Parenting Your Emerging Adult

by Varda Konstam

  Any product or service that can be commoditized will eventually be commoditized, many at a cheaper rate than we can accomplish in the United States. So where does that leave our emerging adults?

  I feel that innovation and creative thinking will serve them well. The secret to succeeding, now and in the future, may be to perform a very specific role or offer a very specific product or service in a fresh, personal and unique way, a way that no one else is doing. The customer base may be relatively small and specialized, but, with the entire world as one’s market, that may well be enough to allow an emerging adult to thrive.

  There is currently a disconnect between the skill sets that emerging adults are bringing to the marketplace and existing jobs. It is not, as commonly perceived, an issue of lack of availability of jobs but rather that the jobs that are available are not in synch with educational experiences and skill sets. One possible solution involves a paradigm shift. Emerging adults can be encouraged to learn how to become entrepreneurs, if so inclined, and start to grow their own businesses and generate new jobs for themselves as well as for others. Presently, for those emerging adults who are likely to embrace this underdeveloped area, possibilities for entrepreneurship training are in short supply.16

  Emerging adults are in need of new skills to become engaged with the global marketplace. In an article appearing in The American, Arnold Kling and Nick Schultz point to inherent structural problems that are disabling the American economy.17 Most of the jobs lost to the economic downturn are not coming back, in large part due to advances that are being made in new technologies and businesses. Fewer employees are needed because of gains in productivity that are associated with these advances. According to Kling and Schultz, bottom-up innovation is sorely needed. Existing top-down command and control practices in dominant industries such as education and healthcare are inefficient. They are not well situated to disrupt ineffective practices.

  In many ways emerging adults are optimally positioned to take on this pressing need. They tend to embrace experimentation and are apt to seek experiences that align with their perceived intellectual capacities; however, they need the skill sets that allow them to disrupt existing practices and solve long-term structural problems. The promotion of entrepreneurship education is critical in terms of addressing the economic difficulties the economy is currently encountering.

  So, perhaps it does circle back to passion after all. Maybe it is through discovering one’s passion and uniqueness that one discovers one’s marketing edge in the new world.

  Your emerging adult should be thinking more like a small businessperson and less like an employee. Looking to major corporations for one’s future security no longer offers guarantees. Your emerging adult’s intuitive sense that fending for him or herself is necessary should be encouraged. Even during those periods when your emerging adult is working on salary for a big company, thinking of being in a small business that is contracting its services to a single buyer may well be adaptive. Your emerging adult should be using that opportunity to develop skills in a uniquely tailored way. By doing one thing well, developing a reputation for it and eventually generating effective publicity for it, your emerging adult will probably fare much better than she or he would by endlessly searching for the perfect “fit” with existing jobs in the workplace. In the new world, it is those who rise above the landscape who are noticed. Encourage your emerging adults to be proactive, creative and entrepreneurial with their careers. That may be what it takes to both survive and thrive in the near future.

  Chapter 3

  CAREER INDECISION OR EXPERIMENTATION?

  You have seen the pattern, maybe in your own home. Many emerging adults may be changing jobs frequently, some every year or two, often without apparent career advancement. Or they are unemployed or underemployed for periods that may stretch on for years. A growing number of emerging adults report feeling unfocused, “lost” and in a place they describe as “nowhere.”1 They fear they won’t be able to find a satisfying career identity. As a result, many become reluctant to choose at all.2

  What if your emerging adult seems confused and/or stuck and unable to decide on a career? You may be perplexed by your emerging adult’s apparent indecisiveness and feeling as though your son or daughter should just make a decision and commit! At the same time, you may also recognize that your emerging adult is likely to have many careers over his or her lifespan and that the process of establishing a career is just that: a process.

  Let’s turn our attention to issues related to your emerging adult’s career indecision, specifically how it is different from career experimentation, and explore possible solutions. We are going to focus now on how you can reach a better understanding about what may be going on in your son’s or daughter’s career decision-making process. We’ll discuss insights and information to assist you in helping your undecided emerging adult to move forward more quickly.

  No Easy Answers

  Do you know any men or women in their mid or late thirties who are committed to promising careers? What was the process like for them? My guess is that in their mid-twenties many of them had not yet identified a firm career path. They had difficulties finding jobs and they probably had many job experiences, some of which seemed totally unrelated to one another. They zigzagged their way to a clearer choice.

  The twenties often are a zigzagging decade. Those in that age range are likely to be unfocused and unsettled. What does that mean for parents? Be optimistic and realize that this is not necessarily a permanent condition. What looks like random indecision may make sense in hindsight, if not right now. My experience counseling emerging adults has made me more sensitive to the fact that their process of career selection is likely to be nonlinear. Try not to expect straight lines and neat “B follows A” progressions. The decision to keep one’s career choice open well into one’s twenties, for example, may be a wise choice for some. After all, emerging adults develop at different rates and selecting a career has become increasingly complex.

