“They think I’m going to grad school,” my intern says about her parents.
“Are you?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she replies.
This is the conversation I had with my intern Katherine this morning. She just finished finals and, if she passes all her tests, will be a college senior next year.
Turns out, once every few weeks her parents ask her about what she plans for her future. They ask her about going to graduate school, about the steps she’s taking now to get her on the right career road, etc., etc.
Her common response is something like, “I’ll figure it out later.”
I’m listening to this closely because I have two young kids. Even though they’re 5 and 8, I’m wondering already how I will be when they’re at that critical crossroads, just a few steps from the real work world.
Obviously, Katherine doesn’t like her parents haranguing. She talks about them, when it comes to this issue, as if they were a two-headed monkey on her back constantly saying, “What’s your plan? What’s your plan?”
I had her call her mother Liz this morning to ask why they feel compelled to do this.
On why she pesters Katherine: “Hoping that you’ll take the ball and run with it.”
Liz feels compelled to keep on top of her daughter, “Because the stakes are much higher and you need to look at things much earlier in your life now.” As early as high school, she believes. “There are lots of opportunities you can take advantage of but you have to plan for them and get to them earlier. You have to involve them otherwise they won’t know how to make decisions.”
This all seems to make sense for us parents today. We are so much more involved in our kids lives than previous generations.
But as college kids take their finals, or prepare for graduation, it might be a good time to ask ourselves if parental badgering is helpful, or do we need to climb down from our kids’ backs already?
I asked Nicholas Aretakis, author of “No More Ramen: The 20-Something’s Real World Survival Guide”, what his take was and he shared this personal story from when he was in his first semester of college more than 25 years ago:
“I had my weekly call home, advising my parents of my struggles. They weren’t the most sophisticated or well educated (my Dad quit high school to join his 5 elder brothers in WWII, and saw serious combat action in Iwo Jima), but they said something that would have a resounding impact on my life. ‘Do the best that you can, we are proud of you regardless.’ After that conversation, I realized that the only pressures that I had to worry about were the pressures that I placed upon myself. The next semester I made the Dean’s List, and I graduated from Hobart College Cum Laude a year early, which enabled me to get into Columbia University, which opened many doors that contributed to my success over the years.”
That said, he doesn’t think parents should just cut the cord on college kids.
Here’s some advice he offers on helping, but not monkey-on-your-back type helping. It’s long but I thought parents would appreciate me taking up as much cyber space as possible for this:
1. Establish strong and honest communications with your children. Don’t be dictatorial, be supportive. Share pertinent stories of others and experience. If they find you helpful, they will come to you for help and accept some of the tutelage you can provide
o Ask your child, “What do you want to do?” This is much better than saying, “You need to find a job”.
o Help them find their way, but don’t be pushy, and don’t pressure them
o Determine if the option of them moving back home is open, and agree on some timelines and guidelines (if they move back into the nest)
o Be an open minded “sound-board” for you child, even if some of the initial ideas may not be either practical or wise
2. Become a “mentor” for your children, and encourage them to find others that will be qualified- professors, counselors, relatives, friends of the family, bosses or colleagues, etc.
o Mentorship can help you uncover a career direction or accelerate pursuits
3. Gain an understanding of what special talents or skills your children possess, and whether there is any potential career path that could be pursued
o Do they have any idea on what products or services they would like to design, develop, market or sell?
4. Encourage children to utilize the Career Services provided at their college
o Employers come to schools looking for particular skills, education or experience
o As a student or alumni, you can gain free access to postings made available by national services (e.g. MonsterTRAK, NACElink)
5. Get an idea on whether they have any career aspirations. Encourage spending time with individuals in similar fields, research prospective employers (management, direct supervisor, peers, culture)
o Spend few hours or a day “on the job”, getting an idea of the nuances of the job, gaining a flavor of whether you are cut out for this path
o www.CareerTours.com now offers short videos on prospective employers and specific positions, encourage your child to navigate and get a glimpse of some potential job options
o Encourage internships (paid or unpaid)- accomplishing several key factors:
§ gaining valuable work experience, positioning young adults when they graduate;
§ getting a better sense of a particular job or career path;
§ expanding their professional network – leading to strong references or other potential employ
o Visiting prospective employers’ websites, Google related companies and the particular industry (is it growing, in decline, exciting?)
o Interview with as many employers as practical- compare jobs, pay, benefits, culture, etc. (we provide free downloadable templates at www.NoMoreRamenOnline.com)
6. Ensure that your children understand the commitments of the job, particularly early on when they may need to “pay their dues”
o The path to more glamorous assignments starts with logging in time performing some of the less desirable tasks exceptionally well (the old cliché of “starting in the mail room)
7. Teach fiscal responsibilities
o Everything in the “real world” has an associated cost (we provide downloadable “budget templates”, visit www.NoMoreRamenOnline.com)
o Make sure that they compare the entire compensation packages from employer to employer- base pay, bonus, stock options/purchase plans, 401(k) plans- matching contributions, vacation, work hours, perks (e.g., travel or meal), culture, and some of the intangibles
8 Determine if graduate school is requisite?
o If so, can parents help their children financially to continue education, or would the child be saddled with excessive debt upon completion?
