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OMG this is my favorite post! It really is! But I’ll type a better comment in other than the phone. My eyes hurt.
This post really resonates with me. And it clarifies my thinking for future years of homeschooling. I had been considering reaching out to my community to see if individuals would take on my son for a couple of weeks so he could experience some varied work environments. The apprenticeships of the 1700’s have always shined in my mind. As a teenager I was so desperate to start my life. When I see the young 20-somethings living at home with mom and pop and I am utterly baffled. I hadn’t really considered that teens needed the guidance from parents to initiate their own lives and lifestyles. Thanks for this new nugget to ponder and inspire!
You bring up that you’re thinking two-week stints with people in the community. I have been thinking recently about how much time does a person need to be doing something to know what they feel about doing something. It’s a question I don’t really have an answer to. I mean, I have the answer that you don’t know what it’s like to do something til you’re an expert. And you know what it’s like to hate doing something after five minutes. It’s neither of those. It’s something else. I was just surprised by the two weeks. Like, somehow you have come to the magic number.
Penelope
Two weeks is the hypothesis; the conclusion will be what it will be (and won’t that be interesting).
Two weeks felt like a fair amount of time to ask someone in the community to commit to, and also enough time for a honeymoon period to crest and fade. Two weeks also feels like enough time to experience a journey, learning more than just the “work”, and bringing a new piece of the puzzle to what my son might want his adult life to look like.
This might be a little bit too pop-psychology, but what about 5 weeks?
This is based off of the fact that most people cannot do more than 20 hours of knowledge work per week unless it is an area of strength (Strengthsfinders), and that it takes 10,000 hours to develop mastery (Outliers).
If you devote 20 hours a week to learning something new, for 5 weeks, then you are 1% of the way to mastery. You could probably make a reasonably educated guess as to whether you want to continue down the path or not, and honestly, its enough time for someone else to give you a reasonable critique of your potential.
This is a great comment. Really interesting!!
5 weeks sounds like a good amount of time: enough to be of value to the ‘temporary employer’ – and to really dig in for the ’employee’.
I work at an international school and am setting up an arts internship program for IB kids: high achievers who are keen for careers in difficult fields. Two weeks had been suggested by admin but I felt it wasn’t long enough to give valuable experience to either party. I’ll suggest four or five weeks as another option.
Are teenagers (or is anyone) qualified to know from a personality test what’s a good job fit? As an INTP, I am horrible at making decisions given infinite possibilities. Only within the framework of the military, which has a vast array of possible jobs but many limitations, can I choose what I do and where to live. I am happy in work and can’t imagine doing anything else, yet never have I seen my profession on any personality test. I also read the other day how MBTI is meaningless.
I learn about myself from the tests and the summaries, but it does seem weak in the job-choosing area.
My oldest has just left high school not knowing what she wants to do except for a) help people and b) be an entrepreneur. What she did was this: first, secure a college place to study business studies (not really useful for entrepreneuring, but she likes learning about how businesses work) but put the place off for a year (this is in the UK, where gap years are more common). Then, she got herself selected on a (really good and competitive) charity program for young volunteers, and is now going to Chennai, India for 3 months when her friends start at college. She’ll be helping set up community schemes for health, education etc. So she can figure out what helping people is like on a very basic level, make friends with some peers (like you do at college, but a wider age range), and take things from there. That’s as far as we’ve got so far.
Anyway, people with gap years are notorious for wasting them bumming around, but the real idea is to do experiences that can change you and help others, and I’d like to encourage parents with teens to think this way. Kids who are genuinely undecided can immerse in something like this, learn about themselves, do something worthwhile and get the space to mature outside of the familiar family home as well as making a bunch of new contacts while they do it. And it’s great to have on a resume.
Here’s the charity we’re going with (it’s all over the world) if anyone is interested in finding out more. They have excellent care and support for the volunteers and are very highly respected.
http://restlessdevelopment.org/usa
This is also my favourite post. I had a lump in my throat probably because I also remember how hard it was and how my otherwise great parents were useless at helping me follow my dreams. And what you said about Gen Y. I feel for them. I don’t want to let my kids down. Why I homeschool…
Definitely a favorite post of mine. This is *excellent* advice, and I agree about the biggest problem being the delayed adulthood.
