They see their children frustrated with their career options, the job search and worry about their grads sitting around the house.
It could be 6 months or 18 months after graduation, and they have not found meaningful employment.
Post-graduation or short-term internships sound promising, but they don’t always work out. Or they may have been an excellent student with good college interests and internship experience, but they have lost their motivation and seem depressed after months of rejections or lack of progress on their job search.
Why is this happening?
Parents may allow their children to live at home and remain on the payroll. Encouraging your adult children to create their own daily structure, live independently and set their own goals can help them achieve their goals since they may not be motivated to job search if everything is provided for them. A concern we hear from parents about their recent graduates is that they seem to have a lot of unstructured time and don’t have clear goals. Clinical Psychologist, Julia Turovsky, observes, “Young adults have great difficulty operating without structure. Children were told when to study, attend class, eat, and exercise. Now that the structure is gone, it needs to be self-imposed.”
What can parents do?
Working with your child to create structure for their daily and weekly lives is a great way to help them develop that skill. Looking for work can be difficult, so the more they can adhere to a schedule, the easier it will be.
Recommend part-time or volunteer work that they can use to enhance their existing experience. Make sure they understand that it shouldn’t interfere with their career search goals.
Introduce them to a coach or mentor they can use to help them in their job search. This person could be an adult family member, friend with relevant work experience, a college professor or a professional coach.
Need Advice on How to Help your College Grad?
Schedule a call with me to discuss how we can help your child get focused, organized and on the right path to acquiring the job they seek.
Let’s solve this issue together.