Guides for parents
Helping without pushing
For parents of teens who don't know what they want yet, and the questions worth asking.
- Your teen has no idea what they want. Here's how to help without pushing.You can see the deadlines coming and they seem to be watching videos. The instinct is to push; the research is annoyingly clear that pushing backfires. Here is what works instead.
- Is university still worth it? Wrong question. Here's the right one.Only about a third of Canadians now say a degree is worth taking on debt for — and yet for some paths it remains the single best investment your kid can make. Both things are true, because 'university' isn't one product.
- Your teen isn't lazy. They're uncommitted. Those need different fixes.The grades are sliding, the future talk goes nowhere, and the energy for gaming is somehow infinite. Before the motivation lectures: the gaming energy is the evidence that the engine works fine.
- University or trades? The honest side-by-side nobody gives parents.One path starts with a five-figure bill and pays later. The other pays from week one and tops out differently. Both can be the right answer — the dishonest part is pretending either one always is.