Can you pretend to not have enough income to have your usual Christmas due to a layoff or something believable which might endanger your son's sense of financial security? From what I see of umc boys is that they are too comfortable and just assume the lifestyle they have now will somehow just materialize for them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I was 16, I looked at the type of lifestyle I wanted as an adult. I wanted a job that paid well, had a flexible schedule, and lots of vacation time. I figured this out because my mom was a doctor who earned a lot but had a terrible schedule and little vacation time. The combo I wanted took a surprising number of jobs off the table, so it helped me to get focused.

Similar here, except at 16 (and even at 23) I thought I'd never want kids so I chose a career that wasn't family friendly. Transitioning later was tough. When interns ask me, I always advise planning as if you'll have a kid, need to be near aging parents, etc -- you can always fill those slots with something else but it's hard to carve them out mid career.

Careful
This sort of planning long before you need it can hamstring your career growth. The people who i worked with who had the most flexibility to deal with kids or aging parents were higher up in the organization.

Anonymous wrote:When I was 16, I looked at the type of lifestyle I wanted as an adult. I wanted a job that paid well, had a flexible schedule, and lots of vacation time. I figured this out because my mom was a doctor who earned a lot but had a terrible schedule and little vacation time. The combo I wanted took a surprising number of jobs off the table, so it helped me to get focused.

Similar here, except at 16 (and even at 23) I thought I'd never want kids so I chose a career that wasn't family friendly. Transitioning later was tough. When interns ask me, I always advise planning as if you'll have a kid, need to be near aging parents, etc -- you can always fill those slots with something else but it's hard to carve them out mid career.

I’m 50 and I still don’t know what I want to do. I’m an attorney but I’ve switched practice areas every 5 years, and now I’m planning to chuck the entire profession and go back to school to become something else. If I felt like I had to have it all worked out at 16 I would have freaked out.

15 and 17 year olds at home.

We work on interpersonal skills—being able to talk to adults and advocate for themselves, be courteous.

We work on being resilient in the face of challenges and not quitting when the going gets tough.

We work on adulting skills like laundry, basic cooking, making appointments.

We encourage part time jobs so they can learn how to budget their money.

We work with them on making lists and managing their time and we also allow them to make mistakes and fail here and there.

I feel like this will be enough to help them in their future life as an adult as much if not more that pushing them towards a particular career. It’s like prepping your kid for Kindergarten — instead of stressing about teaching them to read before they get there, teach them how to be independent in the bathroom, put on and take off their own shoes/clothes, open their lunch containers, sit and pay attention, follow instructions from the people in charge of them.

Give them the foundation to succeed without pushing them to be moving towards a particular profession before they need to be.

Having a son and a daughter, thsi is one area where the later maturing of boys really shows up. At 16, my DD and her friends at least acknowledged that they would one day grow up. My son and his friends really did not. Two years later, he is think about majors in a more rational way than ever before.

My kid's school requires extra community service and in 11th - 12th grade they can pick their service location. IMO this is a great opportunity to get experience in something they're interested in.

And something that my MIL did for DH is to help him find both school-year and summer programs that led to paid internships. Her parents did that for her back in the late 60s and she kept it up for her kids. We copied this path this summer and will do so for the next 2 summers if DS needs assistance.

We also have done career quizzes, which are fun.