• Posted on Jan 15, 2019

* Featured Article from the December 2018 Maryland Career Development Association newsletter

In my private practice, one of the most common values regardless of demographics is Family. Clients will describe it in many ways (some include their friends, babies, and even fur babies). Regardless of what they mean by Family as a value, and regardless of how much time they spend away from their family, there’s good news: “Quality time is real.”

A recent Harvard Business Review article How Our Careers Affect Our Children, by Stewart D. Friedman found that many aspects of parents’ careers “correlate with the degree to which children display behavior problems, which are key indicators of their mental health.”

Specifically, these career aspects include:

• Parental values about the importance of career and family
• Psychological interference of work on family life (thinking about work when we are physically present at home with our family)
• The extent of emotional involvement in career, and
• Discretion and control about the conditions of work

Out of all of their research, these were my favorite findings:

1. Mothers who take time to care for themselves instead of focus on the additional labor of housework increase their capacity to care for their children.
2. Fathers are better able to provide healthy experiences for their children when they are psychologically present with them and when their sense of competence and well-being are enhanced by their work.
3. Parents’ time spent working and on child care did not influence children’s mental health. In other words, the amount of time spent with you children doesn’t matter as much as the quality of time spent with them.

All of above underscore the deep importance of our roles as career practitioners. We play a large role in helping others to thrive instead of deteriorate in meaningless jobs. Helping people find careers they love is serious work with serious outcomes. When our clients experience control in their careers with a job that’s emotionally satisfying, its consequences reach far beyond our clients. Specifically, in reference to our clients with children, our work benefits not just our client, but it can have far reaching ramifications to the mental health of clients’ children too.

If you’re a parent who’s away from your child for long periods of the day, rest assured that quality time spent is more important mental-health wise than time in general. Also, if you’re working with a client with children who’s having a difficult time deciding on their next steps, share the HBR article with them. It may provide the motivation they need to do what’s truly best for themselves and their family.

Read on LinkedIn HERE.

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