8 tips for parents to help their child choose a profession

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Not all schoolchildren are able to read the compulsory literature curriculum, and we want them to choose a business for life. Parents need to tell the graduate where to go to study, while not ruining his future.

Free higher education in Russia is given only once. Entrusting the choice of a profession to schoolchildren, when many graduates are not even 18 years old, is a dangerous decision. According to Rosstat, only about 40% of the population work in our specialty. The numbers are not just hints, they shout that more than half of the graduates have wasted several years on unnecessary studies.

The normal desire of parents is to help the child with a choice. The only question is how to do it.

1. Foster independence in your child

Unfortunately, it's too late to do this a year or two before graduation, an independent child had to be raised from birth, but it's better to start at least someday. The main rule in career guidance is simple:

The child must choose a profession himself.

Only the person himself knows what he needs. And only in this way the child will not blame the parents if something goes wrong, or think that he missed his chance.

I wanted to do acting. But dad said that all the actors stay in the district theater, earn little money and drink too much. An engineer is another matter. I was obedient and entered the radio faculty. It was fun at the Polytechnic, for 6 years I participated in the student spring, but there was zero knowledge in my head, as well as the desire to work as an engineer, even though I am a master. Because of this, all my life I have been haunted by a feeling of unfulfillment and the thought that everything could have turned out somehow differently. Although I understand that dad is right and the work of the actors is bestial. I don’t blame my parents, I blame myself for not doing what I dreamed of.

Maria editor

2. Understand what professions are in demand

Only in fact they are in demand, not "prestigious". To understand this, you do not need to read collections and ratings. It is necessary to open the sites of employment centers and sites that help in finding a job, and carefully look at vacancies.

My grandfather advised me to choose something related to foreign languages, because it is in demand. I tried, got carried away, so it was easy to follow his advice. Demand faded into the background, because it became interesting. Now I am at my favorite job in the IT field. Grandpa will not advise bad!

Angelina translator

Viewing vacancies helps to assess the popularity of the profession, the possible salary and the requirements for applicants. It may turn out that one higher education is not enough for a dream job: at the same time, you need to learn languages and attend some kind of courses.

3. Show the professions from the inside

Adults have a large circle of acquaintances with a variety of specialties. Ask your friends to tell your child what and how they do at work. It is important to hear about the most common day-to-day activities. For example, how you have to write letters, how to work with drawings in real conditions, how in the morning you need to come exactly at eight, how to fill out reports and drink tea with accounting.

Many enterprises hold open days. At such events, you need to ask the right questions: not about high performance and a great goal, but about the routine, the arrangement of jobs.

My parents are teachers. They implored not to go to pedagogy, so I didn't.

Lida advertising specialist

We have a vague idea of many professions. It's better to get to know the job better than to spend a few years and face a conflict of expectation and reality.

It is also important that health must correspond to working conditions. It is possible to understand whether a child will pull or not, only in combat conditions, or at least during a frank conversation with a representative of the profession.

4. Find study options in other cities and countries

Often, we do not even suspect where and by whom we can work, we have no idea what specialties are in universities, even in neighboring cities, not to mention universities on the other side of the country. And completely in vain.

When it came time to choose who to be, I was only 15 years old. In my city it was impossible to study in the specialty I dreamed of, but the school had a different profile. To enter, one had to transfer to another school, study according to a special program, ride several hundred kilometers to another city and submit documents. I could not pull it off, and my parents were not puzzled, as a result I chose a profession from those that were available nearby. I'm about 30, I still regret it.

Nastya copywriter

Of course, moving a child to another city is not a fun walk to the park, it is more difficult to support a student at a distance. But it's worth it when it comes to a profession for life.

5. Forget about career guidance tests

Especially about those that are scattered on the Internet. They are based on trivial questions and do not take into account a huge number of professions. Choosing the future based on averaged testing is a hopelessness when you don't know what to do at all.

6. Do not confuse your favorite lesson at school and your profession

Standard logic: mathematics is good - go to study to be a "computer scientist", literature is good - to a philologist, you don't like anything - then go to a manager, there is a USE in social studies.

This knowledge needs to be tailored to the goal, and not to choose a job based on knowledge.

It is necessary to choose a profession with which the child will earn money, and not a favorite subject. Maybe the child likes a teacher, a comfortable study and beautiful visual materials, but nothing like that will happen in the profession.

7. Do not force to enter the university without fail

If the child has not yet decided who to be, give him time and opportunity to think about who to become. Nothing (except for the guys' fear of the army) prevents you from working for a couple of years after school, getting to know real life, devoting time to educational courses and finding yourself. If you can't imagine not studying after school, try college. There, exams are simpler, and the cost of training is lower, and the finished profession will turn out faster.

Mom forced me to go to a technical college (at the age of 15 I did not have the right to vote), which I was not very happy about, so she tried with all her might to make sure that I was expelled. Did not work out. After college, I myself have already chosen a university and a specialty. Now I have no regrets. After college I was sent to practice at AvtoVAZ. At the age of 18 I already had a normal position and salary.

Maria manager

The craze for higher education does not lead to anything good. Often a diploma is just a piece of paper, behind which there is not a single gram of knowledge and skills. But there are several killed years and hundreds of thousands spent.

8. Don't force me to graduate

In the period from 18 to 23 years old, a person grows up sharply, this is the age of formation. Sometimes the eyes open and the student realizes that he is not doing his own thing: he finds a more interesting specialty, realizes what his goal is. As a rule, this is already a more deliberate choice than the decision of yesterday's student, such a turn will bring more benefit than a dull diploma, because “once you start, finish it”.

After the ninth grade, the class teacher advised my mother to send me to college. My parents did not really choose, but sent me to the construction site, because all my mother's colleagues were finishing it. I was told that the main thing is to get a diploma. I obediently agreed. Exhausted for four years. After that, I independently decided to get a higher education in another specialty. The parents agreed, even though they said: "Is it really in vain that I studied for four years?"

Anton designer

A diploma of education and several years of study is not a contract for a lifetime. Everything can be changed at any time. Do not forget to tell this to the child who is not sure if he has chosen his own business.

Caring parent checklist

Briefly about what to do to help your child:

• Do not insist on your choice and let the child decide for himself what to do.
• Tell us what professions are needed now.
• Offer those professions that will interest the child, and not those that a test or grade in a magazine suggests.
• Give as much information as possible about different professions.
• Show non-obvious solutions: specialties that have not been heard of in your field.
• Do not force you to study for the sake of a diploma: it is better to spend a couple of years on self-determination, and then find the perfect profession.