Learn how to help your child choose a profession that they really like.
The manager of educational projects at Smart Course, the mother of a 17-year-old teenager Maria Ivanova helped to understand the topic of "Letidor".
2 myths about choosing a profession
Before helping children with career choices, it is worth making sure that you are not trapped in the myths about career guidance that are common among parents.
What are these myths?
Myth 1: A child disappears on the Internet, which means that he will grow up to be a bum.
“My son (daughter) wants nothing normal. Plays with toys all day or sits on social media. Will he be able to make a serious decision?"
We talked with dad, whose daughter hosted a YouTube channel and gained 150,000 subscribers. The girl's father was convinced that the daughter was doing nonsense.
But if we look at the situation with an open mind, we will see that a blogger or a future advertiser grew up in the family. Large campaigns set aside millions of dollars in budgets to promote their firms' channels. The girl was able to achieve a good result without investment.
Her parents did not have enough outlook to appreciate the significance of this activity.
Outwardly, it really looked like "the girl sits on social networks all day."
So if your teenager also "wants nothing and sits on the Internet", do not rush to draw conclusions. Try to understand what exactly he is doing there.
Perhaps he has already found a format of activity that is interesting to him, and you just have to find how this can be applied in life.
Myth 2 A child does not need the help of his parents, he himself knows everything.
“The child will figure out what to do on his own. He's so independent. It is generally better not to put pressure on children, they have a much deeper connection with the inner world than we do. There is nothing we can do"
According to psychologists L. V. Petranovskaya and Yu. B. Gippenreiter, the absence of clear boundaries for a child is just as traumatic as the presence of too rigid ones.
A teenager always needs support from parents. From faith in his strength to help in choosing.
Do not leave teenagers alone, behind the bravado and external well-being is a vulnerable creature.
So you should not shift your fears onto children, but think about how you could help them realize themselves. Indeed, according to many studies, self-realization for Generation Z is one of the criteria for happiness.
5 steps to making an informed choice of a profession
“5 Steps to Informed Career Choice” is the name of a program that teaches adolescents to make informed decisions about their future.
For three years now, the program has been successfully operating in 90 Moscow and 40 schools throughout Russia. And we can recommend this technique to anyone who wants to help their child with self-determination.
What are these 5 steps about?
1. Ask your child to stop, calm down, and take a break between activities.
2. Invite him to explore himself: dreams, features, qualities and think about a world in which they would be used.
3. Based on the information about the characteristics and personal qualities, ask the teenager to form 2-3 hypotheses in which professions he could apply himself.
4. In order to understand whether the chosen professions are suitable for a teenager, it is necessary to create a situation where he can try himself in each of them (in the smallest possible configuration). For example, meet with a representative of each profession and ask them many detailed questions, go to production or to the office.
If possible, send your child to an internship where there is at least a small opportunity to feel the chosen directions.
5. Ask the teenager to draw conclusions. The experience gained can strengthen the child's intention to continue development in the chosen direction, or, return him to the first stage and force him to reconsider his abilities.
P. S. And finally. Do not forget that a modern person changes up to 7 areas of activity in his life, and in the future, perhaps, the concept of specialization and profession will disappear altogether. We wish to stay calm, help teenagers make decisions and immerse them in an environment that supports this context.
Photo: Vostock photo