Career Guidance - the important roles of Parents and Mentors.

Why is Career Guidance required?

During one of my career guidance engagements recently, I was interacting with a parent and his 18-year-old boy. As part of the normal introductory conversation, I asked the boy to say something about himself. The boy with a little bit of hesitation started the conversation and spoke about his interests in a few subjects, sports, and his interest area of future possible education stream to take up, etc. I tried to probe again to say some more things about himself beyond academics. But the child was hesitant to share more personal details about himself other than his academic interests and his future desired education details. At the end of our career guidance conversation, the father confessed that his son's shy nature in front of the unknown was quite a revelation for him. Also, the father realized, his son lacked the clarity of thought in deciding about his own future. Many times, we don't realize that our children behave in a certain way in public which is completely different from how they conduct themselves in the comfort of their homes. Building a great career for the children, the parents have a major role to play. In fact, the parents are the most important mentors for the children. 

Children in their adolescent years are the most vulnerable to the influence of the external world. This is the most impressionable age for them to look beyond their immediate family of parents, grandparents, & siblings and learn about the external world. They are a lot influenced by their own friends at school and society. They are influenced a lot nowadays by social media namely Facebook, Instagram, and others. A lot of their choices about life including the choice for their own careers are influenced by such unstructured but very dominant external factors.

India has a little over 36 Crore population in the age group of 10 to 24 years, which is also part of the so-called demographic dividend cohort. However, if this young energy is not channelized properly, this can easily become a demographic disaster for India.

Unlike the western countries, where career guidance is a part of the school's curriculum, the Indian school education system has yet not fully adopted any Career guidance program as a part of their curriculum. Hence the need for Career Guidance from a good Mentor is so important.

What is the role of Parents and Mentors?

There are broadly two types of parents. Category one is those,  who keep telling the child what to do and what not to do, even when are in their children are already in their teens and beyond. Then there is another category of parents, who just leave the child to make their own decisions. Both the category of parents need a 3rd party or a mentor because teenage children are very easily influenced by the external world or society. It is always an "external noise" that governs their mind and not their true "inner voice". To identify that true inner voice and not let the external noise interfere, a reliable mentor is needed.  As a responsible parent, one has to understand this concept very well. Parenting and Mentoring are totally different processes and both have their own importance in the development of the child's future. In ancient times, young children were sent to the Gurukul to study and learn about different skills under the supervision of the Guru. It was the responsibility of the Guru to understand the Child's Swabhava (behavior/abilities) and put him into the suitable area of learning. So that, after the time spent in the Gurukul the child who has now grown as a young person is able to perform his Swadharma (duties) as per the best of his abilities.

Similarly, in modern times, the role of Guru is performed by the Mentor, whose role is to understand the child's abilities, personality, and interests along with the family values, aspirations, etc. to arrive at the right kind of Career Destination for the Child.

Every individual needs a certain destination/Dheya to achieve in life. This is also true for the children. Once the child is very clear about the Career Destination of her or his life, the intermediary steps of education and other development become very easy to handle. And this is the role of a Good Mentor.

Every parent must understand this very well, else the traditional parenting method will continue to meddle with the child's personal growth into becoming someone useful in this world as per one's own strengths and abilities. Every parent has to undergo the process of learning about mentoring to make sure their child is Happy and Successful in his/her life.