When Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson's son first brought up job-hopping, she worried about how it would look on his resume.
Fresh out of college, he'd only worked at one job for a year when he considered switching to a new role. Gibson was surprised to hear that, unlike for her generation, remaining too long in one position could be a liability and make it harder to get promoted.
"That was when it dawned on me; I've reached the limit of what I'm teaching about the work world because it's not the same as it was before," Gibson, a psychologist who wrote "How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child," told Business Insider.
Since then, the workforce has undergone more disruption. Gen Zers and younger generations are especially at risk, given how many traditional entry-level roles are disappearing due to AI.
Gibson says there are simple ways for parents to prepare kids to meet this moment of uncertainty. Entering the AI age, she shared why raising resilient kids matters more than pushing for straight-As — and how parents can help their kids be more flexible and adaptable to change.
A tough time for ladder-climbers
Compared to growing up in the mid-to late-20th century, younger people in the workforce are much more likely to be frequently changing jobs.
Now, the old parenting standards, such as striving for a pristine education or meticulously planned career trajectory for their kids, can actually set some kids back.
"If you raise your child to be obedient to authority and always looking for external validation, they have one foot on a banana peel when they're going out in the world," she said.
For example, highly critical parents might foster a strict, overly structured home environment, leading kids to believe that if they follow all the rules and yield to authority, they will have perfect control over their futures. Once they're out of the house, they might not be able to weather the instability of the work world.
"If you get upset and incapacitated, it's going to be very difficult for you to surf these waves of change that are not going to stop coming," she said. Instead of looking for solutions, these kids might cling to their rigid vision of success, to their own detriment.
Employers value creativity and adaptability
Business leaders continually emphasize an important skillset for those navigating the emerging AI world: the ability to think for yourself.
If a child grows up with one goal in mind — graduate college with a perfect GPA — they might be tempted to use ChatGPT to write their essay. But dependence on AI may make them more susceptible to being replaced by it — one 2025 Wharton School survey found that nearly 43% of business leaders feared skill atrophy due to AI.
"You are trying to show people that you can reset, pivot, be creative, see things differently," Gibson said. "All these flexible qualities are based on an ability to tolerate complexity."
Raise emotionally mature kids
While parents might understandably be worried about the future, Gibson said one parenting goal can set their kids up for the greatest success: raising them to be emotionally mature adults.
They can do this by:
- Patiently guiding and correcting their kids instead of punishing them
- Apologizing to their kids when they make mistakes
- Fostering a consistently safe, nurturing home environment
Over time, this style of parenting helps kids feel securely attached to their caregivers, knowing that they can take risks and accept temporary failure because they have a solid base at home.
"That's why I think they will have more success than children who are raised in a more traditional manner to have black-and-white thinking," Gibson said.
Emotionally mature adults will notice when they're stuck in their career and use the opportunity to invent a new role for themselves, turn a side-hustle into a full-time gig, take additional courses, or use AI to vibe-code their website.
To them, a career dead-end is just their cue to pivot.
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Julia is a senior health reporter at Business Insider. Julia covers a wide range of topics, including the rise of colon cancer cases among young people, the unique challenges modern parents face, and the growing trend of Gen Zers abstaining from social media. She also writes about fitness, nutrition, longevity, and the routines of highly successful people for Business Insider’s Power Hours series. She’s published interviews with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Serena Williams, Esther Perel, Bill Nye, Naomi Watts, and James Van Der Beek.Julia's work has appeared on the BBC, CBS, Bloomberg Radio, Morning Brew, Fast Company, and the Daily Flash. She has also moderated panel discussions at Nasdaq and Duke University, and appeared on the podcasts Open to Debate, Airtalk, The Evan Bray Show, and The Last Show with David Cooper. Prior to this role, Julia was an education and personal development editor on the Business Insider Reviews team and a sex and relationships editor at Cosmopolitan and BuzzFeed, respectively.You can say hi to Julia at [email protected] and check out more of her work on her website.
