Exactly. The parents only can guide the conversation and be perceptive. But the kid has to come to a realization of what sort of work would be satisfying. I didn't find the job/career that I should have had all along until I was 42, because I had no idea at age 17 what to do with my life. I just went off to college and majored in the wrong subject.
@mountaineer I had no idea what to do at age 17 either,but I knew I had to something because my parents started telling me I was out of the house when I turned 18 when I was maybe 8 or 10,so I just joined the army to have a place to live and to learn my options.
Luckily for me I got drafted in to Special Forces after being interviewed in basic training and refusing to volunteer (recruiter was stupid enough to tell me I would be living in the woods and eating snakes).
Went on to jump school (an extra $55 per month) after going to signal school,and after graduation me and 2 other guys out of 187 graduates (class started with 425 students 3 weeks earlier) got orders to report to the Special Warfare School at Ft.Bragg.
I SUSPECT part of this might have been because one of the jump school instructors had a SF combat patch,and when he got on my ass one day and told me he was going to run me out of the course,I told him that he and three more motherhumpers just like him weren't man enough to run ME off.
What can I say? I was 17,and stupid.
Anyhow,the next few days were nothing short of brutal,but I was so pissed off I refused to quit. After maybe the 3rd or 4th day,he slapped me on the shoulder,smiled,and just walked away without saying another word.
Got to Signal Company of the 3rd SFG,and hated it with a freaking passion. Ended up knocking my platoon sgt unconscious in morning formation one day when he leaned right into my face and called me a punk mofo and threatened to whip my ass. I told him as he lay unconscious in the company street to go home that night and tell his wife his punk ass got whipped by someone HE thought was a punk.
Since he started it by threatening me with physical violence if front of witnesses,I didn't get court martialed,but I did get sent off to a Signal Battalion in the 18th ABN Corps . Duty was no better there. The first few months we spend pretty much every day servicing trucks in the motor pool that never went anywhere,and never taking any training classes at all.
Along came the uprising in the Dominican Republic,and off I went to the DR. Liking rum a lot and liking MP's a lot less than I liked rum,I spent most of my time in the DR digging 8x8 x8 trenches,filling them up,and then digging them up again. I can't remember if this was after I started the riot at the local high school (Hey! The girls were the same age as me!) or after I got drunk and somehow ended up in Haiti.
Anyhow,the instant I got back to Ft.Bragg I went to see a personnel clerk I knew casually,and told him I would give him a bottle of Jim Beam if he got me on the first set of transfer orders to come in. When he asked if I had a preference,I told him Germany,but would take anything available that wasn't at Bragg.
I got orders transferring me to the 1st SFG on Okinawa. Which REALLY pissed me off because of my experience with the 3rd SFG Signal Company at Bragg.
So I refused to wear a beret. I figured this would get me transferred somewhere else because since I wasn't qualified to wear one,there was no way the army could legally force me to wear one.
The end result was I was ordered to report to the 1st Group SGM at Camp Kue and explain myself. This was SGM George W. Dunaway,and he was one of the teenage Rangers that climbed the cliffs at Normandy beach head on invasion day to take out the artillery pieces that were shelling the invasion ships. He had also won a bunch of medals during the Korean War. Kinda an intimidating figure,but I knew I had army regulations on my side,so I wasn't worried.
Surprising the hell out of me,he spoke to me in a reasonable tone of voice and just asked me why I refused to wear a beret. I told him for the same reason I wasn't wearing the 3rd award of a CIB,master blaster jump wings,or SGM stripes like him. I hadn't earned them and I wasn't going to wear them.
That's when it got tricky,and he caught me by surprise. He asked me "How about if I were to transfer you to a line company and arrange to have you cross-trained and become a qualified SF radio operator? Would you wear a beret then?
Knowing this was NOT going to happen,I answered "of course",and found myself as the newest junior radio operator in A Company,1st SFG .
I thought to myself,"Self,you REALLY screwed up this time!",but it was the best mistake of my life. I not only found a home,I found what I was born to do. GREATEST bunch of people I ever met in my whole life,and everybody in the Company was friendly,from the lowest ranking E-4 to the Lt Colonel that commanded the company. BTW,that company commander was Ola Mize,Medal of Honor winner during the Korean War.
I was swimming in deep waters there. Not a pretender in the bunch. As long as you worked hard and were dedicated to the mission,you were a brother regardless of rank.
I had to leave SF after getting medievaced from VN,and haven't found a job since that I lived 10 percent as much as I loved being in SF.
I actually found my calling in life by accident,and in spite of myself.