Sarah M
Genius.
Easily best post of the year.
Thanks so much for this!
Hi Penelope! This is a timely post for us. Thank you!
My family lives with my cousin and her 13 year old daughter. The daughter stopped school for one year so that her brother can finish high school first while the oldest sister is in college.
English is our 2nd language so I had my niece read this blog post aloud. I defined some of the difficult words for her, like emerging adulthood, debt, stratosphere, paleontology, etc. Then, I explained some of the metaphors like “debt up to the stratosphere” and “washed up 30 year olds.”
So we took the personality test for her. I translated and she answered. We tried your test but it ended up too long so we took a simpler test for children, even though that was still too long. I thought she would be ESFP but she turned out to be ESTP. We looked at careers for ESTP.
She has always been a bit of a tomboy and wants to be a police officer or soldier. This was a good fit for her. Unfortunately, in my country a soldier must have at least 72 units in college and a police officer must have a college degree. So to college she still must go if she chooses the police or military, even though reading English is still a challenge for her.
As for me, I knew from a young age that I loved reading. In college, I learned that I was INFP. I worked as a writer and a researcher before I studied law. I’m now reviewing for the bar exam. It looks like working in government or legal aid could be the best fit for me. Plus, I should continue writing in my free time.
Thank you!
The good news is that if you’re not in the US, college is pretty reasonable!
Police here generally need a degree (pay is much much better with one) and military, while you don’t need a degree, it’s much easier to move up the ranks with one (start as officer) and you are reimbursed college tuition. Does your country have a program like that?
Yes, college is reasonable here. I don’t know of any college reimbursement program in government. But there’s free technical and vocational education here.
Meg Jay is awesome! My son (20) read her book a year ago and is reading it again. It should be required reading for all teens. I agree that we need to help our kids find those opportunities to try things out.
My oldest decided on his own that he wanted to do more with his life after he worked as a bagger at a grocery store.
My younger son set up an internship with a photographer(because he thought he wanted to be one). I let him know that you can set up your own internship and that you don’t just go for something that someone else created. While he decided against photography-realizing the business side didn’t fit with his personality, he gained two 20 something adult friends who have continued to be a part of his life. And it saed him a bunch of time not going after a profession that he would have been unhappy at. Keep writing these awesome posts. You nailed it!!
I had a comment but still loving the concept of graphic sex if it is “educationally prehistoric”…
But seriously, this is one of the best posts.
After teaching for 8 years at a large public university it became very clear to me that parents of Gen Y kids are very poor consumers of education. I felt so bad for my 18-25 year olds and you nailed it, Penelope, that they are great at becoming what their parents want but have no clue about themselves.
I was in a career transition myself (my late 30’s midlife crisis…still ongoing, yes I’m an ENFP) and started doing small workshops with my students using career books aimed at the mid-life crisis crowd. I felt if I could catch them at 19 before they made the mistakes they could avoid waking up at 38 wondering how they got there. This worked with some but many did not act on the “a-ha” moments that came up. They really didn’t seem to get it was their life. I think some people need the message over and over again before they can throw off the parental voices in their head.
After reading this post, I think college might have been too late for this. The kids were invested in a particular path and even when I tried to explain the concept of sunk costs (don’t throw good money/time after bad, no matter what has already been spent, I.e. sunk costs are not included in the balance sheet), they couldn’t hear it.
My two oldest children will graduate from College this year. I homeschooled both of them for a time and then had a baby and lost it for a couple years and decided to send them to a charter because I was not emotionally capable of teaching and caring for a newborn.
They both agree that the charter helped prepare them for College, but have been somewhat disturbed by the students in their classes who are really missing basic skills.
I do not know that College is absolutely essential, but it has been interesting to hear them talk while I homeschool my 6th grader.
Love your insights Penelope!
Jenny
I never thought about it – how teens, throughout history, have been “aided” when growing into adults. How you’ve said it, it’s so clear. Thank you.
