Helping teens choose a career path

‘Hyper-focus’ on success
These types of specific suggestions to impressionable teens worries Aaron Cooper, a clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University and author of "I Just Want My Kids To Be Happy! Why You Shouldn’t Say It, Why You Shouldn’t Think It, What You Should Embrace Instead.”

“If this is done before college, it forces kids to narrow their focus of possibilities a little early in the game,” he says. “What’s wrong with going to college and exploring everything that comes across your desk without having some tunnel vision imposed on you?”

It’s all part of a “hyper-focus” on success that so many have in our society today, he says.

“Parents are outsourcing so much of what used to be part of natural process,” he says. “These were things that were done by the student with help from mom and dad, and maybe some help from a high school counselor.”

Parents, he adds, are misguided in thinking happiness will come from some perfect match between a kid and a particular career.

Some teens do find a profound passion or interest early on, says Madeline Levine, author of “The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids.” “But the rest of us slog around for awhile trying to figure out what we’re interested in,” she says.

Instead of career counseling or aptitude testing, Levine recommends that parents genuinely ask their kids what they like to do and talk to them about their options. And expose them to many different experiences. “Take them to the museum, the theater. Show them the world and let them see what they want,” she says.

‘Why am I learning this?’
For advocates of early testing and counseling, it’s about making kids understand why they need to learn the things they’re being taught in school. “You hear students say all the time, ‘Why am I learning this?,” says Peg Hendershot, director of Career Vision. “There’s a disconnect there, and they need to start understanding how their education prepares them to be successful in the world.”

She believes there’s nothing wrong with some general exploration of career goals as early as 12 years old.

“People want to get a head start in the world,” adds Richard Hoffman, director of the Houston office of the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation, an aptitude testing company for teens and adults. Helping them get a better understanding of their “natural gifts” can only help get them on the right track, he says.

If you wait until you’re 22 to start a career in music, says Irvin Shambaugh, president of Dallas-based testing firm AIMS, it’s difficult to catch up to a person who’s been specializing in that career for years. “Mozart started at age 4,” he points out.

Carol Christen, co-author of “What Color is Your Parachute? For Teens,” has no major issues with this type of testing, but she says all the information kids get out of these sessions should be taken as a small piece of a career exploration puzzle.

She suggests parents consider free or less expensive online tests that could also provide some valuable information. (Check out JobHuntersBible.com for some options.)

After a teen develops some ideas of what he wants to do, both parent and child need to sit down and figure out how different professions jive with the economy and whether it’s a wise decision to pursue a job that is becoming extinct, for example.

“Also, kids should talk to people who are doing the work they’re interested in,” Christen says.

So what does the future hold for John Cameron now that surgeon is off the table? “I’m definitely looking into engineering or architecture,” he says, adding that he is now in the process of filling out college applications for Notre Dame, University of Michigan, Northwestern and University of Illinois.

Cameron doesn’t look at the counseling he received as someone telling him what to be or what not to be when he grows up. He saw it more as guidance.

“I was torn between a few careers,” he says, “but hearing someone else say engineering was a reaffirmation.”

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