Great words for all you monkeys out there.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
My wife and I just attended the sixth-grade orientation for our third child (our eldest is 15). The final session of the evening was for a program called AVID. It’s primary purspose is to start preparing kids (especially “average kids” per the literature we were given) for college.
The teacher who heads the program indicated that kids who go through the program should have a working understanding of applying for college, financial aid, and a myriad of other topics. Since the program is designed to extend throug high school, perhaps she meant to say that those topics would come later. The impression I got, however, was like a late night infomercial: if you sign your kid up for AVID today, you are giving him/her the leg-up s/he needs to be successful in happy in life!!!
When we left (thinking this was way too early for such pressure on a kid, and that the level of structure in the program seemed more designed to create compliant little plebes rather than critical thinking students), every other parent in the room was lined up to sign up their son or daughter for the program. We were the only ones who left with a plan to think about it more before we commit our son to a year-long program from which no early exit or withdrawal is allowed. [Knowing our son, who is quite bright but has a rebellious streak a mile wide when it comes to homework, recording assignments, and accepting authority, this may not be the best program–at leasat without a trial period].
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:39 am
My kids are in their 30’s and doing fine.
When they went to college, we told them they had two free major changes. On the third one, we were going to talk. The reason is that the first two years of college throw you into a lot of different classes. Check them out. If something interests you, research the field and make the change.
I went to Missouri School of Mines, then Univ of MO at Rolla. Now named Missouri Science and Technology. Everyone had moaned about a required Fortran class. I took it, loved it, and spent 15 years in the IT field.
We also sent them to intern type jobs in their expressed areas of interest. Paid or unpaid did not matter. Purpose was to find out if they liked it before getting that degree.
Daughter wanted a medical career. Sent her to her grandpa, a physician, with instruction to work her legs off, empty bed pans, get up at 2 am for baby cases, etc. Do everything to dissuade her from this career. After two summers, she locked in on going to his med school and taking over his practice where she is to this very day.
Son floundered some. About all we would ask is for him to count the 30-40 year olds at the factory or restaurant. There wern’t any. Graduated on the 12 year plan in his chosen field. Now being paid for what he knows. Not, what he does.
Hey, Mom and Dad, after they leave home for college, they are now on their own. Answer their questions, offer advice when asked, pontificate once in a great while. Never solve their problems for them. They must learn to do it themsleves.
Encourage them to find the career choice they love, not yours, so they will enjoy their job the rest of their lives. They will love you for it.
Warm Regards,
Scott
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Thanks for sharing your experience and advice, Scott!
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I remember at a really early age that my parents got together with other parents in our neighborhood and arranged to give all the kids tours of their workplaces. It was such a great way to expose us to all kinds of careers and work environments — from law offices to research science labs. Then we all had dinner together after the tours. It’s one of my fondest childhood/neighborhood memories.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
“Because the stakes are much higher and you need to look at things much earlier in your life now.”
…oh man, I’m screwed.
So I just finished my freshman year in college at Temple University. Right now, i am pulling in mediocre grades and just generally having a good time being a college undergrad in an awesome city (Philadelphia).
Mom, if your reading this, let me explain.
Last year, when i graduated from high school, I accepted Temple University as a Communications major in hopes of one day becoming a film-maker. I then eagerly took my intro-to-film class.
I no longer aspire to be in film.
Panic ensued. I then decided that i wanted to be everything else you could major in at Temple. After a few months of flip-flopping, i have now landed on staying in the communications program and focusing on Journalism instead of Film.
I seem to generally lack motivation because I, like most normal 19 year old males, have no clue what i want to do. My parents share the idea that the crucial decisions in my life needed to happen yesterday. If normal parents are monkeys, my parents are pissed off silver-back gorillas. My positive reinforcement are usually soothing words like “if you fail this class, you’re moving home and getting a job. We don’t pay for you to not do well.” Not to say that my parents do not love me or anything like that. if you have ever met them you would no in a second that that is untrue. they simply want me to do well so that i am able to find a good and can be successful. They just have a funny way of showing it.
The pressures as a college student merely start with our parents. Campuses are covered in NEED A JOB?!? signs. Professors remind us on a daily basis that finding a job in _________ will NOT be easy. Internships become increasingly competitive. Job Fairs slowly loose favorable jobs and consist mostly of jobs that you went to college so you wouldn’t have to work in the first place. So on and so on.
All in all, i would say the best advice for parents out there raising children is to give them some leeway and help them figure out what they want to do. Just be positive and ready to give support. For any students with this, feeling my woes, hang in there. Try doing what makes you happy and work on it. Hopefully my newfound hobby will help give me the inspiration that me and my gorillas are desperately looking for.
May 28th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
You make some good points, Nick. My hope is to help my kids find and foster their natural interests in the hope that they might be able to find a career that fits. If not, I’m trying to make them realize that there’s more to life that having the perfect job. For many (even me, at times), a job is just something that pays the bills and allows us to pursue the things we really love (e.g., writing, non-profit work, outdoor recreation).