When I was 15, I wanted to be a graphic designer. I barely knew what it meant but I knew I wanted to do something artsy and I’m sure I saw something on TV that made it look glamorous. Neither of my parents had been to college, nor any of my relatives for that matter, so I had no guidance from them at all. But when I toured the college I wanted to go to (one close to home so I didn’t have to leave my boyfriend), they pointed out that there’s not a lot of demand for graphic designers in Scottsboro, Alabama – where I thought I wanted to live forever at that time. So, I quickly decided I’d just major in business and start my own business, which I did, before I turned 21…then 7 years later, I decided to go to law school, then about 10 years after becoming a lawyer I decided I hated it and wanted to be an artist and have a website, but they call them starving artists for a reason so I went back to practicing law, but I couldn’t stand it very long so I started baking cupcakes, but my business partner was nutty so I went into business with another nut selling parents on buying their kid’s framed artwork, but I needed to make more money so I got a job as in-house counsel and a few years later went back into private practice and a handful of years after that, I’m podcasting and helping parents with their teens.

 

This is Ann Coleman attorney turned parent educator and mom to a kid who struggled during his teen years. You’re listening to Speaking of Teens, a twice-weekly science-informed podcast that helps you better understand, relate to, and parent your teen.

On today’s episode, how to help your teen move closer to deciding their initial career.

Is it fair to ask a 15-year-old what they want to do as a life-long career? Are they even aware of more than a handful of career choices? Why are we putting that pressure on them when their brain is not even fully developed until long after they even graduate from college?!

What did you want to be “when you grew up” when you were 15? Think about it. I’ll wait. And are you doing that now? How many times did you change your major if you went to college for your career? And if you did, are you even doing what your college major prepared you for? Or did you take off in a different direction at some point? Are you happy with your occupation or profession? And how much of an impact is all of that making on the way you’re influencing your teen’s career choice? Do you want them to do things differently or just like you did?

You play a huge role in your kid’s career choice, their occupational aspirations. Numerous scientific studies have found that college students and young adults say their parents were a major influence in those decisions. They look to you for support and approval and they take cues from what you say and do even if you’re not really trying to be that influential. It may be totally unconscious –

but they are greatly influenced by you about what they should do with their lives, career and otherwise. You have an enormous impact.

So, how do we use this influence we have with our kids in a way that actually helps them determine the right direction for their future when they’re really still too young to make such long-term decisions? It’s a real balancing act and there’s a lot to consider.

First, remember this isn’t about you. This isn’t about your job or your life or the mistakes you made or the things you feel you did well. You may hate your job or love your job but that has nothing to do with your kid. You may hate that you majored in a certain thing or that you didn’t go to college. That has nothing to do with your kid.

You may feel you haven’t made enough money in your career, and you want your kid to be more successful or maybe you’ve done really well, and you want them to be just as successful. But again, this isn’t about you.

Informal surveys show approximately 33% of today’s working Gen Z felt heavily pressured by their parents to follow the parent’s input about their career path. Around 35% percent of them said they started feeling that pressure between the ages of 10 and 15.

Look, we all want what’s best for our kids and no doubt, our own experience influences what we want for them. But what we want for them and what they want for themselves don’t always jibe.

Over the course of a lifetime, people spend around 90,000 hours of their life or around 14 solid years working at their job. That’s quite a long time to be doing something someone doesn’t find fulfilling in almost every way – not just from a financial standpoint.

And in our well-meaning desire for our kids to have the best, are we unfairly influencing them and perhaps preventing them from living what they define as their own best life?

Shouldn’t we want our kids to be happy and well-suited for the thing they choose to do for the rest of their life? Shouldn’t we want them to be successful in the way they want to be successful…rather than trying to force them to fit our definition of success?

This same survey I just mentioned asked, “in what ways did your parents influence or try to influence your career path?” 58% said that their parents would just discuss the importance of taking the path the parents wanted them to take and 66% of them believed their parents pushed that career solely based on the amount of income they could make. And 24% of the parents admitted to guilting their kids into a certain career path, which research has shown is detrimental to those adult kids, leading to less independence and ability to develop healthy relationships in their own life. And close to 60% of Gen Z respondents felt they’d been coerced into going to college.

Make sure you understand your kid’s values and goals for their future instead of pushing your own values and goals. Don’t simply assume they feel the same way you do. Just because you think being an orthodontist is a great career for a woman, doesn’t mean your daughter wants to spend the rest of her life with her hands in teenagers mouths, no matter the money she’ll make. Maybe money is not her objective. Maybe she has a heart for helping people that doesn’t include a huge monetary reward and that’s okay with her.

My step daughter got her masters in social work knowing she was never going to get rich. But getting rich has never even been on her radar. She loves being outdoors, loves animals, making things with her hands. So, she lives on a farm in VA with her partner and they make their own cheese, sheer their own sheep, gather their own eggs, can their own jam, build their own furniture…who needs money, right?

