Communication Tips & Careers

Summer brings time for relaxed conversations with your teens. Here are a couple more tips for communicating with your students, from the American Psychological Association.

• Engage adolescents with nonthreatening questions. Choosing only one or two questions at a given time, ask adolescents questions that help them to define their identities. For example, whom do you admire? What is it about that person that makes them admirable? What do you like to do in your free time? What do you consider to be your strengths? What are your hopes for the future? What have you done in your life that you feel proud of (even if just a little)?

• Listen nonjudgmentally (and listen more than you speak). This enables the adolescent to realize that you value his or her opinions, and thus to trust you more.

Career Report for Graduates

From U.S. News and World Report, comes this study of what fields today’s grads are getting jobs in: software, accounting, public relations, and more. As a journalist and educator, I think it’s nice to see that not every job listed involves engineering. Check it out.

Help your teen find direction this summer 

Summer is a great time for your student to explore the world of career opportunities that are out there. Contact us to schedule time for your child to get focused on the right major for him/her.

We save your student time and we save you money. 
Pam Scott, 404-248-9475
pam@whats-your-major.com

It's Normal for Teens to . . .

Recently I’ve been hearing some friends complain about their teenagers being teenagers. I empathize, of course, now that our kids are adults. Here is some advice from the American Psychological Association that I wish we had known when our kids were teenagers. My friends found it helpful.

It’s Normal for Adolescents to...

•  Argue for the sake of arguing. Adolescents often go off on tangents, seeming to argue side issues for no apparent reason; this can be highly frustrating to many adults. Keep in mind that, for adolescents, exercising their new reasoning capabilities can be exhilarating, and they need the opportunity to experiment with these new skills.
• Be self-centered. Adolescents can be very “me-centered.” It takes time to learn to take others’ perspectives into account; in fact, this is a skill that can be learned.
• Constantly find fault in the adult’s position. Adolescents’ newfound ability to think critically encourages them to look for discrepancies, contradictions, or exceptions in what adults (in particular) say. Sometimes they will be most openly questioning or critical of adults with whom they feel especially safe. This can be quite a change to adjust to, particularly if you take it personally or the youth idealized you in the past.

• Be overly dramatic. Everything seems to be a “big deal” to teens. For some adolescents, being overly dramatic or exaggerating their opinions and behaviors simply comes with the territory. Dramatic talk is usually best seen as a style of oration rather than an indicator of possible extreme action, unless an adolescent’s history indicates otherwise.

Source: APA's Developing Adolescents page 11

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Add "What’s Your Major?" to your summer to-do list

Summer is a great time for your student to explore the world of career opportunities that are out there. Contact us to schedule time for your child to get focused on the right major for him/her.

We focus on helping students find the right major for them in college, before they go or after they get there. Check out our offerings.

We save your student time and we save you money.

Pam Scott, 404-248-9475
pam@whats-your-major.com

P.S.: Please pass this email along to any friends or family members who have students searching for direction. With your help, we can make this part of the college process a little less painful.

Communicating Successfully in a Family Do you ever feel like you are speaking French and your teenager is speaking Chinese? It certainly happened in our family. Parents have asked me to teach them how to talk to their kids about college. Given that I've focused on interpersonal communications my whole career, this was a welcome challenge. I've created a new offering--Communications in a Modern Family. This 3-session offering looks at the different personality types in a family the different communication styles of family members why communication breaks down and how to fix it The outcome: greater peace and understanding in the family. We also include our PathFinder Process for helping students find the right major for them. In addition, we give families a decision-making process they can use with their teen. Call us at 404-248-9475 to learn more. Or email us at pam@whats-your-major.com

Kids and Money

This summer, while your kids are out of school, I highly encourage you to sign them up for free financial literacy classes at Wealthy Habits.Your kids will learn all about money and taxes and all things financial. I’ve been at two of these courses and am amazed at how much the kids learn about the Rule of 72, filling out a W2, assets, liabilities, credit cards and more. I so wish my kids had had classes like these to learn about finance.

The Rest of the Story

You probably heard about this story in the New York Times that reported, once again, that college is worth the expense, despite some drawbacks. Take a moment to look at NPR’s “devil’s advocate” approach to the Times story. Among its points, NPR informs that “some 34 million American adults attended college but have no degree to show for it. That's huge, compared with the 41 million Americans who have a bachelor's as their terminal degree.” Interesting and scary reading.

Add "What’s Your Major?" to your summer to-do list

Summer is a great time for your student to explore the world of career opportunities that are out there. Contact us to schedule time for your child to get focused on the right major for him/her.

We focus on helping students find the right major for them in college, before they go or after they get there. Check out our offerings.

We save your student time and we save you money.

Pam Scott, 404-248-9475
pam@whats-your-major.com

P.S.: Please pass this email along to any friends or family members who have students searching for direction. With your help, we can make this part of the college process a little less painful.