65. Guide Your Teen Towards their Ideal Career using a 4-Step Framework

Struggling to navigate the complex maze of career choices for your teen? Wanting to help them decide on a career path? Are you overwhelmed with the college and career readiness journey? 

You're not alone. 

This conversation isn't just about making the grade or landing a spot at a top college. We're turning the conventional approach on its head, starting with an often-neglected step one of the process. If you are already in the college selection process, you may want to stop and take a listen!

As the founder of Discover U College and Career Coaching, I'm here to guide you and your teen through these pivotal steps, ensuring their well-being remains at the forefront. So join us today!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to College and Career Ready, the podcast that helps you motivate and inspire your growing team to be college and career ready. I'm Sonia Casique, founder of Discover you College and Career Coaching, and today we will be discussing a very important four step framework that's going to help you, help your team, select the career path that is aligned for them. Have you wondered what career path is ideal for your team? Do you stay up at night wondering if they will ever find a career that they are passionate about? How many times has your team told you that they want to be famous or want to be a YouTuber, or that they know someone quote unquote someone who hardly has to work and earns tons of money? Well, if you have, let me tell you you are not alone. I think you and so many other parents out there lose sleep over this. There are 1.3 adolescents in the world today. That is 16% of the world's population and it is no surprise to me that many are confused as to what career they want to pursue. A survey found that more than two thirds of students are highly confused about what job roles even exist and which ones to pursue to build a career of choice and guess what careers they are considering the careers they know of or come across. Yes, we can debate for hours if being a YouTuber is a career, but we will have to leave that for another episode.

Speaker 1: 1:46

My focus today is to share with you how you can begin to have this conversation at home. Okay, so let me take it a step back and let me ask you, my friend how did you decide what career to pursue? What was that process like for you? Did a career just sound interesting, or were you just drawn by the earning potential? Or did your parents do what, unconsciously, most parents do? They select the university first. Prepare their teen for that special moment when you get to share with your friends and family and social network that your teen is going to X, y and Z college and you are dropping them off, getting them situated in their new dorms and introducing them to their roommates. And then, after you leave, you hope that putting your teen in the quote unquote right environment or right school, your teen will figure it all out. Hey, I do not discourage you to look at both of your dream schools or university, but before you do all of this, I want you to focus on this one thing that I'm going to share with you today.

Speaker 1: 3:02

From the student's perspective, you might have one of three types of students the one who has no clue what career they want to pursue, but they sure know what university they want to go to. The one who knows what career to pursue because that is what they have been told what career they should pursue. Or what they just know in their heart they wants to do. Or the student who has no clue of either. If your teen knows what they want to do as a career and chose that career based on who they truly are, and chose a school that is aligned with their career choice or options, their learning environment, their ideal class size, the opportunities the school offers them to further develop, not just academically but personally, then you are on the right track and on this podcast I will still have some enlightening information for you as parents. But to the parent of the teen that has no clue as to what school or career to pursue, then you're in the perfect episode because I will share with you the very first step you need to take with your teen.

Speaker 1: 4:14

The truth of the matter most parents are skipping this essential part of my framework. I work with parents and students in a holistic, all-inclusive environment at Discover U College and Career Coaching, where I first determine where the family is in this framework or in the process and then I start working with them to make sure we fill in all the gaps before we continue to move forward. The framework is simple, but it does require patience, because in the school, you have been taught all along that you should focus on your child's grade GPA ranking, instilling a fear that your child will not be quote-unquote successful if you do not apply to X, y and Z school and that X, y and Z school won't accept your child if they don't meet the requirements or the standards it's even just apply. In truth be told, I have interviewed so many guests in this podcast who have reached a level of success beyond their imagination, and where they went to school and how they got there varied greatly. Okay, so you're probably asking me by now what is the framework, sonia, and how do I get there? All right, my sweet friend, here is the four-step framework that all parents should be following.