Just remember, your kids are individuals. Just because you’ve birthed them or raised them doesn’t mean they’re a younger version of you. Give them the space and the opportunity to discover who they are. If you don’t, you’ll end up with adult children who are frustrated in their career and life and just might blame you for that.

If you feel strongly that your kid go a certain direction career-wise, examine your motivations. Why do you feel so strongly about it? Is it more about you and your current position in life than it is them and what they’d be most suited for and happiest doing? Focus on how they’re going to feel 20 years from now?

Accept, right now, that your kid may actually see the world differently than you do. They may have internal motivations that you cannot possibly understand.

Even at their age, they’re beginning to develop their own views and values and passions that may be totally foreign to you. But guess what? That’s okay. And the fact that they are comfortable in this, is a testament to the way you’ve raised them. You’ve raised them to think independently, to value themselves as an individual. And now it’s time for you to really step into your role to help them fulfil who they’re truly meant to be. You’re there to guide them as they determine and then follow their own path, no matter how divergent it may be from the one you have in mind for them.

So, let this be your overarching goal. Don’t allow yourself to force your own agenda on your kid. Don’t allow your own fear, ego, or judgment to push your kid in the wrong direction for them. Open your mind to the world of possibilities out there in which your kid can define their own success. Allow them the autonomy to discover where they fit in the world, what makes them happy, what makes them feel like a successful human.

Keeping all this in mind, let’s talk about some ways you can best guide them and help them determine their path.

………………………………

First, you can relieve some of the pressure they feel about their future. Our teens are under so much pressure right now from so many different directions. And even if your child doesn’t have a full-blown anxiety disorder, they’re still stressed about a lot of different things.

So, they do not need to be under pressure to make some sort of permanent decision about their future right now.

Here’s what one very wise sophomore from Virginia Beach, VA said in 2021 in the Kempsville High School newspaper: “I think it’s completely unreasonable for students to have to choose their career path so early in their lives. High school students are children and are way too young to fully commit to anything that is supposed to last a lifetime. The human brain doesn’t develop out of adolescence until 25, so children should not be so pressured to choose a career path in high school before they are 100% developed,”

Another sophomore said: “I don’t think it matters if a person knows exactly what they want to pursue by the end of high school. People grow and change, and with that growth, people’s aspirations, and goals change. I think that society as a whole expects seniors in high school to have their lives together and a plan for the future. This expectation is a huge one that is not always met,” “Because of this, it creates a feeling of failure, leaving one less motivated to fulfill their potential, when, in actuality, it’s okay to not be completely sure what you want to do. After all, we’re still teenagers and have to learn who we are and what makes us happy.”

Take that pressure off. Let them know they don’t need to have their whole life planned out by 11^th grade! As a matter of fact, there are few people in the world who have their life mapped out that young – a few perhaps - but certainly not most.

Give them a reprieve. Tell them, no matter what they hear from administrators or school staff, they have time for these decisions – there’s no pressure to do any more than explore right now and figure out who they are.

You have to allow them the space and give them permission to be unsure - make them feel absolutely okay about that. Tell them they’re allowed to have the biggest of dreams, that nothing is off the table and that they can expect to change their minds about what they want for their future - probably more than once – that’s how life works, and it’s okay.

Let them know that many people change majors, certainly change jobs, and even change careers throughout their lifetimes! Let them know that life is fluid and learning how to allow it to be, is a skill that will serve them well. Let them know that learning and trying new things is one of life’s great joys and that you want them to experience all they can so they can do what they love and live a life that fulfils them and makes them feel successful as they define it.

If you’re not comfortable with all that, work on it now.

 

Second, it’s been shown over the years that the higher aspirations or expectations parents have for their kids, the greater aspirations kids have for themselves, which is generally a great thing. Our guidance and support makes a huge difference in their self-esteem, what they feel capable of doing and what they ultimately decide to do.

But, again, we have to be very careful about just how aspirational we are about our kids. There’s a fine line between encouraging them to do the best they can and deflating them because they feel they’re not living up to our high standards.

Another high school newspaper article at Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn, Illinois ran an article in 2022 about how grades affect students. These kids actually conducted a survey of over 200 of their students and 66% of them said, “grades caused them anxiety on most days or every day.”

One sophomore was quoted as saying, “I’ve seen a lot through myself and my other friends how much pressure and the need they feel to get that A from every single test and or assignment. It’s not only the teachers but it’s also life at home and the parents who make it difficult as well.”

Listen, you know the statistics about anxiety and depression and suicides rates for teens – please let your child know in their soul that they don’t have to worry about being perfect – about getting perfect grades or getting into the best college (that is if they even want to go to college). Let them know you don’t expect perfection – you only expect that they do their best and feel good about themselves and learn what they need to so they can be successful as they define the word.

