From Parent to Career Coach! Avoid Throwing Away at Least €15,000. Part 7.

Enough with introductions—let’s get to action. This is the real issue: the financial hit you’ll take if your child decides to change direction. And as we discussed previously, there’s a 40% chance this will happen.

Your Ideal Stance: I don’t care what my kid wants to do. This can be tough, but Coué’s method (positive self-suggestion) might help.

Your Mindset: They have to convince me to give them €15,000 for their plan.

With these two prerequisites, you’re in the right frame of mind to dig below the surface. There are other factors, but these are a great start. Here, I’m talking about truly coaching your child—no tests involved—with an approach that is as focused on them as possible. This method encourages responsibility, independence, and active involvement in their decisions.

How to Dig Deeper into Generic Statements?

• “I want to help people later on!”
• “I want a job that interests me!”
• “I want to work with nice people.”

These kinds of vague ambitions don’t lead anywhere. Sound familiar? You may have heard phrases like these (or others) before.

You need to aim for ultra-precision! So, how do you turn these general aspirations into something concrete?

The Key? The Art of Asking the Right Questions to Your Teen!

Here are three types of questions for more meaningful discussions:

Questions to Clarify Their Thinking:

• “When you say ‘help people,’ what do you specifically mean?”
• “What do you see as the most important aspect of a job?”

Questions to Challenge Their Assumptions:

• “What makes you think that would be the right choice?”
• “Have you considered other ways to achieve that goal?”

Questions to Deepen Their Motivation:

• “How would you like to feel in your future job?”
• “What really matters to you, and why?”

It’s up to you to keep the conversation going and pull the thread to get to the core. Here’s a concrete example: “I want to help people.”

Don’t stop there! Engage in the discussion by creating context. A lawyer helps people, so does a developer, a teacher, a trainer, and a coach. Help your child define their unique vision of what it means to “help” and, most importantly, understand why they feel this way.

Remember, you should feel like you have a deep understanding or be completely convinced—as if they were pitching their project to you and asking for €15,000.

Would you give it to them at this point or not?

The Goal? To Help Them:

• Discover their true motivations
• Sharpen their thinking
• Imagine a concrete future
• Build a plan that truly fits them

Ideally, you should learn different types of questions, think about their impact, and practice asking open, non-judgmental questions that don’t guide their answers.