How do you talk to your children about careers etc? What are the priorities?

[workwoes123]

DS is 14, we are starting to talk to him about career / further study courses.

I didn't really get much advice from my parents - I was clever, studious and didn't need to be pushed to work in school. I went to Uni, got a good degree / MSc / PhD... then stepped out of the academic path to travel, work for local government, be a SAHM. A lot of my earlier decisions were made to please my parents, who valued academic success above all else - but didn't really have any advice to give as far as careers etc went. So I was quite lost after Uni. I always had the impression they rather looked down on anything 'commercial' or manual.

DH OTOH was a mature student. Completely different upbringing to me - he left school at 16, started earning, made redundant in the 80s recession and went back to college then Uni. He's a teacher now and would not recommend it.

Long intro but I'm wondering what aspects of subject choices / further ed / higher ed / careers we should be emphasising? My parents, for example, never once talked about the need to earn a decent amount of money, or what lifestyle I might want to live as an adult, and they subsidised all my (approved) choices. DH had the opposite - he was expected to get out and earn a wage asap, aged 16, and has supported himself since then, whatever he was doing.

So what do you focus on when trying to advise or guide them?

Subjects at school that interest them? Inspire them? Or subjects that they get high marks in (whether they enjoy them or not)?
Skills that they have separate to their academic achievements (DS is super sociable and a real people person, for example)?
The lifestyle and / or earning potential that goes with a certain career path? Avoiding risk?
Fitting in with your expectations? Or family expectations? I know a lot of Drs come from medical families...
Status? How highly-regarded certain careers / jobs / places of study are in society?

So as not to drip feed, we're in France, where over the next year or two DS will have to make a fairly definitive about whether to choose an academic or vocational path to follow.

@Oblomov22

"What about - specifically - the need to earn a salary that matches the lifestyle they might want to lead? Do you talk about this?"

Of course. That's the major factor.

I disagree it is the major factor. It is one of the factors and definitely should be talked about. But only if you yourself are very into money is it the major factor.

I've posted before that post @carefullycourageous. It is A major factor to anyone with half an ounce of common sense. If you then decide to do it because you love it, but recognising it's not well paid, that's a totally different decision, than going on blind.

The most important thing is to develop a career based on what excites him, whether that’s practical or academic. Identify his interests and use this as the starting point. Fulfilment, happiness, purpose will follow hopefully. Go see a careers adviser and get some proper advice about opportunities and specialisms. The reality is that there’s a variety of opportunities out there and just to complicate things electricians and plumbers can earn much more then teachers, while academics can do degrees in the workplace instead of racking up uni debts.

My parents look down on people who get jobs purely for the high salaries. I absorbed this and felt it was better to do something you loved at all costs. Unfortunately freezing and hungry in a Garret while you write a literary masterpiece is not as romantic as it sounds and I will not pass on these ideals to my children.

So yes, we talk about the types of uni courses / jobs there might be related to the subjects they are most interested in (STEM, thankfully, says the poor freezing arts student) and I believe the older ones (yr 9) have looked up jobs / salaries that grads with for eg maths degrees can go into.

One thing I did find quite useful with mine was doing a lot of research together into 'if I did x, what qualifications would I need' and the earlier this is done the better really - so they understand how it all works.

A lot of discussion at the early stage is about helping them understand about keeping options open for the future. In this vein one of mine opted to do a language at school and textiles at home, rather than dropping the language - just in case they regretted it later at A-level stage.

Encourage them to do whatever subjects they enjoy the most, and support their interests.

Their choices are theirs, your job is to help them choose by widening their experiences as much as you can.

What about - specifically - the need to earn a salary that matches the lifestyle they might want to lead? Do you talk about this?

Absolutely...and I tie it into education, education, education.

Ds1 is 14 and has mentioned wanting to be a chef. He's great in the kitchen to be fair to him...mainly cakes, pastries, loves making bread and rolls from scratch. He's also highly academic, in all areas but particularly in maths - top of accelerated set 1, doing early GCSE etc.

We've talked about being a chef and he mentioned doing a college course at 16 and going straight into a kitchen, then working his way up. I've been honest with him and said the wages are often poor and only a tiny percentage of chefs are good enough to make it to the top. Plus, what if he doesn't actually like it and realises at 22 he wants to do something else but will only have GCSEs and a catering course behind him?

We talked about what he wanted more generally from life and (like I suspect many other 14 year old boys) he wants a flash car and nice holidays

I've encouraged him to stay in education as long as possible...do A Levels, pick an academic Uni course he would enjoy and get a degree. Keep focusing on his cooking skills, it will always be there. But he has a back up if he changes his mind.

Plus, if he wanted to really succeed in the kitchen he may want to open a restaurant - which needs a whole lot more than just being a good cook. Marketing, advertising, business skills, finance etc etc...and a degree would stand him in good stead.

It's got him thinking about the bigger picture and how valuable education can be for all sorts of reasons.

I think having A realistic career to aim for at all times is the main thing, it doesn't matter if that changes. If we wants to work with machinery for example he could look at some kind of engineering job. If he fancies that he can work towards it and pick subjects and work experience based on it. If he changes his mind later he'll still have the benefit of having worked hard and gained some experience. It's being aimless or (as you said) aiming FOR the degree not what it gets you that's the issue.

I also echo a PP who criticised your approach to talking about money - comparing the joint salary of a senior teacher and someone not in work to his likely earnings as a new recruit in mechanics is not logical. More logical to compare to e.g. wages of a newly qualified teacher, or what someone who runs their own garage could earn v your husband.

On the other hand I do think talking about money is good - my parents never did and I wish I'd thought about it more. I've got tonnes of transferable skills but because looking after yourself (as a single person) is quite cheap I didn't prioritise good earnings which would help with the future prospect of having a family for example.

I was rethinking my career and got told to do an exercise where you have loads of cards with different job attributes on e.g. salary, working alone working in a team, managing own hours, regular hours, working in an office, working outside etc etc. You had to pick the 10 cards that seemed most important to you then rank them most important to least then try and match your ideals to a job.

Maybe you could do something like that with him?