Let them know you’re proud of them and the person they are, and the effort they put in, not the grades on a piece of paper. Let them know you want to see them work hard and be proud of themselves, but that you don’t ever want grades to take precedence over their mental health – that you won’t allow their concern about grades to beat them down and make them feel lesser than. That feeling is real and even though we don’t mean to put that on our kids,

every time we show or verbalize our disappointment in a grade, that’s exactly what we do. We are judging our kid’s worth by a letter grade – that’s how they see it.

As the author of this article in the high school newspaper put it so eloquently, “There is no single way to define intelligence and judging it is inherently subjective. The grading system rewards qualities like having a good work ethic, being prompt, following directions, and being well rounded. They are designed to reward conformity and obedience, not creativity or specialization.” So true.

A pretty fascinating 30-year-old study conducted by a Boston University researcher looked at the lives of 81 valedictorians and salutatorians from various high schools over a period of 10 years after graduation. She found that that these kids primarily ended up  higher paying professional jobs but found none of them had roles she defined as visionary or groundbreaking. These visionaries are creative thinkers, have a unique specialization or an intellectual passion. These are qualities not recognized by grades and GPAs.

Arguably one of the greatest visionaries of the past half-century, Steve Jobs, graduated high school with a 2.65 GPA and only attended college for 2 years before dropping out. Dr. Martin Luther King, the leader of the American Civil Rights movement, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, who made one of the most moving and notable speeches of the 20^th century, made a C in his public speaking class in seminary school.

Grades have their place, but their place should be considered lower than many other of our kids’ attributes, including their social and emotional intelligence, their personality, willingness to work hard.

 

Third, make sure your teens experience as many different aspects of life as possible. Broaden their horizons. Exposure to various people and places and situations in life will give them more opportunities to think about the various roles they could play in the world.

Yes, they see all kinds of stuff in books and documentaries and on the internet, but it’s completely different from being in close proximity in real life. Going to see animals in real life is a bit different from seeing them in a documentary. Meeting a stockbroker and seeing him in action is a bit different from a 30 second snippet on the news.

They need to see and experience as many things as possible to even begin to think about what they might love doing. If they’ve only been exposed to the family business, they may think that’s just a given. If you live in a small town, they may not even think about job opportunities a larger town or city can provide. Make sure they’re not limited in that way.

There are several ways to get them out there to do this:

They can get a job – they can pick something they’re interested in or not. They may not realize it and be very interested in the type of business they find themselves in. There are also internship programs, possibly through their school or the school district so check on that. They can volunteer for charitable organizations or even for businesses they’re interested in. If your kid’s interested in radio broadcasting, help them meet with someone at your local station to either try to get a part-time job or volunteer. If they can get over the ”I have to be paid for my work” thing, they can find plenty of opportunities to figure out what they may want to do in the future. Another thing they can do is simply meet with different people who have jobs they find interesting. Meet and discuss what they do all day. Or better yet, they can see if the person will let them shadow them for a few days. They may decide real fast that some of the jobs they were interested in or thought would be glamorous, are really not.

Frankly, anything they can do to experience life and meet new and interesting people is a great way to expand their vision of the future.

 

Fourth, help them figure out their natural strengths and talents and how that might apply to what they do in the future. Again, remember you’re guiding not directing or dictating. You don’t want to start suggesting specific careers – “you’re really with computers, maybe you should go into computer science”. You don’t want to assume that just because they’re good at something necessarily means they love it and want to do it all the time. There are plenty of kids who are naturally talented in math and science that wouldn’t want to spend their days as an engineer or biologist.

So, this career thing isn’t as simple as what are you good at – let’s do that thing forever. There are so many different factors that would make them well suited or ill-suited for a specific career or job-type. They’d want to think about their hobbies; what do they do in their free time that they really enjoy? Is it something that might give them a clue to their future? Are they in a mountain climbing group? Do they love making jewelry? Are they in drama club? Band? Do they have interests they haven’t been able to pursue yet? Have they always talked about wanting to fly a plane or be on television – help them figure out a way to see if that’s something they’d truly enjoy or would hate once they tried it.

Other factors you need to help them consider are things like their temperament and personality, whether they’re introverted or extroverted, whether they like being indoors or outdoors, what climates they like the best, do they like to travel or want to stay in one place, city or country, what lifestyle do they envision for themselves (rich and famous or off the grid?)

do they want work to be their entire life or what enables them to do what they love? There’s a lot more to this than we likely considered when we chose our career path.

One thing that might really help here are career and personality tests. I actually took several as I was researching this episode and where they asked for my age I said I was 17. I took 3 different tests, the 123test.com, based on the Holland Code (which is a way figure out your interests and work personality, basically), the iPersonic career test (which is literally based on 4 very thorough questions) and the Princeton Review Career Quiz.

