How to talk to your teen about careers without causing tension.

Talking to teenagers about careers options can be tense. Find out some top tips to begin the conversations around careers in a non interrogative way.

How to talk to your teen about careers without causing tension.

Setting the Scene

Raising teenagers can be fraught with communication being an area that seems to crumble first. Different agendas or teens not wanting you to crowd them out with your inquisition or questions can cause any conversation that has a point or an agenda to be eyed with suspicion.

In order to begin conversations about career ideas or future plans, you have to ‘build’ up to those and have created some ‘space’ around times when you can just talk to your teen about anything and nothing. ‘Shooting the breeze, talking into the wind’ type conversations that are idle and not about anything in particular. By just learning to share thoughts and ideas with no hidden agenda, teens will open up to your more about what makes them tick or what their thoughts are.

Standard Careers Communication

There are obvious times that require some career planning like Year 9 options choices, or what to do after GCSEs and A Levels are finished. If you are lucky enough to have a careers adviser based in the school or an external service coming into do talks, you may think that the school will be supporting your child and they are getting the input they need. Usually, a school will also have a parent’s evening or post 16 options evening to support you with the information you need to make the decisions.

However, the real conversations about future hopes, dreams, plans should be happening before the ‘pressure cooker’ of decision time. And they key to these conversations is in discussing the topics and taking an interest in what your child is learning at school with the purpose of trying to discern if your teen is an imaginative creative wordsmith or more of a numerical, scientific investigator.

Conversation Starters and Clues

“Do they still cover X in Geography?

“My fav subject at school was X because Y, its struck me I’ve never asked you your fav subject”.

“What do you think about the use of your digital fingerprint to open your iPhone?”

Taking an interest in school subjects (and not because you are interrogating for crumbs on your child’s behaviour, grades or relationship with the teacher) is a fantastic way to listen to what your child’s interests and understand what makes them passionate (or not!).

By initiating these conversations, look and listen carefully for the clues that your child is telling you in terms of what they find interesting and what make them tick.

What subjects get them animated or excited? Are their particular topics that capture their imagination? Do you find its more number / detail-oriented subjects like maths and sciences or is it more imaginative, intuitive subjects like English, Humanities, Arts or Languages or perhaps the creative, design classes of art or design & technology?

Your child’s perspective - smaller process driven or big picture strategic view?

In addition to what interests them, also try to discover how they want to have impact in the world. What are their dreams? Do they enjoy politics and current affairs? Perhaps their only view of the world is via a PlayStation or Xbox device. No matter, what games do they enjoy? Are they strategy based? Or more detailed & specific like Minecraft? How do they think and behave? Small & detailed or bigger picture? Do they see connections and possibilities’ or are they more about process and planning?

Final thoughts….

Spending time communicating around our ideas and interests is a great way to talk about careers, skills and perspectives. Your child will have particular leanings in what energises them, how they take in information, how they make decisions and how they like to organise the external environment around them.

If you really want to get down to the heart of some epic careers conversations, can I suggest that you ALL as a family take the buzz quiz and find out what your personality types are. In addition to finding out more about particular career areas that suit you, you may also finally understand more about your teen and them more about you. To play visit https://icould.com/buzz-quiz/

Hi there, Thanks for stopping by For over 25 years I have had the privilege and joy to work in careers with students in both university and secondary schools supporting. I have listened, educated and advised brilliant young people to figure out who they are, what they want and take the action that they need to get them where they want to go. I have many 'careers adviser' stories to tell and insights to share in how to manage and support your career with all the choices, options and pathways ahead. I also love to talk about what employers look for in new recruit and how to access the language and examples they want to hear most about so that you can make the leap from education to employment successfully. Most of all though, I want my blog to inspire, to educate and most importantly to employ young people in all things careers. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Enjoy reading and of course, email me with your thoughts, your opinions and for any help or support you'd like at enquiries@allthingscareers.co.uk Best wishes, Susan x

Categories: Career Planning