Dream Jobs-R-Us Chelsea Whitaker, OTR/L

Understanding different levels of social confidence and using them to determine the correct path for your child’s future.

Learn more about Chelsea at www.chelsea-whitaker.com and you can check out her online, on-demand course, The Parent’s Guide to Discovering Your Child’s Dream Job at: https://chelsea-whitaker.teachable.com/p/discovering-your-childs-dream-job/

Nicole:
Hi. it’s Nicole. Today, Chelsea is going to be talking to you about your child’s level of social confidence and how to make it work for you and not against you. In the next episode, she’ll be sharing some ways you can improve on and build your child’s level of social confidence. But today we’re really going to be focusing on why it’s so important to meet your child where they are with respect to their level of social confidence. You’re child will be most successful when they’re most confident and so, we’re going to talk about what social confidence is, so you can determine where your child falls on the spectrum of social confidence whether they have a low, medium, or high level of social confidence and we’re going to talk about exactly what types of jobs fit each of those levels of social confidence on the social confidence spectrum. So, Chelsea give me your definition of social confidence.

Chelsea:
Social confidence is your ability to manage and relate to your own emotions and also to see how other people are feeling and how to respond so that you can have a successful and engaging conversation with them.

Nicole:
Yeah, I think that there is this concept of emotional intelligence. Right? Being able to identify your emotions and respond appropriately and manage your own emotions, but emotional intelligence also involves being able to recognize other people’s emotions and respond to and manage them effectively.

Chelsea:
Right.

Nicole:
And these are tools and skills that everyone, you know, falls on a different area in the spectrum. Right? And it doesn’t make anyone better or worse than anyone else. It’s kind of just like your unique strength zone. Some people are just – it’s their strength that they can read a room and read a conversation and respond appropriately or respond the best way they can and that person might be a high or might have a high level of social confidence. Whereas someone else might have a medium or low level of social confidence. They can still be super effective and great at their job, but they’re in a position where they don’t have to struggle with tough situations where they are going to be challenged in reading the room, reading conversations, reading other people’s emotions and responding to all these different kinds of situations. So, again we’ll talk about – later – how to improve your levels or your child’s level of social confidence. But for now, Chelsea, can you describe what it looks like for someone to have a high level of social confidence, a medium level of social confidence, and a low level of social confidence?

Discover where your child falls on the sensory preference spectrum and how you can use this information to determine what kind of workplace best suits them.

Learn more about Chelsea at www.chelsea-whitaker.com and you can check out her online, on-demand course, The Parent’s Guide to Discovering Your Child’s Dream Job at: https://chelsea-whitaker.teachable.com/p/discovering-your-childs-dream-job/

Chelsea:

Hi everyone. This is Chelsea Whitaker, and I'm here with my sister Nicole today. We're talking about a parenting hack: how your child's sensory preference determines where they'll be most successful. I'm talking about sensory preferences based on Dunn's model of sensory processing that we use in occupational therapy world. We use this to identify how individuals relate to their environment with all their five senses and how they process those senses and how it determines their behavior. Although this is created for people with autism, I find it relates to everyone of all different ages. In fact, it has helped me be more successful and knowing in what environment I'm going to be most comfortable. It relates to you as a parent because knowing your child's sensory preference is going to help you set them up for success and the job environment that works best for them. So, we're going to talk about four different sensory preferences: sensory seeking, sensory sensitive, sensory avoidant, and low registration.

Nicole:

So, Chelsea. This is like a really technical occupational therapy thing, but I get it because you go around behind me making fun of me, kind of saying "sensory seeking, sensory seeking" because you recognize that I'm sensory seeking and I need lots of noise, lots of things to look at, and that's just how I work best. If I'm in a room where it's totally quiet, I'm going to start talking or I'm going to start singing because I need to fill up that room with noise because I can't handle being in a place that's totally quiet. So, auditory sensory input... that's just one type of sensory input. Beforeyou describe each of the four sensory styles and preferences, so parents can see which applies to their child, tell me about what sensory input is for each of the five senses. Auditory, like I said, is music... Noises... Having TV on in the background, people having background conversations. It can be as simple as like the humming of an air conditioning system or the humming of lights tapping on a computer, tapping on a keyboard...

Chelsea:

Right, and once you see the brightness of colors, the number of objects you have to process. If you're driving, you have to process all the signs, the road signs, the smells, wherever you go. If you go to a restaurant, there's going to be some strong smells there, but if you go to a block where there are several restaurants, there's going to be a lot more restaurant smells to process at one time.

