Product Review: Youscience Aptitude Discovery
What do you want to be when you grow up? Many high school students dread the question about future careers if they have no idea what they want to do. Many parents fear the task of helping their child hone in on a career path as well because many feel inadequately prepared for the job or want to avoid the conflict. As a teacher and parent, I have certainly had this conversation with many teens and seen the defeat in their eyes when they say they don’t know. Today I want to offer you a solution to the frustration and a tool for career counseling. Go from doubting to curious in just a few hours as you see many possible careers that match abilities and interests. Youscience is an online aptitude and career discovery tool. It helps pinpoint natural abilities and personal interests and suggests in-demand careers that combine those two. I discovered this tool years ago when a client’s mom asked me to watch her teen take the test and discuss the results. The test took about 2 hours but the brain games were fun and the personal interest questions were well written and you could take breaks as…
Teach Kids to Advocate for Themselves
What are some reasons you should teach your child to advocate for themselves? No matter your parenting style, teach your kids to advocate for themselves. It will nurture their independence and give them ownership of their problems. In the younger years, you can give children language for asking. Teach them to politely ask for something they need or want and encourage them to tell why they need it. In the middle years, role play difficult situations and how to self advocate. This gives kids empowering strategies and the language to express themselves. With my tutoring clients, we often talk through how and when to ask a teacher for help or a parent for project supplies. This is a good age to allow real world experiences like ordering in a restaurant or paying for something at the store. Provide support for critical thinking and problem solving. Successful self advocacy boosts self esteem, especially during the launching years. I remember my daughters disliked having to go into restaurants for a take out menu or call the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment, but they felt pretty proud of themselves once they had done it. It would have been easy for me to…
Learn to say YES
Do people automatically expect you to say NO faster than you say YES? Learning to say “YES” easily was a piece of wisdom I came across as a young wife and parent. The wisdom behind this was that when you did need to say “NO”, it would be taken well knowing that it was not your usual answer just to avoid extra work or expenses. If possible, say YES to your kids asking to have a friend over, your students occasionally asking for more time on an assignment, your coworker asking you to lunch, or to your spouse asking to play soccer one night a week. Then when there’s a good reason to say NO it will be less of a shock or disappointment because you are known for saying YES to reasonable requests. Because our usual reason for saying NO to things with our children was typically due to scheduling conflicts, our children learned to check the family calendar before asking. This led to less conflicts and whining in the middle school years because it was not us saying NO because we were annoyed but because it was a schedule conflict. It also helped our children learn to negotiate…