Vocational guidance for children and adolescents is a set of measures aimed at helping them determine their purpose and future profession. If the choice of a life path is imposed by parents, teachers or peers, or is related only to material prospects, a person will not be able to realize himself or herself as a person. That’s why it’s so important to take into account a child’s unique talents and inclinations and develop them.
In some schools, career guidance classes for adolescents are preceded by testing organized by a career counselor with a psychological background. The specialist helps to identify the abilities of each student and motivate them to make a choice on their own, sometimes even despite external circumstances.
Various factors influence a teenager’s choice:
The desire for financial stability or risk;
the desire to lead and make decisions, managerial motives, or a tendency to follow other people’s instructions;
the ability to generate ideas and entrepreneurial thinking or the ability to implement ready-made solutions;
the desire to be independent and work alone, or vice versa, the desire to solve various tasks in a team.
Sometimes the dream of serving people and being useful, and the inclination to work in a socially responsible way play a decisive role.
The most important goal of career guidance classes for teenagers is to find out their favorite school subjects. It is also necessary to inform the student about the current situation on the labor market, about which professions are the most profitable and promising. Perhaps the student has already chosen a specialty, but does not know what it is called or where to get the appropriate education.
The best way to guide students and help them choose a profession is through a series of individual conversations. Career guidance for adolescents begins in middle school.