Are you wanting to support and guide your teenager in their career planning? Is your teenager struggling to find a career path?
Do you want some tools and strategies to assist them in finding meaning, purpose and direction?

Young people today

Young people today are faced with so many choices and options. Sure Generation Y experts tell us that this generation responds well to flexibility and in fact demand it, but where does this leave us as parents? How can we begin to guide, support and help our children manage the options they face, especially when it comes to career choices?

McCrindle Research suggests the career path of young people today does not reflect the linear path we as parents are likely to experience. We as Generation X and Baby Boomers are likely to spend 15 years or more in the same career, slowly and patiently moving our way up the management ladder. Young people today do not operate with this mindset preferring options, flexibility and freedom to choose.

Our dilemma

Each of us know only too well the changes occurring in training, recruitment and management as Gen Y come through the doors. We are aware of their need for fun, social networking and instant gratification but how can we as parents assist our children? How can we guide them through the myriad options not to mention their own uncertainty bringing the many highs and lows that invariably we have to live with at home?

What is education doing?

Current education practice is encouraging teachers to be less ‘teacher’ and more ‘facilitator’. Leadership training suggests being less ‘manager’ and more ‘coach’. The reason for this change in style is not only to empower the other person with their own insights, but the basic fact that no-body likes to be told what to do, especially young people. The solution here lies in talking less and listening more. As Epictetus said “Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak”. To do this we need to ask questions, the key is to know what questions to ask. This is where the tools used for coaching can assist you in forming a more positive relationship with your child.

What does this mean for you?

There are many coaching models out there, however something I often use as an educator with over 15 years experience in both private and public schools is the RESULTS Model. This is a series of seven questions with suggested strategies and tools for each area. I’m sure we would love to put our wise head on our children’s shoulders but in reality this is just not possible and for any of you who have tried the “I told you so” approach, you would know this is not the most effective either. All we can do as parents and educators is to provide our young people with a safe, loving environment and teach them the necessary tools to be the best they can be. This includes them having an awareness of not only their strengths, interests and needs but a mindset of possibility linked to meeting the needs of others also.

Strategies to get results with your adolescent

As with anything, planning is everything. Prepare yourself and prepare the environment with your child. Ensure it is a good time for both of you to sit down and talk honestly and openly. Be sure to seek their permission for having a conversation about what is happening in their world at the moment. Have a plan knowing your intention and an overview of questions you could ask. The framework I often use is stated below:

R - Reality – where are you now compared to where you could be?
E - Effort – how could you overcome the “gunna” ?
S - Setting your focus – How do you want it to be?
U - Understand you – What are your interests and strengths?
L - Listen & Learn – Who are some role models you could learn from?
T - Take action – What action are you going to take?
S - Success –How will you know you have done well? How will you reward this?

Lets break this down with strategies for each area.

What is their REALITY?

• Begin by asking your child to explain their current REALITY in terms of career options.
• What is happening for them at the moment?
• If they had to rate their life with a score out of 10, what score would they give it?
• You could break this into their reality at home, school, self and friends, although here we are focussing on career so if perhaps they could rate their current part time job.
• Be sure to ask about their feelings as young people today tend to make emotive decisions not rational ones, hence helping them understanding their feelings is essential.

This is the part where you really need to monitor your own urge to refute, defend and reject what they are saying. Remember you are there to listen openly without judgment. This is a conversation about them, not you and your experiences as a teenager. You could even take this one step further and do a joint brainstorm each on your own piece of paper. Turn this into a fun game using many colours and a time limit. Compare both what is happening in your world and what is happening in their reality – be mindful not to take over the talking or spending the time highlighting your stressors compared to theirs. Use this time to really listen to how they are feeling, their values and their stressors.

How can we encourage them to apply EFFORT?

• Once you have established a picture of your child’s reality, ask them to imagine they had no worries or fears in the world.
• If they could do anything, have any career, what would that be?
• If they had all the money and resources in the world what would they do?
• What would this give them?
• How would this make them feel?
• How would this assist others or the environment?

Steven Covey in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” says to “begin the with end in mind”. Napoleon Hill in his book “Think and Grow Rich” says “desire is the starting point of all achievement”. If we put these two things together, we have, know what you and why you want it. When we know WHY we want something, we have the leverage we need to overcome the ‘gunna’ and apply EFFORT. The purpose here is to flesh out their vision for the future using their imagination. It was Einstein who said “we are only ever limited by the boundaries of our own thinking”.

Tools to help them SET their focus

• Now we have opened up our minds to a world of possibility, it is time to organise these thoughts into pictures for our brain to store.
• Collect a number a magazines that relate to your child’s interests or chosen career direction. The newsagent is a great place to do this.
• Begin cutting out, pictures, words and symbols of how they want their life to be. How much money they want to earn, who they want to be working with, the location of their work, how they want to feel, what they want to be achieving, learning and doing. How long they plan to be there, who is going to support them and how they are going to travel, live and operate to and from work. Perhaps even people who inspire them.
• Encourage them to be curious and use their imagination, to play, explore and have fun with the dreams they create. Explain to them they have a blank canvas where they can paint whatever picture it is that they want – dreams are free!
• Stick these pictures & symbols on a piece of A3 paper or cardboard, write words, use colour and have them blue-tac it to their bedroom wall (somewhere they can see it every day).
• This is a project that can be ongoing with pictures, words and symbols added whenever your child sees something that inspires them for how they want their career to be.

The point of doing this is we will only ever see what we focus on. Imagine I said to you; don’t think of a tree, what is in your mind? A tree. For this reason it is important to focus on what we want as opposed to what we don’t want. We often get caught up in others expectations and fears about what is possible, but by creating a vision board and setting our focus, we open ourselves up to thinking about possibility. It is all about expanding our thinking. It was Einstein who said we are only ever bound by the boundaries of our own thinking. More on this area will come in the next issue.

Putting it all together for positive parenting

In a nutshell,

• Today’s teenagers think differently to their parents because they grow up in a world that is different.
• Listen to your child by asking meaningful questions
• Do not judge or deny their statements
• Find out what is real for them now
• Encourage a mindset of possibility by asking “If you could ...”
• Listen for their intention, values and needs
• Be open, honest and be real
• Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want.
• Be prepared to grow with them as you too continue to learn.

There are many more tools to come. This is only the first of a two part series. In the next article we will continue to elaborate with tools for you to career-coach your teenager. In the mean time, in the words of Walt Disney, “The best way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”