Nicole:

What about taste?

Chelsea:

So if you add a lot of spices to your food, or if you find that food is bland without a lot of salt, a lot of pepper, you would be more sensory seeking, but somebody who just can't handle the texture of certain foods, like apple sauce or cottage cheese, they might be sensory sensitive or avoidant.

Discover your child’s strengths & aptitudes and how they will help you uncover your child’s dream jobs.

Learn more about Chelsea at www.chelsea-whitaker.com and you can check out her online, on-demand course, The Parent’s Guide to Discovering Your Child’s Dream Job at: https://chelsea-whitaker.teachable.com/p/discovering-your-childs-dream-job/

Chelsea:

Hi everyone. I'm Chelsea Whitaker and I'm here with my sister, Nicole, who is a lawyer and a successful business owner. And today we're going to talk about the most effective way to identify your child's strengths and aptitudes.

Nicole:

Chelsea, why is this so important to identify your child's strengths and attitudes? How does that relate to finding their dream job?

Chelsea:

It's important that you discover what your child is good at, because that's going to keep them motivated to continue down that path. Usually when you're passionate about something, you're also good at it and you get good feedback from other people and internally just knowing that you're doing a good job and that's going to keep you on that path to success.

Nicole:

Right? The jobs going to be easier for them, if they're naturally good at it...

Chelsea:

Right.

Nicole:

So, can you give me an example of how someone's strengths and aptitudes relate to the type of dream jobs that they might have with their potential dream jobs?

Chelsea:

Sure. The person that comes to my mind is our mom. Now mom is actually a customer service rep, and now she's a gas dispatcher at BGE...

Nicole:

Our local electric utility, right?

Chelsea:

Right. But I really think if she were to do it all over again, thinking about her strengths, how outgoing she is, how much she cares for other people and just her wanting to hear other people's stories. I really think that she could be in an advocacy or caregiving profession such as working at a nursing home, being an activities director, being a caregiver or social worker, or even a cruise director. She really likes to listen to other people. She's a strong advocate. She's an excellent listener. And she's able to identify and manage her emotions as well as other people's emotions.

How to lean what your child is passionate about and how that can translate into their future dream job.

Learn more about Chelsea at www.chelsea-whitaker.com and you can check out her online, on-demand course, The Parent’s Guide to Discovering Your Child’s Dream Job at: https://chelsea-whitaker.teachable.com/p/discovering-your-childs-dream-job/

Chelsea:

Hey guys, it's Chelsea with my sister, Nicole, a lawyer and successful business owner. Today we're talking about uncovering your child's passion to unlock their dream job.

Nicole:

Chelsea, why is this so important, uncovering your child's interests and passions to help narrow down some of their potential dream jobs?

Chelsea:

I love what I do personally every day, and I want that for your child. I remember her saying "if you love your job, you never have to work a day in your life" and that is so true with what I do.

Nicole:

You are the lead occupational therapist at the nonprofit, taking the lead at Timberbrook farm, where you do animal assisted occupational therapy with dogs and horses. it makes sense for you cause you love animals. I'm a lawyer and a business owner, and I love my job. My brother is a Marine engineer and that really fits within his interests and passions; and it's so important because we spend so much of our waking lives at work. The average American spends over 90,000 hours at work in their lifetime. So it's so critical that you help your child find what they love to do, or at least the industry they know that they want to be in so they can find the role that fits them within that industry. In fact, this is one of the first things (is the very first thing) that you go over and work through in your course, the parent's guide to discovering your child's dream job, which is an online on demand course that parents can work through on the platform, teachable.com. Let's talk about how parents can identify their child's interests and passions, and kind of take a look at the paths that me and you and TJ have taken to get to our dream jobs. So, what are some things that parents should be doing to help their kids start identifying their interests?

Chelsea:

So one key to knowing what you're interested in, it's something that you were so involved in and so focused on that time stands still. You don't even know what time it is or how much time has passed because you're enjoying your task so much. And one thing that our parents did was just expose us to a lot of different hobbies. And, I mean, for me, it's always been animals. I even remember like books that I read were all animal related,

Nicole:

Right? So, you know, you can take, look at what books your child is, reading, what movies or TV shows they're watching. So you were watching animal planet, right? That channel all the time.

