M ost teens are so eager for cash that they may take any available job to earn it. But those first jobs can have a lasting impact on how kids feel about working -- and how successful they are in their future careers.

Barbara Schneider, PhD, has studied more than 1,000 adolescents to determine how they develop attitudes and skills for adult careers. Key findings...

Young people generally lack information about career choices. And schools don’t always help them acquire the skills necessary to prepare for a rapidly changing workplace.

Clear vocational goals and positive work experiences do not guarantee a smooth transition to adult employment. More important: Intense involvement in extracurricular activities.

Students with the highest future expectations find school more like play than work.

Most youths believe that a college education is the gateway to a desired career. They also expect their adult work lives to be more difficult than those of their parents. Many have seen their parents laid off.

How parents can guide kids toward satisfying careers...

WORK VS. PLAY

Most parents believe that getting a job -- any job -- will build good work habits and a sense of responsibility. But the content of after-school or summer jobs also helps shape young people’s attitudes toward work.

Steer young people toward jobs that give them more of a sense of play (engaged involvement) than of drudgery. Jobs should have clear goals and rules... provide them with feedback about progress... be challenging... and give a sense of involvement and control.

Examples: Videotaping town hall meetings, designing Web sites, taking care of animals.

If work isn’t interesting, kids may fall into apathy, seeing work merely as a way to earn some cash to buy CDs, clothes or gas for the car.

CHANNEL TALENTS AND INTERESTS

When advising children on selecting part-time jobs and courses in high school and college, take cues from their interests.

Teens who are keenly interested in math and science tend to choose courses and colleges that support their clear, long-range career goals. They may find summer jobs working in laboratories.

If your child loves art, being an arts and crafts counselor would be more rewarding than teaching sports.

Teens with wide-ranging, less focused interests may dabble in a variety of extracurricular activities and part-time jobs -- tutoring younger kids one summer... candy-striping at a hospital the next... or scooping ice cream on weekends during the school year. They may seem to have little direction or interest in a particular kind of work, but they are banking many different experiences to draw upon later.

These youngsters tend to find their passion in college... and a liberal arts college is often the most appropriate choice.

TALK ABOUT YOUR WORK

In past generations, children worked alongside parents and grandparents on farms, in shops and in family businesses. They picked up skills and attitudes firsthand. Today’s young people know little about their parents’ work experiences. They form impressions of the adult world of work primarily from the media.

Many parents are reluctant to talk about work conflicts and challenges because they don’t want to bring job stress home. But talking about what you do at work conveys realistic employment expectations.

Explain how you handle specific challenges... describe corporate culture and the people with whom you work... bring your children into your workplace occasionally... ask for their input on how they might approach a particular problem.