Careers Advice help needed

[sundaesundae]

Hi,

My younger sister is 14 and in Y10 at school. She is not very academic, not very outgoing and not very independent. She knows she doesn't want to go to uni and doesn't want to move out of home. She is emotionally very immature basically and my parents have to help her a lot with decisions and what to do. Probably too much, but I can't influence her or them unfortunately.

Her school is pretty rubbish and she has had no careers advice or guidance and none is likely to be given. She has no idea what she wants to do next, she doesn't know how to move forward or which way to turn.

She loves animals, but cannot bear the thought of putting animals to sleep or being involved with any sort of end of life care, so my mum suggested maybe she should get a job at a petting farm, which to me sounds like a bit of a waste and probably would have more to do with cute little animals dying.

She likes children, so was thinking about childcare courses, but I don't think that would really sit her personality.

She is very crafty, but I am unsure is she actually has much in the way of talent, more enthusiasm, so I am not sure whether art and design colleges and then maybe a textiles degree would get her anywhere.

I am very worried that she is going to end up doing a meaningless job, earning no money and never gaining independence. My parents are in their 50's, so they won't be around forever and she needs to have some sort of a future outside of them.

Where do people go for careers advice? I floated through GCSE's, into A Levels, I dropped out after three months and then went to college the following year, went to Uni, did a degree I hated, got a job, did a degree based on that and then got a career. It wasn't ideal, but I was self-motivated and I have a good brain so was able to pass exams and get where I needed to the long way round. We are totally and utterly different, I know this, I find it hard to imagine anyone not wanting a career instead of a job. She doesn't have hobbies, not very many friends and I fear for her future if she doesn't at least have work to bring her something.

At 14 she is still very young. She has to know enough to make her A-level choices next year but she really doesn't have to know exactly what career she wants to pursue or whether she will want to move from home at 18. Ime very few 14yos do. And those that do often know that they want to pursue very difficult careers with little chance of remuneration. Dh knew at 14 that he wanted to be an archaeologist, dd knew that she wanted to be an actress, I knew that I wanted to be a medievalist. Hardly very reassuring choices for a parental pov.

Otoh my younger brother had no definite career plans and seemed very uninterested in the concept of further education. He pulled out of uni after the first semester- and then went on to start his own company which has been very successful. He could buy up dh and me many times over.

Try not to see the world too much in black and white- not everybody who hasn't been to uni has to depend on their parents all their lives. The world is full of people who manage on a lower salary, or manage on a lower salary for a while and then get further qualifications or eventually find a way of making money that is not dependent on formal qualifications. All postmen, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, receptionists are not eternal children dependent on other people, nor are they all unhappy. I live in an area where plenty of people have jobs rather than qualifications. They are not all miserable failures, they just get their happiness from other areas of their lives.