51吃瓜

We started a quarterly parents’ club this year. The topics were suggested by staff and parents and then parents voted on them. One meeting that we held stood out particularly for its enormous beneficial effect on all stakeholders involved, including parents, teaching staff and counsellors: family conflicts and parents’ concerns regarding children’s career orientation and university choice. 

I am sharing the ideas, activities and tools from this particular meeting for other counsellors to try. 

Staff involvement: I participated in my role as counsellor and head of education, along with the pedagogic director. 

Benefits: we found the event beneficial in:

• keeping parents informed about the way our counselling team works
• educating parents about possible careers and universities
• recognising parents’ best intentions in supporting their children
• establishing a strong sense of cooperation between the counsellor team and parents in our shared goal of helping students find their best fit both in career and course/university choice
• showing alumni successes, thus building trust and credibility among families.

The event also explored parents’ worries regarding children’s career aspirations, while creating a safe space and a community for parents to express concerns.

Timing: The event took two hours on a weekday evening. Eighteen parents participated, mostly unfamiliar with each other. We prepared some snacks and drinks to make them feel comfortable.

Activity 1: Guess the future job

For this warm-up activity, we prepared cards with one emerging job title on each – we picked jobs from the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Work report. The jobs included fintech engineer, AI and machine learning specialist, renewable energy engineer, big data specialist, software and applications developer, and UX designer.  

First, we made six groups and handed out two cards to each group, asking participants to discuss the job titles (they were allowed to Google). Then, parents had to explain the jobs to another group without reading the cards, so that those in the other group could guess the jobs. They then switched roles.

As a follow-up, we discussed the unfamiliarity of the future of the job market and how parents felt about this. Emotions such as anxiety and excitement, as well as family conflicts, came to the surface.

Activity 2: Problem tree 

We then delved deeper using the problem tree technique: a visual representation of problems or conflicts (graphics are available online). We explained that the branches represent the overt expression of conflicts or problems, the trunk represents the problem or conflict itself, while the roots indicate the covert fears that fuel the conflict and its overt expression.

We brought in three huge pieces of paper and put them on separate tables, and asked parents to form three groups, one per table. We asked them to draw trees and then identify and label the trunks (conflicts) first: what conflicts do they experience regarding their childrens’ career goals? Then they labelled the branches: how career-related conflicts are expressed in their family (sulking, shouting, closed or slamming doors etc). Finally, labelling the roots: underlying emotions or motivations.

Discussions started slowly, and my colleague and I took turns around the tables to help parents express their feelings and thoughts. After a while, we could step back and listen to each group discuss among themselves. Finally, we discussed all three problem trees together. Here, my colleague and I acted as mediators, making sure everyone had the chance to speak. 

Three main topics emerged from this activity: fear stemming from uncertainty regarding the future of jobs and labour market, coping with children’s own insecurities, and lacking information on possible careers and universities. The underlying fear was, almost invariably, the fear of failing as a parent. What also emerged was that sharing concerns in a parent community helps parents cope with these emotions, and that “success” means very different things for different families, including health, wealth, self-identity, creativity etc.

Presentation: Next, we introduced the counselling process and its tools to parents, as well as the range of opportunities we create for experiential learning, including field trips to companies, discussions with subject experts and alumni, and university fairs.

Activity 3: Happiness over rankings

Based on subject interests of a selected anonymised sample from our most recent graduate cohort, parents tried to match students to university courses. This reassured parents that students even with unusual or interdisciplinary interests will find their place if we focus on happiness over rankings – best fit instead over brand names. A . Feel free to use it – we only request that the logo is not removed.

Aftercare: The next day I emailed attendees our notes, thanking them for their active participation. Several responded telling me how much the event had reassured them about themselves as parents, and built trust in our counselling methods.