when her next vaccination shot comes up.

As to books, get her something that gets her in touch with her own body (google for "my body children's book" to find a ton of suggestions, and take it from there).

All this isn't geared to fostering a lasting interest in becoming a doctor, but rather at getting her to understand the basics of how her body works and what different parts are for, how to take care of herself etc.

Your daughter might also be interested in doctors because they help other people and she'd like to do that too (kinda like some kids want to become a policeman or private investigator). So besides focusing on books, games and movies with doctors, you might also try to find stories with protagonists who help others, or animals.

I'd be wary of films involving doctors, because many of them are a) depicting clear role distributions with male doctors and female nurses, especially if they're a bit dated, and b) deal either with love interests between said persons, or with ethical issues, both of which are above your daughter's head right now, and c) they never show how exhausting being a doctor (especially in a hospital) is in real life.

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