Helping Your 11th or 12th Grader with Career Preparation and “Fit” - Página 3

Stage 4: For Career “Fit,” Put a Priority on Real Work Experience

By eleventh or twelfth grade, your teen needs to take a close, realistic look at how his strengths, skills, and learning disability might mesh with particular jobs or careers. Paid or unpaid work during high school gives your teen invaluable experience that may help him get a better job after graduating. Help your teen find real-world experiences that emphasize hard work and skill development. Some schools allow students to work in the supplies store, cafeteria, copy room, or office. Students may assist groundskeepers and janitors. Such school-based jobs offer great experience in work-related skills and allow students to learn in a safe environment. Similar jobs might be answering the telephone in your place of worship or another familiar milieu, helping with planning and staffing community events, and volunteering with children or senior citizens.

Keep current on your teen’s plans and provide reality checks. If, for example, your teen wants to be a reporter for an online news organization, but has serious language disabilities, you’ll want to discuss other, related careers that don’t require as much language facility. Some jobs or careers -- maybe most -- will require your teen to work around his learning disability or find accommodations that will allow him to succeed. This is easier with supportive supervisors and coworkers, in an accepting work environment.

There’s no real substitute, though, for a job outside familiar environments. Your teen needs practice developing a work ethic: managing job stress, getting along with diverse coworkers, dealing with interpersonal conflicts, asking for further or more detailed instructions, and fulfilling employer expectations about punctuality, dress, work pace, motivation, and initiative. If your teen hasn’t had a paying job yet, encourage him to get one before high school ends. Research has shown that working for pay during high school has positive, long-term career impact on people with LD. If possible, see that your teen has an authentic experience in the world of work.

Finding a Good Fit

If your teen is game, role play a job interview or a work-related conflict or question. Talk about how to handle rude, mean, or disrespectful people -- especially those who don’t know what learning disabilities involve. Practice those all-important people skills: being professional and polite, taking turns, giving and accepting compliments, and accepting criticism and correction as a way to get better on the job.

Many students with LD need practice with social skills. Some, however, excel in what researchers call emotional intelligence. If your teen is notably empathetic and emotionally mature, she or he may have an edge in a tight job market. A national survey of hiring managers conducted in 2011 by CareerBuilder.com, an online job-search engine, found that employers rate emotional intelligence highly when they make hiring decisions.

For a good career fit, encourage your teen to find out as much as possible about interesting work, a process that began during the “career exploration” stage described in the companion article to this one. Someone interested in health care can visit or volunteer at a hospital, clinic, or rehab center. Someone interested in working with children can look into becoming a camp counselor or assisting at a daycare center. An artistic or mechanically skilled person might lend a hand at an arts center or welding shop. These experiences can help your teen narrow down career choices.

You can help by checking with your local Chamber of Commerce or community center about businesses willing to work with and train young people with LD. If your teen is amenable to help, make use of your community contacts to find potential jobs for him or her and ask your family and friends to do the same. Get information about how your local Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (VRA) can help your teen during and after high school. (Check NCLD’s Resource Locator to find your local listing.) The VRA is a state agency that provides services to young people with disabilities as they make the transition from school to work.

You can also guide your teen in seeking internships or apprenticeships, perhaps in the summer. Such experiences enable young people to watch and assist workers, learn new skills, and imagine themselves doing specific jobs. Your teen can decide if particular jobs are interesting enough to put up with the occasional, unavoidable drudgery and boredom.

Life After High School

To make a successful transition to the world of work, whether it’s following postsecondary education or directly after high school, your teen needs:

• a realistic transition plan that ideally begins in middle school
• the ability to accept and understand her learning disability
• the willingness to adapt and be flexible in a job setting
• the courage to advocate for what she needs to be successful

Encourage your eleventh or twelfth grader to take increasing responsibility for planning his or her future after high school. All four stages of career development -- awareness, exploration, preparation, and fit -- are valuable parts of a young person’s maturation. With your support, your teen can weather the difficult but rewarding transition from high school student to independent adult.

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Bonnie Z. Goldsmith has worked in the field of education throughout her professional life. She has wide experience as a writer, editor, and teacher.