What do you want to be when you grow up?  How many times throughout our childhoods were we asked this question?  Usually our answers were not very original…fireman, policeman, teacher, mom, doctor, movie star, pro basketball player, and etc. As children, and even teenagers, we have a small world view and choosing a fulfilling career path seems impossible.  Making a clear decision on what career we want to pursue is usually limited to those things with which we are familiar. When my daughter was a junior in high school, I asked her to take some time to really start thinking about what she wanted to do after high school. By the summer before her senior year she still had no clue.  When I would talk to her about what career she thought she might want to pursue, she would say, “I don’t even know what careers there are.”  It was then I knew I would need to find ways to help her brainstorm and research career path options.

1. Identify Life Goals

The first thing to discuss with your child to help them begin the career path brainstorming process is what are their life goals.  One way to ask this is, when you picture your life in 10-15 years, what does your life look like? Having them determine their life goals first will help them narrow down realistic careers that compliment these goals.  Your role as a parent in this exercise is to ask the questions, but only your child should be deciding their goals.  I know it’s hard, but this exercise will also help you as a parent start letting go and realizing that your child’s life goals may be different from what you thought (or even sometimes what you hoped their goals would be.)  Some life goal questions to ask your child are: do you want to be married or single, do you want children, do you want to live close to family or explore the world, is there a specific area of the country you want to live, what activities will you want to do when you are not working? Have your child write down the answers to these questions, so they will have a written list of their life goals to refer back to as they work through the rest of this process. 

2. Decide on Furthering Education or Joining the Workforce after High School

There are three main choices when it comes to a career path. These choices are: attend college to earn a degree, attend a trade school to earn a certification or find a job right out of high school that doesn’t require a degree or certification. This is another topic that can be a big one for parents to come to terms with if their child’s education desires differ from their parent’s ideas of what their children should do.  What parents need to remember is all children are different. What is right for one child may not be the right for the next child because every respectable job/career benefits society.  Really let your child be open and honest with you about whether or not they want to spend 2-6 more years in school, or if they prefer to just go work.  Some things to think about when your child are: making this decision is does your child like to study, does your child enjoy school, is your child more satisfied with physical labor than textbook work, and does your family have the finances to cover the expense of college or trade school? However, there is no guarantee to a successful and satisfied life based on this decision.

3. List Interests to Lead to a Career Path

After your child has defined their life goals and decisions on furthering their education or joining the workforce after high school, have them start making a list of their interests and activities they enjoy.  This list can contain anything, not just careers or jobs they find interesting.  This can be things such as: I like to play video games, to shoot hoops, to create art, to work on cars, to perform science experiments, to take care of animals, to travel and to see new things.  This process does take some deep thought to create a good list and not just a list of things in their comfort zone.  If you think of any interests they have that they forgot to list, suggest those also, but let them make the final decision to add or not add them to their list.

4. Ensure Talents are Incorporated into Career Path Decisions

Next have them list their talents.  Some talents may overlap with their interests, but they should have many that don’t.  This can be things like I’m good at math, I’m talented at art, children really like me, or I am good at figuring out how things work.  Have them list as many of their talents as they can on their own and then…you’re gonna love this part…you get to help them think of more to add to their list of talents. Parents are good at seeing their children’s potential and seeing them differently than children see themselves.  And that is why on this step of the process it is good for you to tell them what talents you think they have that they did not list on their own. Many of the talents you see in your children that they may not see in themselves will be related to their character and how they interact with others.  Things like: you are a good listener, you’re good at helping others, you are a hard worker, you are creative at solving problems or fixing things, or you are talented at getting others involved in events.  Your children will love hearing what you think they are good at, and it will give them confidence while moving forward with this process.

5. Pull it all Together to Decide on a Career Path

Now that your child has all the deep thoughts, hard decisions and lists made; it’s time to put it all together and see what career paths would be good fits for the decisions they have made. If your child decided to further their education through college or trade school, they can look up the degrees offered at their preferred university or the certifications offered at their preferred trade school.  When they find degrees or certifications that sound interesting to them, they can research further what career paths they can take with that degree or certification.  Many university websites will include this information on their degree information pages.  From there you can look at the required courses to complete the degree on the university or trade school websites.  If your child has chosen to enter the workforce directly after high school, they should start looking at the job openings on places like Indeed or Glassdoor to see the types of job openings being advertised requiring only a high school degree and to see what other qualifications are needed.  Once your child has researched degrees, certifications, career paths or job openings and now have ideas of careers they are interested in, they should compare their findings to their lists of interests, talents and future life goals that they created earlier in the process to help them further narrow down their career choices.

6. Try Out Career Paths

Working through this process early in high school sometime during their sophomore year, will allow your child to have a chance to do hands-on research on career paths that interest them.  Some of the ways they can do this is to get a summer job at a company that is related to a career path in which they are interested.  Another way would be to find someone who has a job they are interested in and ask if they can shadow them for a few days as they work.  These options allow your child to see what the job entails first hand and can help guide them to a better decision.

In hindsight, I wish I would have started the process of helping my daughter narrow down career paths earlier.  It would have saved her from a lot of anxiety her senior year and would have given her more time to research and become comfortable with her career path decision. While we may have started the process a little late, these steps did help her narrow down her possible career paths.  Give these 6 Smart Steps to Help Your Child Decide on a Fulfilling Career Path a try.  I hope they help in the process of determining a fulfilling career path for your child.

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