"What do you want to be?" asks a seventeen-year-old to name something they have never done, in front of someone whose approval matters to them. It reliably produces either a rehearsed answer or a shrug, and neither tells you anything.
Better questions ask about evidence they already have — what they did last week, what people come to them for, what they lost time to. Those they can answer honestly, because answering does not require them to commit to anything.
Below are ten, sorted by what you are trying to find out. You will not use all of them.
Before you start
Not across a table. In the car, on a walk, while cooking, during an ad break. Sideways conversations work better than summits, and a conversation that can be ended without awkwardness gets more honesty in it.
One or two, not ten. This is not an interview. A single question asked lightly and then genuinely dropped will get you further than a sequence.
Be ready for "I don't know." It is usually true. Research on career indecision among adolescents has distinguished for decades between the student who simply has not got there yet — the ordinary case at this age — and the smaller number for whom deciding is persistently hard. Most "I don't know" answers are the first kind, and the response that helps is information and exposure, not more asking. There is an article written for them about exactly this that may be easier to send than to discuss.
To find out what actually holds their attention
1. When did you last lose track of time? What were you doing?
The best single question available. It asks for a memory rather than an opinion, and the answer is usually specific enough to be useful. Ask what it was about the activity, not just what the activity was.
2. What do you look up when you're supposed to be doing something else?
Their search history is a more honest record of their curiosity than anything they would say about themselves. Asked lightly, this gets a real answer.
3. What have you argued about for more than ten minutes recently?
Arguing takes energy. Nobody spends it on things they don't care about — including when the argument is with you.
To find out what they're good at
4. What do people come to you for help with?
Their friends have made an unsentimental assessment of their strengths and it shows in what they get asked for. This question surfaces it without requiring any self-promotion.
5. What's something you found easy that other people seemed to find hard?
Strengths feel like nothing from the inside, which is why children so often say they have none. The relative-ease framing is what makes them visible.
6. What would your teacher say you're better at than most people in the class?
Easier to answer than a direct question about themselves, because it outsources the claim. Often the most revealing answer of the ten.
To find out what they actually want from work
7. What would make you feel like a week had gone well?
Gets at what they want from their days without the vocabulary of "values," which does not survive contact with a seventeen-year-old.
8. Would you rather work something out on your own, or with people around?
A genuine and stable difference, and one that separates courses and careers more than most subject choices do.
9. If money were not part of it, what would you try? And knowing money is part of it — what would you need for it to feel safe enough?
These work as a pair and should be asked as one. The first opens things up. The second brings your actual concern into the room as a shared problem rather than a veto — which is usually the single most useful move available to you in this whole conversation.
To find out what they're worried about
10. What do you think I want you to do? And how much is that affecting you?
The hardest one to ask and often the most valuable. Children carry a version of their parents' expectations that is frequently more rigid than the real thing — they are working from remarks made years ago and half-remembered.
Ask it only if you are prepared to sit with the answer without correcting it immediately. "That's not what I meant" is a reasonable thing to say afterwards; said too fast, it ends the conversation.
What tends to close the conversation down
None of these make you a bad parent. All are common under time pressure.
Answering your own question. The pause after a real question feels much longer to the person who asked it. Let it run.
Following up with the practical objection immediately. "That's interesting — but how would you earn from that?" is a fair question that is fatal in that position. Ask it a day later, as its own conversation.
Comparing. With a sibling, a cousin, a neighbour's child. It reliably produces silence.
Treating not knowing as a failing. "You should know by now" is not accurate and is not useful. Not knowing at seventeen is the ordinary condition.
Asking during results season. Everything is compressed and everyone is exhausted. Class 10 is not too early to start, with no decision attached.
Why your questions carry weight
Research on parental involvement in career decisions after Class 10 describes it as a complex mix of financial concern, social expectation, indirect steering, and parents' own insecurities. The same qualitative work argues for career guidance that addresses parents and students together rather than treating the student as the only person in the decision.
Which is a research-shaped way of saying something you already know: you are in this conversation whether or not you intend to be. The questions above are a way of spending that influence on finding out what is true, rather than on advocating for a conclusion — the fuller version of that argument is in a parent's guide to helping without deciding.
Where to go from here
- Pick two questions, not ten. Ask one this week, sideways, and let it go.
- Write down what you hear rather than responding to it. Patterns show up across weeks, not within one conversation.
- Ask your own version of question 9's second half — say the actual worry, in your own words. "I want you to have security" can be discussed. "That's not a serious subject" gets remembered for years.
- Find them one person doing work they are curious about. An hour with someone who does the job is worth more than any amount of discussion at home, and your network is more useful here than theirs.
DISCOVER is an AI career discovery experience offered by universities to help students explore what they might study and why. It is designed for guidance and exploration, and does not claim to diagnose, test, or predict.
Related reading
Strengths aren't the same as marks — here's the difference
A mark measures one task under one set of conditions. A strength is something you do well repeatedly, across situations. Here's the gap between them, and how to find what's on your side of it.
What's actually in a DISCOVER report
Six things go into a DISCOVER report — interests, reasoned career directions, programme fit, a roadmap, and more. Here's what each part is for, and what none of it can tell you.
How an adaptive career conversation works — and why no two are the same
The questions you get depend on what you've already said. Here's what "adaptive" actually means, and why a longer conversation isn't a worse one.