Educators agree that students and parents should set goals and make an educational plan that includes high school academics to reach those goals. But they shouldn’t make the plan too narrow. Jobs change. Today, most people switch careers half a dozen times in their lives. Career job training that can be used in more than one field is a smart move.
Parents can be a good influence in planning, but high school Vice Principal Elizabeth Howard sees a danger in parents putting too much pressure on kids: “The only serious mistake I’ve ever seen is where the student becomes something for someone other than for him or herself.”
Michigan career planning director Patty Cantu agrees. More and more good paying jobs, even in manufacturing, require a college degree, but many of those degrees are one or two year technical programs, not bachelors.
“Not all students have to go to Harvard to be highly successful,” Cantu says. “We have to get parents to think that there’s not just one pathway to get there.”
Howard says parents should obviously avoid phrases like, “We’ve always wanted you to be a physician so you should focus on science.”
When they answer high school questions, they should also be careful to check the facts about what they think they know about job trends.
“My parents wanted me to take German because they thought it was the language of science,” Howard says. “I really missed the boat because I really now need to be able to speak Spanish.”
William Rapai is a stay-at-home dad of two girls in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, who has also worked as an editor at the Detroit Free Press and the Boston Globe.