Four Steps to Helping Your Teen With Career Guidance, Even if They’re Resistant | Part 2
What would you do if your nineteen-year-old son told you he’d been watching a lot of videos about a guy who grows marijuana?
That’s what a recent client told me when I asked what he’d been up to lately.
He was a bit hesitant when he told me. It seemed he was anticipating some type of disapproval.
My initial thoughts definitely weren't positive or supportive.
For a split second, I thought, “Man, another unfocused young person wasting his afternoons on social media.”
But I knew better and chose to draw him out.
“Cool”, I calmly said, “so what makes you keep watching these videos?”
I discovered that the YouTube channel featured an entrepreneur running a licensed cannabis operation and that my client wasn’t interested in getting high or making quick money. He was actually fascinated by the process of seeing a seed become a plant and all of the science and work that went into it.
Underneath the taboo topic was a young man genuinely interested in botany and agricultural science.
Through additional conversations and his assessment results, we identified a Greenhouse or Nursery Production Manager role as a fantastic match for him.
Taking his interest seriously didn’t mean endorsing the specific job he’d been watching. It did mean that I was safe and would listen without judgment.
It gave me a chance to discover what was behind the interest and help him build on it.
In this series, we’re exploring four steps to help you provide meaningful career guidance while preserving, and even strengthening, your relationship with your teen:
Celebrate → Recalibrate → Investigate → Collaborate.
In today’s post, we’ll explore how to respond when your teen shares a career interest you’re not thrilled about. You’ll learn three shifts that can help you celebrate their interest without having to dismiss your concerns.
Celebrate Interest, Not the Job
When your teen mentions a career that concerns you, your protective instincts can quickly take over.
You don’t want them wasting time, money, and effort pursuing something that proves to be a problem, so you tell them it’s a bad idea and what you think they should do.
While the concerns might be legit, an initial negative response can shut down conversation about the option and leave your teen less likely to see you as someone they can approach about career ideas in the future.
So what do you do?
Keep quiet and risk your kid making a poor choice, or speak up and risk your kid cutting you off?
Well, there’s actually a third option:
Celebrate the presence of interest without endorsing the job they’re interested in.
Let that sink in for a minute.
You can be pleased that something has captured your teen’s attention while still having serious concerns about it.
There’s a big difference between sayin, "I’m glad you want to be a ____” and, “I’m glad to see you’re interested in something”.
The latter response can help your teen experience you as someone safe to talk to. Someone they can share an unfinished idea with before they’ve figured everything out.
A study of teens found that those who experienced their mothers as more accepting showed greater increases in emotional openness with them three years later.¹ The study wasn’t about careers, but it reinforces a useful consideration: how your teen experiences your response matters.
And keeping that conversation open gives you a chance to help them with exploration, processing, and making informed choices.
Celebrate sets the tone for everything else, and it’s based on the idea that a great initial response can allow you to ride the natural momentum created by your teen’s interest regardless of how troubling the job is.
These three shifts will make you more prepared to celebrate when future career interests are revealed.
Shift 1: From Forever to For-Now
Parents often hear an initial interest as a permanent declaration.
Our kid says, “I think I want to be an artist.”
But we hear, “I’ve made up my mind. I’m definitely going to be an artist, and nothing can stop me!”
Many times, a job of interest is simply a temporary option that has caught your teen’s attention.
It’s often a “for-now” interest not a “forever” choice.
Seeing it this way can reduce your urgency to object and make room for curiosity and conversation.
Shift 2: From Rejecting to Respecting
A self-generated interest gives you something valuable to work with.
Your teen has identified something they like. The idea came from their thoughts and feelings, rather than someone else’s expectations.
They own it.
Another study that followed hundreds of adolescents through the transition out of high school found that those who experienced their mothers as supporting their independence showed a stronger pattern of self-directed motivation and confidence in career exploration.²
Respecting ownership can be part of meaningful guidance.
Ownership gives you something to build on, and it often produces four qualities that will make exploration, reflection, and conversation a lot more likely.
Motivation: Your teen has a personal reason to want to know more about the job.
Initiative: Your teen may begin researching without needing repeated reminders.
Effort: Having a personal reason to explore can help them invest time and energy in learning about the role.
