In my family it was demanded you learn a trade,
before going to a university.
I’m a shipwright a Software and Electronics engineer.
(Vietnam era VET also)
I retired at age 55.
What are you pushing your kids to do?
I was driving 65 foot long long power boats at
age thirteen. Scarred the Schiif out of me but I had a mentor.
Push your kids to excel in the real world.
Excellent idea.
I worked quite a few jobs from retail to blue collar before and during college.
My dad got me a job at a gas station/mechanic shop while I was in high school. Worked there 3 years after school and summers. Then I went to college. Took my automotive experience and had a career selling and servicing industrial transmission equipment. Conveyors, gearboxes, bearings, couplings and the like. Plus my wife and I are now restoring an older VW beetle convertible. I am pointing and she is wrenching.