Posts Tagged ‘teens’

How did your research phase go? Did you find some good information? Were you able to eliminate at least one option? Better yet, did you choose a major that you are excited about pursuing?

If so, great! We can work on your education plan, which will be the next post. If not, read on for some pointers to help you look more closely at your options.

Often conducting research on college majors gives us the clarity we need and we can come to a solid decision.

Other times, we can be left feeling even more confused about what we want to do.

If so, what a drag – what was the point of all that effort?

Trust me when I tell you that this is perfectly normal! Putting this in perspective a little, we are talking about making a commitment to become an expert in one area that you will eventually pursue as a career.

And aren’t careers supposed to be BIG, scary endeavors where we do the same thing year after year until we are finally able to retire?

That might be what you feel like right now, so wonder making a choice is tough.

I’m here to tell you that careers are supposed to be something fun that we look forward to getting up for! They are dynamic and often change in ways that can’t possibly be predicted right now. You will get bored, change jobs, work hard, get promoted, get tired, work less, work smart, meet people, work alone…the list goes on and on.

What you decide on today is not likely to be your career twenty years after college. You might stay in the same field, but your job will change, probably sooner than you think!

So, what can you do right now to help solve this problem of choosing a major?

You can pay attention to what speaks to you and gives you a feeling of satisfaction. You can think about your ultimate intention, such as helping people or making sure all kids can read, and think about all the different ways you can meet that intention. Wanting to help people doesn’t mean you have to be a doctor. You can be an office manager who runs a fair environment, preparing employees with usable skills, and helping them allow their careers to grow.

You can be a counselor. A teacher. A dancer. A business owner who sells only environmentally conscious products. A designer of beautiful spaces for people to enjoy. If you can think it, you can be it!

Let’s get back to your list.

If you’re looking at your options and you’re still not sure what to choose as a major, try some of these tactics:

1. Get three blank pieces of paper. On the first one, list the majors in order from the one you are most interested in studying to the one you are least interested in studying. On the second piece, list the majors in order according to how much money you can make working in that field, most to least. On the third one, list the majors in order of the most to least predicted job growth. Compare the order of each list. Are any of them the same order? Do you see any patterns that concern you? If the major you are most interested in has the lowest salary range and the fewest jobs, is that something that you can live with? At the end of the day, are you willing to possibly study one thing and work in another field until you find something you really want to do? Consider how you would feel if you were unable to find work doing what you love. How important is the salary to you?
2. Carefully look at the research you’ve collected and see if anything closely related to the careers/majors sticks out that maybe you didn’t originally research, but that sound interesting now. Take the time to research them too and see if you come up with any new possibilities.
3. Write your major choices down and give the list to three people you trust. Ask them to rank your choices according to the one they can most see you pursuing, the second, and third.
4. Put your list away for a week and try not to think about it. At the end of the week, write down your thoughts on each major and see if you have any further clarity. If not, put your information in an envelope and in another week or two, give it to a friend and ask them to mail it to you. Once you receive it in the mail, look at it with the new eyes of time and keep open to any clarifying language.
5. If desperation strikes, write your majors on slips of paper and pin them to a dartboard. Which one do you hit? Which one do you find yourself subconsciously aiming at?

Don’t give up on the search for the right major for you. Will your choice be 100% perfect? Probably not! There are plenty of majors out there that require students to take one, two, even four or five courses that don’t excited us. That doesn’t mean that the rest aren’t worth taking or that the field isn’t worth getting into! There are plenty of sociology students who have to take Research and Statistics and hate it. But they don’t let it get in the way of their dream!

Feel free to send me an email if I can be of further assistance clarifying a major: sara@joyfulbydesign.com.

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All right! It’s time to dive into the possible majors you’ve chosen! Looking closely at each of your choices will give you the clarity you need to eliminate options and find the major that is just right for you!

There are two easy ways to get started researching a major.
1. Conduct a broad search on the field using tools such as Google, The Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Monster, Career Builder, and even Florida Choices. Your local library will also have great resources to help you to research careers. Learn what you can about the field, what sort of jobs people who earn a degree in the major get, what kind of salary they make, etc.
2. Go straight to a specific college or university and read about the details of their specific program. While not all websites are created equal, some basic information you will likely find is any prerequisites required before entering the major, the courses you will take, the degree you can earn, and sometimes they include details on the types of jobs the graduates from their programs take when they leave the university.

