Teenagers’ Futures: Hand in Hand with Their Parents

Choosing the correct career can be an easier journey  Columbus High School students with the help of ASOPAF’s career orientation workshop for concerned parents.                              

This association at the Columbus School is offering parents the opportunity to participate in a specialized workshop that will teach them how to be more supportive and better advisors for their teenager’s career choice. The workshops have been done annually several times before; this year the first and second session already took place and the other two are on September 27 and October 4.  

“The workshop is based on both theory and practice; parents are given interactive speeches where they are taught how important it is that they support their kids during this crucial choice,” Patricia Sucerquia, ASOPAF Director said.

The workshop is given by Minta Muñoz, a career counselor at University of La Colegiatura. She bases her workshops on both informational speeches as well as the experiences that parents share during the meetings; her goal is to coach parents on how to assist their kids on this decision based on their real passions.

“I decided to work with orientation because I felt in my heart that the decision of what to do after graduating high school, wasn’t being based on what a teenager’s real passion was; it had become a purely academic choice based on the person’s strengths and weaknesses,” Muñoz said.

Muñoz isn’t a traditional counselor; her passion for what she does goes beyond advising based on grades, majors, or schools.                                 

“Minta teaches parents. She doesn’t talk about careers or universities; what she does is tell them, as parents and their love from their children, how can they help their teenager take the decision that will become their profession,” Sucerquia says.

This opportunity has really helped parents understand that the support for their child when making this crucial decision needs to come from their heart in order to make sure it is the right one.

“[This workshop] has really helped me know that I need to accompany and assist my daughter coming from her true passion and what she wants to be, and not only from what I think will benefit her the most economically or academically,” Ana Maria Salazar, a Columbus school mother that previously completed the workshop said.

ASOPAF has provided this opportunity to help teenagers make a choice that is completely theirs, based only on their passion and not on their parents’ approval.      

As Muñoz said during one of her speeches, “Happiness is a fundamental right of being alive, and this decision should make that true in every aspect. I started out coaching teenagers and then realized that parents were a crucial part of this decision, but that the choice wasn’t theirs to make.”