Career guidance is a process that helps children make informed decisions about their career paths. It is a reality that many children find themselves in a state of panic when faced with having to make important decisions, especially one that will set their life on a specific path. Generally, advice is sought from parents, teachers, and friends before deciding on taking any action. Since choosing a career, is one of the most important decisions your child can make in life, it is important that this process is approached sensibly.
We currently have two matriculants in our organisation. One of them is confident and sure about his career path, while the other is perplexed and confused about what he should do. Our Social Workers have been spending focussed time with each of them, offering them guidance, discussing available opportunities and support as they plan for this next phase in their lives.
The sad reality is that many of our children come from disadvantaged backgrounds. When families are struggling to survive from one day to the next, discussions on planning for the future just don’t happen. Here at Durban Child and Youth Care Centre we have the wonderful privilege of being able to encourage our children to dream big, and to think about what it is they would like to be when they grow up. Career guidance should be a process, not an event, as such we start guidance children from an early age. We design and implement activities that help them understand their strengths and weaknesses and then match them with their skills and interests to help make this process more manageable for them.
These are some tips that you may find helpful when you assist your child decide on his/her career path:
- Help them discover and enhance their personal strengths.
- Assure them that this is a journey, that they shouldn’t compare themselves with others; so not to be hard on themselves if they are struggling to figure out the what, where and how.
- Look for volunteer and learnership opportunities. It’s a practical way to gain experience and insight into a particular industry or field of work.
- Encourage them to always dream big and have big goals.
- Help them break the big goals into achievable steps.
- And most importantly remind them that there is more than one path to arriving at their destination.