However, Penelope, what do you do when the sex scene came up? Do you explain anything to your son? How do you manage it? Thanks again.
I’d like to give a recommendation to the parents of teens who are trying to figure out what they want to do career-wise with their life. Try approaching a small business owner to see if he/she might need any help in whatever area might overlap with your child’s area of interest. Ideally the teen would take the initiative and ask the business owner himself.
Let me use my business as an example of the potential opportunities I have in mind for the teen. I own a recreational gymnastics center. The majority age-range of the kids who attend my gym is 4-9 yrs old and 12-15yrs old.
I do:
My own accounting
Payroll
Instruction of students
Instruction of coaches
Data entry
Grouping of children for classes (based on skill level, knowledge level of individual coaches, personality of coaches and children, availability of coaches)
Scheduling of coaches hours based on their availability
Cleaning
Organization of equipment and rotation schedule (moving from one event to the next) for each hour
Marketing
Picture taking for uploading to website
I tried to list as many tasks/responsibilities I could think of that might present opportunities for a teen to find some area that overlapped with their interest and where they could possibly provide some value. I’m an Objectivist so I am not very likely to offer the opportunity just because the teen wants some kind of chance. They need to come to me with a value proposition. I think teens that approach business owners with this mentality will have the greatest “chance” for being accepted as an apprentice or a “consultant” (I can’t think of the proper word).
So with my situation in mind here is how a teen could find an opportunity with me and discover more about what they like. This is assuming they already had an idea of all of the tasks I have to do. (A teen could ascertain many of these things by sitting in the business most of the day).
Accounting payroll: They could ask me if I might be willing to let them handle all of the number related tasks in exchange for promising me ways to make my business more efficient or to save me money or both. Benefit for teen: They figure out if this is one of the ways they like interacting with numbers.
Instruction of students: They could ask me if they could start being an assistant coach for no pay (until they became proficient). Benefit for teen: They figure out if they like “teaching” and/or working with kids.
Instruction of coaches: They might watch me do this activity and figure out way to make me more proficient. Such as: “Mr. Heard, have you ever thought about incorporating video commentary of your coaching so that your coaches can go back home and study what you do?” Also: “Mr. Heard, I would be willing to take on this video component and I figure out a way to eventually get compensating for this and of which we would both agree.” Benefit for teen: They figure out if they like doing any kind of video related stuff.
Grouping of children for classes: This one would be easy to get going with me. I love talking about kids. The teen might ask: “would you be willing to meet with me once a week at an hour of your choosing just to talk about your experience working with kids of different personality types?” (I’ve taught over 3,000 kids). Benefit for the teen: They figure out if they are really that interested in psychology or child psychology.
Organization of equipment and rotation schedule (moving from one event to the next) for each hour: After observing gymnastics classes over the course of a week or so they might say: “I figured out a way to make your group rotation more efficient” or “I thought of a piece of equipment I could design and build that would make a certain skill easier for the kids to master.” Benefit for the teen: they see how much they like analyzing processes and/or inventing/building.
Marketing: I have only marketed on 2 different occasions in the 18 years I have been in business. The two times I did market, it was a 1 month ad in a local parenting magazine. So there could be a lot of opportunity for a teen here. The teen might say to me: “I know you have a lot of teens (cheerleaders) who attend and they are really into social media/networking. I would be willing to devise a marketing strategy, with your final approval, with a sole focus on social media.” Or “I have an idea where we let your students design shirts with gym related pictures or sayings which we then sell through your gym website. This will get the word out about your gym and I will handle every aspect of it, including coming up with what will be the mutually beneficial financial split between us.” The benefit to the teen: They see how much they enjoy marketing and their first foray into a small business (which the t-shirt component could become).
I think parents of homeschoolers would find small business owners very receptive to an assertive teen who could present the business owner with potential value, even if that value might be a little ways in the future. At the same time, the teen could use the experience to, either figure out what they want to do, or specialize even further what they already know they want to do.
Hope this helps for some parents out there.
Aquinas Heard
Excellent suggestions in your comment, thanks. I’ll show this to potential interns so they can get an idea of what it’s like to walk in an owner’s shoes.
Great post Penelope!