Whichever search method you choose, here is a list of questions to help you get started:
1. Where can I go to school to pursue a degree in this field?
2. What are the requirements to get into the major?
3. Are there any special criteria I have to meet to get into my major program? Is it limited access or open to all students?
4. How long will it take me to get my degree? Do I want to spend that much time in school?
5. What are the courses I will take to earn a degree in this field? Can I honestly see myself sitting through those courses over the next two years? Four years? Longer?
6. If I were to choose this major, what sort of degree will I need to get a job?
7. What is the career placement of people who complete degrees in this field? Where do they typically get jobs?
8. How much money can I expect to make in the years to come?
9. How many jobs are on the market for that particular field today?
10. What does the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (www.bls.gov) have to say about growth in the field I am considering?

This is a simple list to get you started; once you start researching, you’ll be amazed at the information available online to support you in making your decision.

Write down the answers to the questions about the major or career field. Pay attention to how you feel while conducting your research. Are you getting excited about any one of them? Are you completely bored reading about another?

What about the job possibilities? It’s a good idea to search Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, or another job search site to see what’s available for positions in your field. When you read the postings, are you getting excited about the possibilities?

Other ideas for narrowing down your options include putting the info you find into a comparison chart, creating a picture to review each major’s benefits side by side.

If you haven’t already, now is likely a good time to get in touch with someone in the field you are interested in pursuing. Ask them about the job they do, or to detail a day in the life and see what kinds of information you can collect.

In the end, use the information you collect to make an educated decision about your major. Your major will ideally be an area that you are excited about, something you can sink your teeth into learning about, and an area that will get you excited about work when the time comes.

For further details on narrowing down your options, please email me at sara@joyfulbydesign.com.

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By this time you should have a list of possible majors that we can start working with. If you recall, when this process started, we talked about posting a list where you could add ideas for majors to it easily. I gave you a link to an interest assessment designed to help you match interests to possible careers and majors. I also encouraged you to talk to the people in your life about your future and to use a journal to generate ideas for college majors.

If you haven’t already, take a few minutes and review any written information that you might not have transferred to your list yet. Look over your list of possible majors and read it once to see if it feels complete.

I recommend that for this next step you have at least two different writing utensils. A highlighter and a pencil work well. Our goal today is to narrow down your options and come up with a list of majors that you will research further.

Step 1: Cross out the majors or careers that you absolutely know you will not pursue. If Belly Dancing made it to your list and you are pretty sure you won’t be studying that as a college major, go ahead and cross it off. Other things to cross off are any hobbies that you enjoy but are pretty sure you wouldn’t want to either take lots of classes in or work at 40 hours a week.

Step 2: Highlight the majors or careers that you are interested in learning more about. How many are there? If there are more than five, look at your list again and ask yourself the following questions about each one:
• What do I see myself doing for work in this field?
• What about this is appealing to me?
• Will this major or career help me to reach some of the big goals I want to accomplish in my life?
• Am I leaning towards this because I think it feels right for me or am I trying to make someone else happy? Proud? Is someone else’s (parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, significant other) satisfaction with my career more important than my own?

If there are five or less, these are the careers that we will move onto research. If you feel as though there are too many majors to research, you have some options. You could:

• Try narrowing down your list again
• Ask someone you trust to research a couple of the majors for you
• Write down the majors on slips of paper and pick two that you will research this week, two more the next week, etc.
Remember that while there certainly may be a sense of urgency, it’s not always imperative that all this happens in one day. Trust that these decisions take time.

Finally, once you have a list of majors that you will research, rewrite it on a new piece of paper and put it somewhere safe. In a few days we’ll talk about getting started with researching your options.

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All right, by now you’ve got your master list of college major possibilities stored in a safe place where you can easily add to it. Let’s look at one of the brainstorming tools we can use to get the ideas going.

One of my favorite resources is an Interest Profiler assessment which can be found on www.flchoices.org or through the website www.FACTS.org. Both of these sties are offered through the Florida Department of Education. They are full of information that is beneficial to students in Florida as well as students around the country.

