How to talk to teens about careers
We recently ran a webinar for parents on how to help their teenagers with career choices. We ran through the 4 challenges we hear a lot from parents (no doubt you’ll identify with some or all of them!) and our ideas to tackle them.
The four challenges to having career conversations with your kids
#1 They need the right answer, right now!
Teens feel such pressure to land on the 'right' career choice straight out of school. With the constant asking from family or friends and a healthy dose of limbic brain dominance, you’ve got a molotov cocktail of anger, anxiety and frustration all driven from fear. And they believe their friends already have the answer and they don't. The kids in our workshops often express a profound sense of relief to be with others struggling with the same problem.
#2 You’re feeling out of your depth
Many parents feel they're not equipped to have career conversations because "I'm not an 'expert' in the full spectrum of career and study opportunities.
#3 Your teen hasn’t got a clue!
Teens are often not sure what direction to take. This is the mother of all the challenges. And how can they really know when their life experience is so narrow? The task can feel overwhelming and can manifest in inertia; or focussing on subjects they’re doing well in rather than what they enjoy/interested in; or following a 'known' path, without exploring options.
#4 Our agenda influencing their career choices
Some parents struggle to take themselves out of their child's career choice. Our intentions are good - we want the very best for our children. However, it can manifest in directing them to 'safe' options because we don't want them to 'fail', or not supporting career choices that aren't perceived to be prestigious enough; or worry that career choices won't pay enough and they'll never leave home! Or unintentionally turning them off career options just by the way we talk about them.
So with these four common challenges outlined (and by the way, we know this is not an exhaustive list) here are our thoughts on how to tackle them.
How to tackle the four challenges
The most important thing you can do is reassure them over and over that it's ok not to know RIGHT NOW. Typically people learn about what they love by doing it, so what is important is helping them find a direction that feels right, which plays to their strengths and is genuinely interesting. That process takes time.
Careers are non-linear. Who among us are still doing what we started out doing? In our constantly changing world, people adjust their career path many times in their working lives - we need to help our kids to understand that this is normal.
Being comfortable to adapt as we learn about ourselves and as our circumstances change is a key life skill. Helping your teens to develop and maintain a growth mindset will equip them to adapt when choices don't turn out as anticipated. There is lots to read and/or watch on growth mindset. We recommend watching this YouTube video that sums it up perfectly.
Neuroscience tells us that the neo-cortex is not fully formed in teens. So some kids simply aren’t ready to make decisions about career direction and need more time.
Gap years (or periods) are a great opportunity to experience the world (or at least NZ in these COVID times!), working life, and to learn more about what they do and don’t like.
Permission from you to take some extra time can be a great weight off their shoulders.
Like it or not you’re very influential in your teen’s career choices, as this research shows - so how can you best use your influence?
It’s never too early to bring careers into everyday conversation. One simple thing is start talking about careers or jobs when you and your child see them in action.
It could be a visit to the GP or vet or as you’re driving somewhere and come across construction site: Questions like
What jobs are needed to build new buildings?
What would be like to do those jobs?
What appeals? What doesn’t?
Who benefits from that job being done?
Tell your career story (and not just the good stuff/highlights!) It is surprising how few teens know the details of their parents' careers. Sharing your stories helps them to understand the twists, turns and influences on career choices. Remember to talk about what you really liked about the jobs you have had. Why you felt that job mattered to you.
This doesn’t have to be a solo or duo pursuit - call in the troops! Your friends and family, colleagues all have work experiences to share.
We like frameworks to help solve any tricky problems. Here’s a well known career development framework called SODA - self knowledge, options, decisions, action. We’re going to touch very briefly on the first three because that’s where parents can add the most value.
We reckon the career ‘sweet spot’ is that combination of what you love + what you're good at + what you’ll need to earn to fund the type of lifestyle you want to lead.
You could use this tool with your teen and fill it out together, over time. You may not get much the first time you ask but the more you probe, the richer the insights you’ll get. Offering your own observations will help with this.
Careers.govt.nz is a truly excellent resource. With their self knowledge insights, they can start exploring sectors and jobs that might be a match. It might also be fun as a family to complete some of the career quizzes on the website and compare results.
Once they’ve got some ideas. They need to test them. This is something we REALLY focus on in our programmes.
At the low-rent end of testing options they could google search ‘a day in the life of a [insert job]’, but what we really encourage is for them to meet people in the fields/jobs they are interested in and if possible shadow someone for a day.
It is entirely normal to want your children to be happy and successful. But if they have little interest in what you think they should do, they are unlikely to be successful at it and could even be very unhappy.
Conclusive research shows that people are happier and more successful if they are doing work which has personal meaning for them. Watch Angela Lee Duckworth’s TED Talk for more on this.
So in summary:
Help take the pressure off needing to land on the ‘right’ answer straight away by reassuring them they will learn by doing and can course correct at any time as they learn more about themselves.
Career conversations aren’t a oncer. Start early and keep it going, even if you have to approach it obliquely by dropping observations into other conversations.
Helping them develop greater self knowledge is a real gift you can give them.
Encouraging and supporting experimentation is the best way to discover work they could love, or not.
And finally - You are a really important influence and have more resources than you may think. Your greatest contribution is to be available and open to their career explorations, and be their coach.
Here’s the full webinar recording if you’d like all the pearls of wisdom from Nathan Wallis and a bit more detail from us.
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