College application season can be stressful for all involved. Teens are right to feel dismayed by the pressure: at this stage in their short lives, the question of what they want to ‘be’ one day is completely arbitrary. Parents know from experience that a seventeen-year-old cannot realistically be expected to know what they want to do until they’ve been exposed to the real world. And yet, decisions must be made.
Photo by Luis Melendez on Unsplash
To counteract the you-are-your-job messaging that teens are bombarded with, it’s important to remind your child that what you do for work is not who you are. Rather, a career is a life-long opportunity to express who you are through your natural abilities and talents.
For this reason, no career path discussion is complete without a full understanding of what natural inclinations and abilities your teen will have the opportunity to use in a chosen vocation.
A great example is nursing. This age-old profession is perhaps better thought of as a calling. If your teen is thinking about a career in nursing, rather than focus on the salary and prestige of the role, focus your discussion on the qualities and strengths that day-to-day nursing work will bring to the fore. An exploratory discussion along these lines will help your child figure out if nursing is the right career for them.
These essential—and less talked about—characteristics of successful nurses will help you guide a productive discussion.
Cultural Sensitivity
Nurses are in the privileged position of helping people through crisis points in their journey as human beings. When it comes to brushes with humanity, people’s cultural and spiritual values play a profound role in how they experience illness, treatment and death. Every point on a patient’s journey back to health is tinged by their cultural norms. They may have a different perspective on accepting treatment, or adhering to recovery regimes, and even the role of death.
A good nurse is able to comprehend, respect and accommodate a patient’s needs and preferences when they deviate from the ‘norm’ because they hail from a different cultural or spiritual background. This role does not suit someone who needs their own world view to be held as objective reality. If you can respect and revere other practices and customs, and you are not threated by the prospect of adjusting the delivery of your care accordingly, you will gain great satisfaction from the opportunity to care for people from a wide range of cultures.
If your teen is concerned about the need for cultural sensitivity because they come from a fairly homogenous community, they needn’t feel excluded from nursing. Assure them that the key to developing cultural sensitivity is to start by noticing biases in your own thinking. Biases are not bad in and of themselves. What’s bad is not being aware and acting on those biases. Once you are aware of the little judgments you make in your head, you can start to adjust your behaviour. Taking every opportunity to expand your knowledge and educate yourself about other cultures is a great way to develop cultural sensitivity. Once you do this, you will notice that your own biases will naturally fall away.
Problem Solving
While you might think that nursing falls on the other end of spectrum from careers that require critical thinking and problem solving, in practice, successful nurses are always in problem-solving mode. Nursing is not for everyone. Add to that the fact that many medical institutions are underfunded, and it’s not hard to see why nursing staff is always in short supply. Scarcity of resources means that a nurse’s time is always under pressure. As a nurse, expect a daily to-do-list as long as your arm, and not enough time to do it in. If you can look at a list of things to do and prioritise effectively, you will be a very desirable candidate at your nursing interview. A large part of nursing is ensuring that important tasks get done without errors creeping in. No small task!
If your teen looks set to excel at the problem-solving aspect of nursing work, there are career paths within nursing that could give them further opportunities to develop this skill. For example, nursing MBA programs add business administration and management to the mix, opening a range of doors within the nursing world. Career paths like Healthcare Administration and Human Resource Development offer plenty of opportunities for your child’s critical thinking abilities to shine.
Photo by Joshua McKnight from Pexels
Communication Skills
Good nurses are natural communicators. As the primary link between physicians and patients, nurses must be able to communicate clearly and effectively with all parties in order to coordinate the intricate schedule of care. When communicating with your colleagues, it’s vital that you’re able to prioritise key information and communicate it clearly, concisely and logically, so that people under pressure can understand and take the appropriate action.
Communicating with patients requires additional skills. In addition to explaining treatment information in a measured and calm way, you will also be required to reassure patients and their friend/family networks about the procedures they will be undergoing. Clarity is important because fear can creep into the unknown. When verbal communication is inadequate, a successful nurse will be able to use pictures or written aids to help them get their point across effectively.
Another area where communication skills come into play is adjusting to different communication styles. Skilled nurses invest time in getting to know their patients on a personal level, to enable them to understand the more subtle ways they communicate.
Fine Attention to Detail
You could argue that in nursing, the stakes are higher than almost any other job. The old adage, ‘first do no harm’ is a pillar of hospital life. While the phrase’s primary meaning is that a healing medical intervention should not harm the patient, another application in the work of a nurse is in the realm of mistakes. An error in a care environment could be potentially harmful to a patient. Countless moments in a nurse’s day present opportunities to either do something correctly or slip up. One of the most crucial elements of your role will be listening to detailed instructions and carrying them out to the letter. You’ll be working long hours, often under demanding conditions, but every case and care situation will demand your full attention.
If attention to detail is an area of concern for your teen but they have their heart set on nursing, they needn’t give up on the dream. Attention to detail is a skill that can be enhanced. Active listening is a great tool for developing attention to detail. In any situation, zero-in on nonverbal cues like body language and eye contact to learn to tune into important cues at play.
While these traits may not be the first that you would associate with nursing, it would be unwise to consider going down the nursing path without understanding the role that these skills will play in day-to-day tasks. If your teen possesses these skills, or is willing to develop them, they are more likely to be happy in a nursing role than if their strengths lie elsewhere.
When crunch time comes for career choices, the best a parent can do is sit down and discuss options in an open-minded and exploratory manner. A great way to do this is to think of a given career option in terms of skills, rather than career objectives, and discuss whether your teen is drawn to the idea of drawing on these facets of their character. These points will help your teen work out if nursing is for them. Before you know it, you’ll be helping them get ready for college!
