What career do your parents want you to choose?

Parents strongly influence their child's career choice. As a new parent, I now understand better why it would be so easy to get overly involved in my son's process of choosing a career, especially if it were in a direction I did not agree with (i.e. professional skydiver/stuntman). Could you see me approving of and supporting a skydiving career for this little guy? No way. But what about his perspective?

On our website, we suggest positive ways for parents to help their children in choosing a career. But how should those of us, regardless of age (parents still hold power over us no matter how old we are), handle our parents' input? Of course a lot depends on your relationship with your parents. What experience have you had with your parents' involvement in your career search? Has it been positive? Negative? How did you deal with it?

One strategy I suggest for dealing with your parents is to use the decision-making tool we provide at our website. One of steps is to look at the consequences of your choice, including how significant others, like your parents, will perceive your choice. Can you handle their disapproval, skepticism, or disappointment? How do you plan to respond? Preparation and consideration of your own emotional reaction ahead of time will help.

So for my son, he'd better be prepared to tell me why being a skydiving stuntman is the right choice for him...