Resilience: When the goal matters to them, they have a reason to work through difficulties rather than immediately give up.
If you immediately reject your teen’s idea and replace it with your own, you can extinguish the spark that could have fueled important research and ongoing conversations.
Respecting their interest gives them room to learn and decide what they think while increasing your chances of playing a part in that process.
Think back to my client.
His interest in those videos gave us a great talking point, but respecting it gave us the meaningful conversation that would have otherwise been forfeited.
This shift can protect your teen’s ownership while helping you remain someone they’re willing to include.
Shift 3: From Telling to Asking
Please don’t misunderstand me.
I’m not suggesting you play a passive, silent role while your teen pursues a career that genuinely concerns you.
As I mentioned earlier, your concerns matter and should have a place in the career guidance you do with your teen.
That’s why your initial response to their career ideas is so critical. If you get it wrong, you risk losing the opportunity to share those concerns in a way that can actually help.
No one's asking you to stay silent.
But I am suggesting that you save those concerns for later conversations and make the first one something positive, not corrective or directive.
So, when your teen shares a job of interest that’s alarming, immediately go into “ask” mode instead of “tell” mode.
Instead of telling them why it won’t work, or what you think they should do, celebrate the presence of interest and ask a “what” or a “why” question:
“I’m glad you’re interested in something. Why do you like this job?”
“I’m happy to see you interested in something. What makes you interested in this job?”
Then give them time to answer, and then listen to gain insights.
A great follow-up is to strategically introduce your interest in it as well by saying something like…
“I don’t know much about that job. I’d be interested in learning more about it, too.”
This may seem insignificant, but it’s actually super important. This one simple statement does several things:
It creates a partnership with your teen because now there's a mutual interest.
It subtly establishes that you are going to be involved.
It shows you don't speak out of emotions and value getting facts.
It models that initial interest should always lead to research.
The Bottom Line
When your teen expresses interest in a career that concerns you, your initial response matters.
It can make your teen more willing to include you or more reluctant to share.
Temporarily setting concerns aside so you can celebrate is about playing the long game and setting yourself up to partner with your teen as they figure out their career path.
In the Next Post
Celebrating your teen’s interest can help keep the conversation open. But what if earlier reactions have already made them reluctant to talk with you?
In the next post, we’ll explore Recalibrate. You’ll learn how to change your approach to career conversations, acknowledge past reactions that may have caused friction, and follow through in ways that help your teen feel safe talking with you again.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to email if you have questions about this topic or would like to share your thoughts with me.
Sources
¹ Hare, A. L., Marston, E. G., & Allen, J. P. (2011). Maternal Acceptance and Adolescents’ Emotional Communication: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40, 744–751.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3192331/
² Ahn, J. S., Plamondon, A., & Ratelle, C. F. (2022). Different Ways to Support and Thwart Autonomy: Parenting Profiles and Adolescents’ Career Decision Making. Journal of Family Psychology. Author manuscript.
https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/InPress_AhnPlamondonRatelle_DifferentWays.pdf
Parent Reflection
This question is designed to help you pause and clarify your own thoughts, assumptions, and opinions about the issue raised in today's post.
- When my teen shares a career interest that concerns me, does my first response make it easier for them to keep talking or make them feel they need to defend the idea?
- Recognizing your usual response gives you a chance to prepare a different one before the next idea comes up.
Start a Convo
Use the following questions to start a conversation with your teen about today's topic.
- What kinds of jobs seem interesting to people your age right now?
- Is there a job that’s caught your attention lately, even if you’re just curious about it?
- What kind of response from me would make it easier for you to share and explore career ideas while you’re still figuring things out?
Your Free Resource
What could you say first when your teen names a career that concerns you?
The Top Ten Initial Responses When Your Teen Expresses Interest in a Career You’re Not Thrilled About gives you ten ready-to-use responses that welcome their interest and invite them to keep talking. Request the guide here.
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IN THIS SERIES
Four Steps to Helping Your Teen With Career Guidance, Even if They’re Resistant
PART 1: Why Career Stuff Is Hard to Address With Your Teen
PART 2: How to Respond When Your Teen Wants a Career You’re Not Thrilled About (currently reading)