  Then how do parents figure out what is healthy and what is not? When is an emerging adult’s career “wandering” a wise response to a fluid job market and when does it become a problem that needs addressing? When are parents witnessing a healthy exercise in self-discovery and when are they seeing fear and avoidance? In the latter cases, what should parents do about these issues? Once again, there are no easy answers.

  Professionals in the field are asking the same questions you are asking as a parent and finding that they must search hard for answers that can be elusive. Do not lose hope. Probing more deeply into the issues may bring more clarity about how to help emerging adults facing career decisions.

  Not all career “wandering” or “stuckness” is a result of indecision, nor is it necessarily a sign of trouble. Career counselors have two different terms to capture career indecisiveness among emerging adults. One is a normative phase in career development which is referred to as developmental indecision. It occurs before the emerging adult makes a career choice. It is characterized as temporary and associated with resolution.3

  In contrast to developmental indecision, career indecision is viewed as chronic and pervasive. Career indecision is defined as “involving the difficulties encountered by individuals in making career decision.”4 It is an all-encompassing term that refers to the range of difficulties individuals encounter in the decision-making process.

  How do we distinguish emerging adults who are having genuine problems with career choice (floundering) from those who are experimenting? In many ways, they may look the same, at least in snapshot view. They both may seem to be wandering aimlessly and making choices that defy wisdom. Yet, while those who are experimenting might appear to be acting in an unfocused and random way, they may be successfully forging career identities. Flounderers are in need of guidance. Sadly, there is little research to enlighten us on “floundering,” even though the implications of this growing phenomenon may be huge to our society.

  Acc
ording to the United States Department of Labor, of the jobs held by eighteen to twenty-four-year-old workers, 56 percent ended in one year or less and another 14 percent ended in under two years.5 Many of today’s emerging adults are taking a “sampling” approach to the job menu. A lot of this has to do with the exploration of identity that naturally occurs during emerging adulthood. In the current difficult economic climate, experimentation, though it may be necessary, is becoming increasingly difficult to do.

  The twenties are the period in which many emerging adults cobble together career identities, that sense of “I am a (doctor, lawyer, engineer, writer, etc.).” Making this choice is extremely important, but those who are trying to help guide their emerging adults still have a lot to learn about why some are able to begin their journeys while others seem to become stuck.

  Two Orientations

  The work of Shmuel Shulman, a prominent researcher in the field of emerging adulthood, focuses on the question of why many emerging adults are successful in performing age-related tasks such as establishing careers, while others stumble, succumbing to feelings of alienation and marginalization. Shulman and his colleagues suggest that emerging adults adopt two primary orientations toward the career process: “doing-oriented” and “reflective-oriented.”6 Shulman’s team concluded that emerging adults’ career stories unfold along these two major paths. Understanding the differences between these two approaches will shed light on the dilemma your emerging adult may be facing.

  Emerging adults who are doing-oriented tend to pursue activities for their own sake and tend not to be introspective about their behavior. They are “excessively active” in the pursuit of tasks they associate with entering adulthood. They tend not to show sincere interest in others but rather see others as interfering with their goals. They also tend not to examine their “doing” behavior very much and are unlikely to ask themselves whether their outer behaviors are good matches with their inner inclinations. This combination of traits can lead to confusion and stress.

  In contrast, those who are reflective-oriented are thoughtful about their behaviors and their future plans. They are better at understanding their own behavior as well as the behavior of others. They thoughtfully examine their activities and try to integrate their diverse experiences in personally meaningful ways. They try to weave a cohesive inner story. This group shows less strain and confusion.

  Although reflection is critical to the process, dividing emerging adults into two groups like this does not, in my opinion, capture what I see as the multifaceted differences among them. Also, the sample interviewed by Shulman’s team consisted only of seventy emerging Israeli adults, all of whom had completed compulsory military service and were in the process of pursuing their educations. Therefore, the results, I believe, cannot be generalized. This study does suggest that focusing on external standards, achievements and milestones rather than inner meaning is not a key to career momentum and happiness.

  So how does this relate to the idea of floundering?

  Floundering

  The term floundering is often associated with D. E. Super, a well-known guru in the field of career development.7 His research still has, I believe, relevance today. Dr. Super associated floundering with a lack of apparent sequencing in one’s job approach. The floundering individual uses a trial-and-error style, approaching the career process in a haphazard way, as opposed to those who choose jobs that build on one another in a logical fashion. Flounderers drift from job to job, feeling overwhelmed and lacking vocational and psychological paths. They don’t seem to be in a process of self-discovery. They are reactive rather than proactive.

