Author: Mary Ila Ward

Stressed about helping your high school senior pick a college? The acceptance letters have started coming in and you’re not sure what is the best option for them, or you feel like you do, but you’re worried you will be too vocal with your opinion of what you think is best.

Experienced your freshman or sophomore in college leaving to go back to school from the Thanksgiving holiday almost in tears because they hate the classes they are taking and thus their major?

We get calls this time of year from concerned parents seeking help on how to advise their child who have experienced just these things. One mom told us, “I didn’t know what to do. She got in the car to go back to school crying. I had no idea what to tell her.”

In weighing decisions, big or small, it’s always good to make a pros and cons list, not a good and bad list.

You think the smaller, liberal arts school is a better fit for your child instead of the big university, and you are probably right. But if you frame one school as all good and one as all bad, you may wind up in a fight.

Know you can’t afford to send them to the Ivy League school even though the got in because no scholarship money is available? Yet they have been offered a full-ride to the state school? Make a pros and cons list comparing their options including the con that they will have to work to help pay for their top choice school (which, by the way, may not be a con at all- working to pay for ones own education may be a pro).

Think they need to stick it out in physics even though they hate it because it’s a necessary step in fulfilling their dream (or is it your dream?) of being a doctor? Make a pros and cons list surrounding the decision to switch career focus with them instead of telling them to suck it up.

You’ll find that if you help facilitate a pros and cons list, instead of telling them what to do, nine times out of ten they’ll make the best decision on their own and will be more apt to stick with it because they see it as their decision, not yours.

How have you helped your child navigate career and college decisions?

Last week, I discussed how many parents often discourage their children without even knowing it by the comments made about career and college choices. We do this with good intentions. We want to see our children succeed and be better off than we are, and as older and wiser parents, we should know what is best for them, right?

There is, however, a good way and a bad way to impart our wisdom in shaping decision-making. Taking on the role of coach may be the best way to do this when it comes to giving career and college advice.

In What I talk About When I Talk about Running, the author, Haruki Murakami describes how he finally found a swimming coach that was able to help him improve his stroke.

Below are the reasons she was a good coach. These lend themselves well to how we can be good parent-as-coaches in order to help mold our child(ren)’s paths:

A good coach:

1. Seeks to know and understand the person’s goals. They do not force their own   person goals onto the one being coached. The coach, at times, may need to help the person become self-aware if they don’t know what their goals actually are.
2.  Does not try to “reinvent” the one being coached. Instead the coach works to create positive habits through action that slowly help to mold the person in the direction they want to go.
3. Seeks to address both skill and will issues that may prohibit the person from reaching their goals. For example, a lot of what was hampering Haruki’s swimming was not the skill of swimming, but what went on in his mind when he entered a crowded race to swim. He was actually hyperventilating when races would start. The coach worked to modify his behavior through breathing techniques to keep him from hyperventilating thus reducing his anxiety and helping him get back to competing in triathlons.

Like this example, confidence may be a key issue in helping your child achieve success, and you, more than anyone else as a parent can help make or break their confidence through the type of encouragement or support you provide them. I’m not advocating for helicopter parenting when I say this or advocating for giving them a trophy when they come in 13^th place, but I am advocating for having dialogue with them that helps them work through, themselves, the issues that plague teenage and early adulthood confidence. Being supportive of who they are and what their dreams are (not who you are and what your dreams are) is an important step in this process.

How has someone who has acted as a coach for you helped you to achieve success?