Children & Young People's Emotional Health

Work Advice

Job seeking and starting work is a vulnerable time for young people. The effort and time required to fill out applications, combined with the potential for rejection can zap their energy and knock their self-confidence.

When starting a new role, young people may feel nervous about whether they will make friends and how well they will cope. The best advice for parents of young people looking for work, or starting a new job is to focus on building their self-confidence and self-belief.

Giving them support to build their confidence can help to instil a positive attitude and help them to make the most of any opportunities that arise in their new role.

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Job Seeking & Mental Health

Looking for work can be a vulnerable and overwhelming time for teens and young people. The pressures of writing applications and attending interviews can deplete their energy, while rejections they may face can knock their self-confidence.

It's important to support your teen to keep their resilience and self-confidence high during this challenging time.

Help them to organise themselves - If your child finds organisation difficult you may be able to help them plan out job seeking tasks, or support them with Universal Credit applications at the Jobs Centre.
Support them by setting achievable tasks - Guide them by breaking jobs down into smaller tasks they can tick off to see progress and feel like they are getting somewhere.
Give support during rejection - Tell them stories about job fails in the family and show them they aren't alone.
Encourage them to focus on the parts they can control - Being prepared for interviews and organising transport beforehand can help to make them feel reassured ahead of any interviews.
Remind them to ask for help - Encourage them to talk to family, trusted adults or online support services such as Childline if they need mental health support, or feel like they are slipping.
Try not to be critical - The job market can be tough and the chances are that your teen will already be criticising themselves. Focus on positivity and building their self-belief.

Coping With Rejection

Job seeking, writing applications and interviews are all part and parcel of getting a job, so when your child has gone to all that effort only to be knocked back, it can be hard to watch.

Building your teenager's resilience in order to allow them to cope with setbacks is an important part of their development and will set them up for later life. This can be done by focusing on 4 areas:

Developing an attitude of self-compassion and self-respect
Developing their social skills
Encouraging a positive mental attitude
Learning skills to help build their strengths.

Making Friends

Starting a new job can be nerve-wracking and it's natural for your child to feel nervous about the people who they will meet. If it's their first time being in a professional environment, it's worth talking to your young person to encourage ways they can be open to new friendships, but keep their behaviour professional.

Key ideas you could explore could be:

How to appear friendly - Showing a positive attitude and taking interest in other people can help them to build good relationships at work
Being pro-active - Using lunchtimes to be in communal spaces to meet people and avoid using their phone to be more open to conversations
Be part of a team - Encouraging them to show kindness and work with other people
Keep it professional - It's great to build new friendships, but remind them they are at work and to think about their behaviour, including avoiding very personal questions or overstepping boundaries.

Read The Children's Society friendship guide

Staying Positive

Having a positive attitude can help your child to keep motivated and to open up opportunities in their workplace. It may require a little work to keep positive with the social pressures of friendships, home life and school studies to maintain, so if you feel your young adult might need a little support, there are a few activities you can try to help build positive thinking habits.

Positive language

Using negative words can affect how your teen approaches a challenge. If you encourage your young adult to switch it up and try positive framing of their language, their work colleagues may respond well and help their role feel a little easier.

Don't take criticism personally

Supporting your teen to be resilient, accept criticism and deal with it appropriately can help them to learn and grow. It also shows a great deal of maturity.

Help them to stay curious

Think about ways that your child can learn and develop more skills with their job, like extra training that may be offered as part of their role. It will show a positive attitude and give them extra content for their CVs for future jobs.

Find some positive thinking strategies here

Coping With Criticism

Constructive criticism helps us to learn and grow in a professional role. However, for young people who are new to the workforce, it can feel like a personal attack. Supporting your teen or young adult to accept they aren't perfect and that criticism in the workplace is supposed to be helpful, is a good start to helping them become resilient.

Consider talking to them about:

Keeping calm in the face of criticism so they can respond rather than react emotionally. Breathing exercises and mindfulness activities are good tools to use anywhere.
Being able to talk about the criticism with their colleagues at work so they can plan how to support them
Building your young adult's self-confidence and self-belief by highlighting their strengths.

Knowing Their Rights

Giving your teen or young adult some understanding of their rights in the workplace will give them the confidence to speak up and be able to negotiate with their employer.

Contracts, working hours and pay all have legal limits for young people, so it's worth helping them to do some research to know what is and isn't acceptable.

Services such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, the Health and Safety Executive and the Government website are all good sources of information about youth employment.

Read more about young people's basic rights in work

Who can Help?

Youth Employment UK gives information about work life and rights at work.

You can contact the Healthy Child Programme by calling Just One Number on 0300 300 0123 or texting Parentline on 07520 631590. Our opening hours are 8am-6pm Monday-Friday (excluding bank holidays) and 9am-1pm on Saturdays.

If you are 11-19 you can text ChatHealth on 07480 635060 for confidential advice from one of our team.

For 11–25 year olds Kooth is a free, confidential and safe way to receive online counselling, advice and emotional well-being support.

To speak to other Norfolk parents and carers, you can join our online community forum below.