All three did a pretty darn good job of nailing what I would be best at (career wise) and the iPersonic test nailed my work personality. The Princeton review gave a huge list of potential careers and weirdly enough trial lawyer, artist and small business owner were all in there, along with psychologist, which is just one I just missed. So, all of these are free and there are tons of others like the 16personalities.com test that I started and just didn’t have time to finish. I’ll link to several for you in the show notes because I think these can at least spark your teen to think about this stuff and it’s fun and the results are interesting.

Now, along these same lines of figuring out interests and talents, strengths, and personality, you want to be careful about making assumptions about their so-called weaknesses, or challenges. You could quite easily overlook something they’d excel in, or steer them off course here. You don’t want to tell them they’re no good in math and therefore, they should steer clear of any math-heavy career. In fact, that’s not even true. If someone has the desire to have a specific career that requires them to stretch beyond obvious abilities, it can absolutely be done and it happens every day. Beethoven composed Symphony No. 9, his most famous, at the age of 40 after going completely deaf. There are blind painters, dyslexic writers, actors with stage fright. I was horrible in math and spent the first years as an attorney working with high asset divorce cases where I had to make calculations every day…and I actually enjoyed it.

Even beyond weaknesses or challenges, look at those things you might consider less-than-stellar qualities. Have they always been the bossy one, the one who gets in trouble for talking to much, argues about everything? Those can be considered leadership qualities if polished – think CEO, appellate lawyer, lobbyist, politician. Have they always been overly sensitive, easy to cry, feel sorry for the slightest creature and want to help every living thing you come by? Well, you might have a fabulous nurse, PA or physician, a peace worker, missionary or leader of a charitable organization.

So, I say look at those so-called negative attributes, the ones that have always bugged you and those around your kid, the things they’ve been corrected for over and over and over again. That “thing” just may be what defines what they were truly built for. How can you help channel that trait into one of the building blocks for a career?

Fifth, and this is pretty basic but can be helpful for at least seeing the possibilities. You can look at trending careers. For example, in the US, you can look at the Occupational Outlook Handbook at the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics list of the top 20 fastest growing occupations or the list of highest paying occupations or the field with the most new jobs. They also have a huge list of web pages by field of degree (which then shows you the different types of majors within that field and the occupations you could have, the future outlook and more – I’ve never seen this – it’s pretty cool. (I’ll have the link in the show notes).

But you can even get more specific with a Google search and get some pretty interesting results. You could search best jobs for people with ADHD, for introverts, for people with anxiety, highest paying jobs without a bachelor’s degree. Did you know the national average for fire chiefs is just over $100,000, I think the sky’s the limit for HVAC and plumbing and hair dressers do quite nicely as well.

Sixth, of course don’t overlook the high school’s college counselor. They can help your child explore ideas and help them with various resources including those that can help them decide which colleges to apply for, how to secure financial aid and apply for scholarships. But help them have some ideas before they ever step foot in the door. You’re your child’s best advocate, sounding board, and mirror. You can help them narrow down the direction they may want to go in the future and then you can get that outside help to figure out next steps.

So, to wrap up today’s episode, I want to sing my rendition of I am a possibility. I’m just kidding. Did your kid sing this in primer or kindergarten? It literally makes me cry when I hear it.

I am a promise

I am a possibility

I am a promise

With a capital P

I am a great big bundle of potentiality

Remember how open to all those possibilities both you and your child were just a few years ago and don’t think otherwise. Don’t push your own worries or missed opportunities or definition of success onto your child.

Guide them to determine their path:

By relieving the pressure on picking a lifelong career before they even start college

By not putting grades above their mental health

By making sure they get out there and experience life and take in as much as they can to see what’s possible

By helping them figure out their natural strengths, and talents and see if there’s a way to even positively channel their more aggravating qualities.

Look at the actual careers out there that are available and may be of interest, and

Utilize the services of the high school counselor and other school resources.

Just remember, your kid IS a great big bundle of potentiality!

 

That’s it for Speaking of Teens today. The link for the show notes is in the episode description right where you’re listening, along with links to all of our free parenting guides.

And thank you so much for being here today – I really appreciate it and if you got something out of this episode, please consider sharing it with a few parents or people who work with parents or teens. The more you share, the better chance we have at landing bigger expert guests to come on and talk to you.

You can join the Speaking of Teens Facebook Group and get actionable advice to your specific parenting issues from me and other parents who may have already achieved what you’re struggling to achieve. The link is right there at the very bottom of the show description in your app.

Speaking of Teens is sponsored by neurogility.com, where I help parents build stronger relationships and decrease conflict with their teens.

Our producer and editor is Steve Coleman; researched, written, and hosted by me, Ann Coleman.