Speaker 1: 5:41

The first step in the framework is self-discovery. The second step is career exploration, the third is college selection and then the fourth and most importantly, the student welfare, and most families are already in the college selection process when they haven't even worked on their teen self-discovery, nor have they explored career options together. Maybe they did explore some careers, but they explored them for the wrong reason, focusing on what the career can do for them, rather what the student can do with the career that aligns with who they are. And, sadly, parents and students focus all their energy in the college selection process that they miss, focusing on the student's welfare while they're in college. So how can parents work on self-discovery with their teen through a very simple and yet complicated process all at once?

Speaker 1: 6:47

Through communication, being curious, having open and honest conversations and some of you are thinking communication, open and honest conversations. I can barely get my teen to even acknowledge us or speak to us. And if you're one of the lucky few who already have open and honest conversations with your teen, then this step will be super easy. So how can we get there? Let's start with being curious. Be curious about what your teen thinks, believes and what they think they believe they want. You can find this and explore this together with them by having non-judgmental, open conversations. This one is hard because, as parents, we want to automatically protect and fill in the blanks for our teen, but we cannot get to open and honest conversations if they feel they're being judged. So, as parents, working on being non-judgmental is important and crucial in this step.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Ask more, why. Questions, ask why, and not in a rude or sarcastic tone either, but a curious one. If they tell you they want to be a pharmacist, a lawyer, a teacher, a YouTuber, ask why. Say something like tell me more, I'd love to hear more about what you like about that career. Remember, in a non-judgmental way, the greatest breakthroughs I have had with the teens that I have the wonderful opportunity to coach happens when they realize I am interested, I am not judging and I want to learn more about them. I have had students openly tell me, after we have had several coaching sessions together and have connected and built a strong relationship, that they were shut down at first because they thought I or their parents hired me with a hidden agenda. But when they saw that I truly cared about them and truly wanted to learn more about them, that is when the breakthrough happened.

Speaker 1: 9:03

In the process of asking why, you will discover your teens true interests, values and desires. When you have this valuable information, you too, together, can move on to step three, which is career exploration. Exploring careers that align with who they truly are and what they have to offer the world around us. And let me tell you, my friend, passion is not enough. I will definitely have a future episode on this topic, because we hear so many influencers say follow your passion. But I will leave that for another episode because I do have a different take on this. So there you go, my friend, the first step of the framework self discovery.

Speaker 1: 9:53

I challenge you to dig deeper with your teen, asking why, being more curious and hey, it's okay to stay in silence at times, or let them stay in silence, because sometimes they don't even know either. Together, we will continue to explore and work together to motivate and inspire your teen to be college and career ready. But it all starts at home with communication and connecting with your teen. I will continue to provide student pep talk episodes where, together, parents and students alike can explore careers and opportunities beyond the classroom. But my focus this year is to provide more episodes like these where I can provide you, as a parent, all the information available to helping you motivate and inspire your teen to be college and career ready. Next week we will continue to talk about this part of my framework, because we cannot help our teen prepare for college or even begin a conversation about future career plans if you're not connecting with them first.

Speaker 1: 11:06

I now have a question for you. I'm curious how did you decide what career you wanted to pursue? What was that process like for you as a teen? Who helped you in this journey, and how did you decide what career you wanted to pursue? Send me a message. I would love to hear from your own personal journey, because together we can explore many other opportunities for our teens. I hope you found this episode helpful.

Speaker 1: 11:35

I'm often asked how you can support our podcast in our community, and it's super simple. Share our podcast with your parents and friends like yourself, and if you want to connect with me, I love hanging out on Instagram, linkedin, or you can always drop me an email at info at collegecareerreadyorg. That's all one word info at collegecareerreadyorg. My Instagram handle is soniacasique and my LinkedIn is just my name, sonia Casique. You can find all of those links in the show notes, as well as a link to join our community, where you can receive periodic career newsletters directly from your host, sonia Casique.

Speaker 1: 12:29

All right, sweet friend. That's it for today until next week. Stay well, be present and enjoy the journey. Adios, thank you for joining us, sweet friend, and, as always, stay well, be present and enjoy the journey. I'll talk to you next week. Hi friend, thank you for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean so much to me. If you share it with a friend, share it with them right now or, even better, tag me so I can personally thank you for helping us build our community. I'm so thankful for each and every one of you. Let's keep in touch and I'll talk to you next week, adios.