To access the Interest Profiler, which is a free online assessment, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.flchoices.org. Click on “Jump In”.

a. If this doesn’t work, follow this path: www.facts.org > Site Map > Career Planning – FL Choices > FL Choices > Jump In

2. Click “Choices Planner” to get started.

3. Under “Work” click the hyperlink for the “Interest Profiler.”

4. Click “Start Answering Questions” and complete assessment.

Once you’ve finished the assessment your results will appear. You will be given your top two areas of interest, which will be any combination of two of the following:
• Realistic
• Investigative
• Artistic
• Social
• Enterprising
• Conventional
You can click on each area and see which careers match that one area, or you can click the link to “see careers that match both your areas of interest.” This will generate a filtered list that meets the criteria of relating to both of your top two areas of interest.

Wait a minute, I’m choosing a major, so, why am I looking at lists of careers? Your major and your career choice are closely related. If you want to be a teacher, you will choose a major in education. A future electrical engineer will select an engineering major.

One of the coolest things about Florida Choices is that once you start browsing the careers, you can view information on the college major appropriate for that career and start looking up programs at colleges and universities where you can learn the skills needed for a job in that field.

Spend time browsing the website and add careers that interest you to your list of possible majors. If you see a career and you’re not sure what you would major in to work in that field, click the link to read more about the career and see what you find.

Allow yourself to dream! If you love to dance and think you might want to major in performing arts, write it down. You can decide later if that’s a road you want to take. Right now, it’s all about looking at your options. Decisions don’t have to be made right this minute; let’s just keep taking steps toward those decisions so we can feel good about our progress!

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I know it probably sounds a little silly and even childish. And yet one of the things I see daily as an instructor at the college level is the unease and the nervousness that takes place in students who are asked to read aloud. Bodies start to squirm, cheeks turn red, and voices drop at least two decibels. Of course this isn’t true for all students, but for the most part, they are terrified to read aloud.

If you don’t already, start asking your teen to read aloud. Maybe read you a news story they found interesting, read a book to a younger sibling, read a beloved novel aloud at night instead of watching TV; whatever the vehicle, provide your teen with the opportunity to read aloud and you will be helping them develop a skillset that will be beneficial for a lifetime.

Think about it. If we can read aloud well, we are improving our pronunciation and annunciation of words, we are becoming more articulate. If we do this out loud with other people listening, we are practicing our presentation skills, including speaking, and responding to an audience (imagine having to speak louder because someone in the other room turns the dishwasher on). And each time your teen reads aloud, they will get better and more comfortable with being in the spotlight, with making a mistake and self-correcting. This is the first step to being a solid public speaker.

So, give your teen the gift of being a confident reader by finding ways to incorporate reading aloud into your family life. Be sure to take part; it’s usually beneficial for us to practice reading aloud as well!

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Not dirty with dirt, but dirty with service! One of the greatest gifts you can give your teen is that of appreciating the feeling of giving back. And one of the coolest things about giving back is that the giver has a chance to build a really cool skill set that lasts a lifetime.

Pick a project that you and your teen can do together – join a local Habitat for Humanity group or help out at a Damayan Garden, which helps to feed a community. Grab your hammer, pick up a shovel, and start reaping the benefits of hard work and the satisfaction of seeing a job well-done help out someone less fortunate. And better yet, watch your teen’s confidence rise as they get involved in something that has real meaning. The reward for the recipient is tangible and helpful; the reward for your teen is a sense that they can actually contribute.

Technorati Tags: increase confidence, kids, leadership, middle school, parents, parents of teens, self-reliance, tallking to kids, teen confidence, teens

How many times have you shared information with your teenager that wasn’t taken seriously, scoffed at, or blown off? This is the number one complaint I hear from parents of teens. The sad truth is that many teens reach a point where they are simply not interested in what mom or dad have to offer.

A powerful way to ensure your teen continues to learn valuable life lessons is to team him up with one or more mentors. A mentor for a teen can be an adult that you both trust, a friend of the family, an older cousin, a colleague at work who is willing to spend some time with her, a member of your church or community; someone who cares about your son or daughter and who can share a life experience with them.

Facilitating these relationships will give your teen another person they can trust in times of need. They will gain a different perspective of the world and possibly be exposed to a culture or environment they wouldn’t normally be exposed to.

What can a mentor do with your teen? Maybe the could take them to work to learn about their job, or complete a special project with them, such as gardening, collecting goods for the troops, or volunteering together to read to the elderly.

Your teen will build confidence through fostering a relationship and learning something new that is entirely their own experience. The important thing is to just get started! So, who can you reach out to today to offer them a role as a mentor?