Chelsea:

Yes.

Learn more about Chelsea at www.chelsea-whitaker.com and you can check our her online, on-demand course, The Parent’s Guide to Discovering Your Child’s Dream Job at: www.chelsea-whitaker.teachable.com

Chelsea:

Hey guys, it's Chelsea and my sister, Nicole, a successful business owner. Today we're talking about the biggest mistake parents make in encouraging their child's independence.

Nicole:

Before you get to that, Chelsea, I want to just cut in and say that your Facebook page, Chelsea Whitaker OTR/L: Discovering Your Child's Dream Job, is blowing up. It is maybe a month old and you've reached well over a thousand followers. And that's even before this podcast officially dropped, even before you've had the opportunity to share real content with your followers on Facebook (because we've been working so hard on the course), and even before this course, The Parent's Guide to Discovering Your Child's Dream Job is released.

Chelsea:

Wow.

Nicole:

And I know that that course is in its final production phases. All the filming is done. So it's being produced now and it's going to be an online on-demand course that parents can work through at their own pace on their own schedule available through your web website, chelsea-whitaker.com and teachable.com. I'll hand it back to you. What is the biggest mistake parents make?

Chelsea:

Nicole, the biggest mistake parents make in encouraging their child's independence is treating them like a child rather than an adult.

Nicole:

And what do you mean by that? What are some examples?

Chelsea:

The parents doing too much for their child, providing too many luxuries for them, having low expectations, or simply not treating their child with the respect you would have for another adult.

Nicole:

I can see how a lot of those things parents could do, and it might even come from a good place, right? Parents love their kids. They want the best for them. That's why they're doing so much for them or providing them with the nicest things. Even having low expectations for your kids, you don't want them to fail. So you set the expectations low, right? I can see why parents would do that. So before we get into examples of each of those, at what age do you think as an occupational therapist, parents need to start making a concerted effort to treat their child with more respect and more like an adult rather than a kid?

Welcome to the very first podcast of occupational therapist Chelsea Whitaker, Dream Jobs-R-Us: Finding Your Child’s Passion & Purpose in Life.  Chelsea is the lead occupational therapist at the nonprofit Taking the Lead at Timberbrook Farm in Freeland, MD where - in addition to running the therapeutic horseback riding & hippotherapy programs for adults & children with disabilities - she realized the inspiration for this podcast and her online course, The Parent’s Guide to Securing Your Child’s Dream Job.

You can learn more about her on our website: www.chelsea-whitaker.com

You can find her online self-paced course “The Parent’s Guide to Securing Your Child’s Dream Job” at:
www.chesea-whitaker.teachable.com

In this episode, she shares the story of the day that she realized that this is her purpose and passion in life - teaching young adults of all abilities how to realize what their dream job is and how to land that dream job.

She also answers these questions and more:
Why are you so passionate about what you do?
What exactly is it that you do?
Tell us how you got started helping young adults find their purpose and passion in life.
Why is this podcast for parents and not their young adult children?
Who is this podcast for and who is it not for?
If you’re listening to our program for the first time, I’m so excited you’re here.  One-on-one meetings with counselors and therapists are expensive.  With this podcast, her Facebook page, her YouTube channel (search for Chelsea Whitaker, OTR/L), and through her online course “The Parent’s Guide to Securing Your Child’s Dream Job”, you’re going to learn exactly how to uncover your child’s passion and purpose in life no matter what their level of ability is.


For those of you that really want to dig deeper or if you think you’d benefit from having more structure while you’re working through this material, Chelsea’s online course, The Parent’s Guide to Securing Your Child’s Dream Job, teaches you step by step what you can do from home to help your child find a job they’ll excel in.  After that, we work through obstacles to gaining meaningful employment like building a great resume even if your child doesn’t have formal work experience and mastering the interview process even if your child isn’t comfortable in social situations.  We also go over how to establish positive work habits and social skills to deal with customers, co-workers and bosses. Finally, you’ll learn when and how to get out of your child’s way to let them be more independent.
The course has easy to use handouts and templates that walk you through every unit.
One bonus you’ll get when you purchase the course is an invite to our private Facebook group, The Dream Team by Chelsea Whitaker, OTR/L.  It’s an online community where you can connect with other parents with the same goals as you who are working through the same obstacles.  Together we brainstorm ideas and troubleshoot issues or just lend an ear to listen.
I’m so excited for you. Let’s get started.