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Step 1
Look at all their options - If they truly don’t know what they are interested in, then have them take an interest survey or career survey. You can search for various surveys online or ask a school guidance counselor for one they recommend.
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Step 2
If they have an idea of something they are interested in, but don’t know if they want to do it for a living, then find someone who does that job and let them go to work with them for a day. They can go for a day or you can take them for a few hours to observe what someone in that field does.
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Step 3
Get a grunt job - If your child doesn’t know what they want to do and don’t have any interest filling out a survey, then help them get a factory, food service or cashier job. Hopefully after a few months at a job like this they will start to think about what they would like to do for a career. Talk with them about what their long term future would look like if they stayed at the job that they are doing.
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Step 4
Observe them carefully - If you know what cues to look for, you can help your child when he is looking at various career options. Does he/she like to read? Do they like to work with their hands, experiment with things, good with math, good at expressing themselves on paper, good at relating to people, good at cooking or helping others? All these answers will start giving you ideas for what your child would or would not like to do. If they like being outside and they are thinking about a job where they will be sitting behind a desk all day, then you can point out to them that they might not feel very fulfilled at that job.
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Step 5
Take them to lots of places - The more places they see, the more they will know whether that is a job they would like to do. Take them on a tour of the post office, grocery store, factory, auto repair shop, or any other place they are interested in learning about.