Technorati Tags: college acceptance, college admissions, college planning, college students, Florida State University, high school students, increase confidence, kids, leadership, middle school, parents, parents of teens, self-reliance, tallking to kids, teen confidence, teens

Yesterday on Yahoo’s homepage was a link to a an ABC News story about a mother who is generating a lot of publicity with her parenting strategy. The mother, Amy Chua was in the Wall Street Journal this past week, having written an article titled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” in which she explains her ideas about limiting the social interactions of her daughters, expecting the best, and holding them accountable for being the top in everything they do. She shares a particular anecdote describing how she forced one of her daughter’s to keep practicing a particular piano piece until she got it right. After much resistance, the daughter got it. Chua believes that by forcing her daughter to stick with it, she has shown her that she is capable of accomplishing difficult tasks when willing to do the work, thereby raising her daughters self-esteem.

As you can imagine, Chua’s parenting tactics have parents everywhere up in arms. And yet I wonder…

Accountability is a powerful tool, and in order to hold someone really accountable, you have to be willing to play a hard role yourself. The role of “I’m going to keep pushing you because you said you wanted to do this; I’m not going to give up and neither are you.”

Once our kids reach a certain age, it’s not going to work to start trying to force behavior. They’re too old for that.

One suggestion for overcoming that resistance is to engage your teen in an accountability partnership. Let’s say for example your teenage daughter has been wanting to apply for summer camp jobs, but just doesn’t seem to have the time, or your son would really like to learn more about becoming a volunteer fireman, but just hasn’t gotten to it.

You, on the other hand, have been knitting sweaters, hats, and scarves for years and have always meant to sign up to sell them at a craft fair, but somehow it’s never actually happened.

Instead of Chua’s tactic of forcing your child to keep at it, engage in a relationship where you each share your goals and hold one another accountable. Tell him why reaching this goal is important to you and see if she’ll be able to help you achieve it by asking regular questions about your progress.

And do the same for them. Be the person who brings accountability to the table when it comes to getting that application written or making the phone call for more information.

Be clear about the goals, schedule time to work on them, and continue to move forward together. It won’t necessarily be easy to get started, and will work best with more mature teens, but once you get the momentum going your teen will learn the value of planning ahead and feel good about getting something accomplished.

Technorati Tags: college admissions, college planning, college students, Florida State University, high school students, increase confidence, middle school, parents, parents of teens, self-reliance, tallking to kids, teens

This week I am preparing to host my first Mother-Daughter Mini Retreat in Tallahassee. I am so excited to have mothers and daughters joining me to take time out from everyday life to be together in a very relaxed and authentic way.

As I am working on my preparations for the event this weekend, it occurred to me that going on retreat with your teen is a great way to build their confidence. According to the Oxford Dictionary, the definition of “retreat” is to go back, retire, recede, or to withdraw from. By making the commitment to withdraw from the hustle and bustle of every day life and to focus on your relationship with your teen is a huge confidence boost! You’re showing your child that your time with them is more important than all of the other distractions you’re leaving behind – what a fantastic message to send to a child who might be struggling with their confidence level!

I encourage you to consider your options for time out with your teen. Find something the two of you like to do together and try doing it without cell phones, iPods, or even other people. What works for retreat is different for every one; find something that works for the two of you and enjoy your time reconnecting.

Technorati Tags: college students, high school students, increase confidence, kids, middle school, parents, parents of teens, self-reliance, tallking to kids, teen confidence, teens

I was out running errands over the weekend and I found myself wondering at what point in my life I became an “errand runner.” I have fond memories of my mother sending me on mini-errands at the grocery store. I would get my assignment and run across the store to find the items in question, bringing them back with a feeling of triumph, and excitedly receiving my next mission.

As a junior in high school I became responsible for picking up my little brother from preschool. Over the years, no matter what the errand, what was really happening was that my parents were teaching me to be responsible for something outside of myself, along with of course, the ability to run errands for myself.

And so, my suggestion this week is – you guessed it - ask your teen to assist with errands that contribute to the overall running of your household. Doing so will help to not only build confidence, but will also give your teen lifelong skills that can be used to facilitate their own success as they transition from adolescence to emerging adults.

Technorati Tags: college acceptance, college admissions, college planning, college students, high school students, increase confidence, kids, leadership, parents of teens, self-reliance, tallking to kids, teen confidence, teens