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Helping Our Children Make Career Decisions

From the time a child is little, one common question they hear is, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" During their teen years, this question becomes much more important to them, and many begin to stress out over the answer. How can we help our children as they deal with this major life decision? First, remember to pray for the Lord to give them the guidance they need and give you the wisdom to help along the way.

One of the best things we found for our girls was allowing them to be involved in a variety of activities as they grew up. The more things they did, the more they learned about themselves and what they could do. I believe that community service is a great way to learn about what you might want to do. While serving others, my girls learned about what they were good at and what they enjoyed doing. Look for more information on this subject under the heading, "Getting Your Child Involved".

There are many helpful websites that can be of assistance as you direct your child. Spend some time looking over these for some help:

www.learning4liferesources.com/index.html
This is an excellent Christian site from the Learning for Life Resource Center

www.jobhuntersbible.com
This is a great site from the man who wrote "What Color is Your Parachute", Dick Bolles. There are lots of great things on the site, but be sure to go to Tests & Advice for some career tests and personality tests.

www.jobstar.org
Has some career guides and offers a free online career test.

www.uncwil.edu/stuaff/career/majors
This is from the University of North Carolina.
This site offers information on "What Can I Do With a Major in."

www.careerkey.org/english
This site also offers a free test for career guidance

www.advisorteam.com/temperament_sorter
Offers a free online temperament test with matching career options.

www.ipl.org/div/pathways
This is from the Internet Public Library, and offers some free tests to help narrow down your choices

Also, your child could take the PLAN test which is an ACT pretest taken by Sophomores. Part of this exam is questions that help determine what careers might be a good fit for the student. This might give some early information on what courses should be pursued, but personally I think this may be a little early for the student to have clear direction.