  Dr. Super distinguishes flounderers from individuals in moratorium.8 Those in the latter group take their time to reflect on job-related experiences and frustrations. They may temporarily stop searching for a job, take “time out” or work at jobs that meet their present needs (often financial) until they are ready to engage with a job search in a more focused and meaningful way. Moratorium is a conscious, reflective and deliberate decision. Floundering, in contrast, may lead to a period of stagnation whereby the individual becomes stuck in a dead-end position.

  The realities of today’s job market are quite different from past decades and experimentation, as it is practiced today, was not considered a viable option in previous eras. So Dr. Super didn’t factor in experimenters as a valid model at the time of his research. The current realities of the workplace, however, suggest that a nonlinear, trial-and-error style can be effective, although perhaps less efficient than a logical, orderly progression of jobs.

  According to Paul Salomone, an expert in the field of career counseling, what seems more important than the sequence—the outer approach—is the inner process. There must be periods of assessment, analysis and synthesis as well as the “soul searching” work of defining one’s values, interests and abilities.9

  Salomone’s words resonate with those of Shulman, in that both emphasize the value of reflection. What characterizes flounderers, in Salomone’s view, is their inability to “take stock” of their lives and reconcile who they are with the demands of the marketplace. Flounderers do not use their “drifting” in a purposeful way, whereas experimenters do.

  Reasons for floundering may include:

  •Poor coping skills. These play out in an inability to define and negotiate problems. Learning to cope effectively may be a greater challenge today than ever before, given the number and complexity of choices young people face.

  •A poor sense of self. Finding a vocational home requires self-direction and self-responsibility. These important qualities are lacking when one’s sense of self is not well developed.

  •Lack of job skills. Learning job skills leads to increased feelings of competence and confidence. Skills nourish our capacity to find vocational direction and gratifying work. Competence breeds confidence, which, in turn, breeds more competence. Conversely, limited opportunities for building skills can lead to self-doubt and unrealistic expectations.10

  When an emerging adult is unable to find a vocational identity, he is likely to feel he is less than his friends who seem to be advancing in their careers. He drifts from job to job, unable to construct a meaningful narrative, a connecting fiber that pulls the various jobs together into a cohesive story. This leads to feelings of alienation, confusion, depression and anxiety.

  How can you differentiate stabilizing behavior (moratorium or experimentation) from floundering behavior? There is no decisive test, but now that you are aware of this key difference in orientation, you can start to engage your emerging adult in this discussion. Talk about the subject in a non-critical way with your emerging adult:

  •Ask whether your son or daughter notices any shape or pattern to the job choices he or she is making. What consistent threads emerge? What aspects of his or her jobs has the person liked doing and what has he or she disliked doing and should avoid?

  •Encourage your emerging adult child to tell you more of the narrative or “career story.” Is it a narrative that includes a sense of control and self-direction? Does your emerging adult seem to be making choices in a purposeful way? Or is his or her story more passive? Does it contain a sense of stagnation, frustration or resignation?

  •Notice whether your emerging adult includes major obstacles in his or her career story that are preventing him or her from moving forward.

  •Ask if your son or daughter is waiting for something to happen before moving forward. If so, what is he or she waiting for? Is it something external and out of your emerging adult’s control, such as an upturn in the economy? Does this make sense? Are there any actions your emerging adult can start to take now?

  •Notice your emerging adult’s mood and attitude when she or he is discussing career choices. Is there a sense of hopefulness and optimism or despondency and indifference? Does your emerging adult want to talk about the subject or would she or he rather not?

  •Offer to help identify skills that your emerging adul
t has developed in past and present jobs and school settings. If she or he is open to your input, discuss ways that these skills might be synthesized into a more satisfying job.

  •Is your emerging adult engaged in the career identification process or does your emerging adult shut down?

  Play May Hold Clues

  Many emerging adults will not talk openly with their parents about this subject matter. In that case, observing them “at play” can be very instructive. I published a study with my colleague Ilana Lehmann that is helpful in understanding your emerging adult.11 What your emerging adult does at play can provide an important window to understanding his or her abilities to be self-reflective, self-directed and self-responsible, all prerequisites for developing a career identity. Noticing how your emerging adult approaches leisure activities may provide clues to understanding his or her career strengths:

  •Does your emerging adult actively pursue hobbies and interests for which she or he has a passion? Are the activities generic or do they seem uniquely suited to your emerging adult?

  •How does your emerging adult engage others during the pursuit of recreational activities? Is your son or daughter sometimes the leader or organizer? What sorts of activities bring out these qualities? Can your emerging adult be a good team member or must he or she always be in charge?

  •Does your emerging adult create opportunities to pursue his or her interests? In what ways does she or he do this?