“Adolescents entering the adult world in the twenty-first century will read and write more than at any other time in history. They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs, run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal lives.”

 —International Reading Association

 

How parents can help prepare sons for the workplace

 For several decades, we’ve heard about the so-called “math gap,” in which girls need special support because they’re so far behind boys.

 The good news is that the math gap has now closed; the bad news is that a far wider chasm has formed: The reading gap (boys at a disadvantage) is twice the former math gap, and the writing gap (boys at a disadvantage) is six times the former math gap!

 No, boys are not suddenly the new underdogs; they underachieve only in reading and writing. But they are slipping in such skills at a time when these abilities have skyrocketed in importance for long-term success in life. Comfort with reading is essential for graduating from high school or college, and today’s college degree is equivalent to last generation’s high school degree in the job market.

 Worse, the reading/writing gap is worldwide (for industrialized nations) and growing. Almost anywhere that boys and girls have the same access to education, boys are underperforming in reading and writing -- even in Finland, which boasts the top-ranked students in literacy.

 The three-step solution? First, parents need to pull out all the stops to get him comfortable with reading and writing, especially around fourth grade, when the problem typically starts. “The most important predictor of academic success is the amount of time children spend reading books; it is even more important than economic or social status,” says the U.S. Department of Education. Limit their screen time and enlist a guy to read to them for the role-model factor. (One study showed that parents who read with their kids just fifteen minutes per day more than tripled their reading improvement each month.)

 Second, help him realign career aspirations with what the changing economy is actually offering. Third, engage him in conversations about what employers are looking for these days.

 Many high-wage jobs traditionally snapped up by men with lacklustre grades and/or no college degree are disappearing. Manufacturing jobs have been moving overseas for decades, sales jobs are morphing into degree-requiring careers, and even white-collar positions are being outsourced with greater ease these days.

 Men suffered roughly three-quarters of the eight million U.S. job losses between 2008 and 2010. That’s because male-dominated industries (construction, finance, manufacturing) were particularly hard-hit, while female-heavy sectors (education, healthcare) did relatively well. The result? In 2010 for the first time in history, women were on the brink of holding a majority of jobs in the U.S.

 Are today’s young men ready to accept earning less than their fathers and the women in their lives, and to experience longer periods of unemployment? Knowing the score makes it easier for parents to talk with sons about these issues and to devise ways of avoiding their being sucked into a place of resentment and defeatism.

 

Here are the messages parents need to get across:

 Today’s workers need more education. College admissions boards scrutinize high school grades, and a college degree remains the primary ticket to high-paying jobs. As the percentage of males obtaining university degrees dwindles, more and more women will earn as much or more than men, which can negatively impact family and community life.

 

Here’s how the job market has shifted

(U.S. statistics):

                                         1950s                 1990s Professional Jobs:        20%                      20% Skilled Labour:              20%                      more than 60% Unskilled Labour:          60%                      less than 20%

 The transition from unskilled to skilled labour demands more education and training, but worryingly, the skilled-labour sector is seeking skills not traditionally valued by males. That begs for new perspective and an attitude change, something parents can help their son achieve more easily than educators or peers can.

 It’s worthwhile to remind our sons that not only are they competing against females, but against newcomers whose attitudes (not just aptitudes) will be compared closely to theirs. In the 1970s and 1980s, when males transitioning from manufacturing to service work showed resentment and less flexibility on the job than first-generation immigrant workers, employers gravitated to hiring women and immigrants, prompting a nasty cycle of resentment, discrimination, and joblessness.

 Schools typically haven’t kept pace with training kids for what the workplace needs. Many of today’s schools are educating students for yesterday’s economy. There are ways for parents to supplement what the schools are missing, steer their son toward extracurricular activities that will add value to his resume, and (in an activist’s role) improve his high school’s effectiveness.

 Doing all you can to ensure that your son gets quality teachers is also key. “Three good teachers in a row, and the student is going to be a year-and-a-half to two years ahead of grade level. Three bad teachers in a row and the average student’s going to be so far behind it’s hard for them to ever catch up,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has said.

 What else can parents do? We know three sets of parents who pooled their expertise to tutor one another’s boys for a college entrance exam. And a mom who helped her son research what a local employer was looking for after he was turned down. When he learned that “international experience” was a major plus at the company, she said she’d support his efforts to select an overseas charity work stint. He chose to build houses abroad, and he came back a new man—energized, motivated, and eventually accepted by the employer who’d previously turned him down.

 The workplace has changed. Lifetime employment, company loyalty, and a “safe career” are largely entities of the past. To borrow a phrase from the music industry, most employees these days are only as good as their last gig. In fact, roughly forty percent of the workforce has been with their current employer for less than two years.

 Workers need to be prepared not only to change jobs, but to change careers several times in their lifetime, and college graduates are the best positioned to do this. It’s also true that as manufacturing jobs shrink, as service jobs grow, and as women move into ever more industries and job levels, men are taking on traditionally female roles. They’re becoming nurses, librarians, elementary school teachers, paralegals, typists, and secretaries.

 Service work requires different interpersonal skills and different ways of presenting one’s self than blue-collar work demands. If an applicant knows this going in, and stays open-minded to some coaching from a mentor, colleague, or website on job interviewing, that need not be a barrier.

 One way to help make our sons more open to these jobs is to introduce them to dynamic men who’ve become comfortable in such roles. For instance, help a community center pull together an evening roster of male speakers: a male nurse who emphasizes how his work allows him to live overseas; a male librarian who relates his thrill at getting to attend a sci-fi writers’ conference as part of his job. Or invite such men to your home for dinner.

 The type of worker in demand has changed. Even employers desperate to fill a position will turn down candidates if they lack communication skills or don’t pass a reading comprehension test. Finding applicants with “people skills” is the largest challenge facing employers these days. To ensure that their son passes muster in this area, parents should get him involved in volunteer work or jobs that entail working with people (camp counsellor, retail, etc.).  Second, restrict his time on electronic gadgets. Anything that involves face-to-face communicating, working with others, and thinking abstractly is important.

 Also, drive home the message that where individualism and competition were once applauded, now employers look for collaboration and teamwork, and inclusion rather than exclusion. Those in the hiring seat also want fewer dominant, self-interested, and tough leaders, and more people of principle, vision, and humanity.

 Daniel H. Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, says the last few decades have belonged to computer programmers, lawyers, and number-crunchers. “But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and makers.” These artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, and big thinkers will now be the ones who thrive.

 Big-picture thinking and empathy tend to reside in people with a wide variety of experiences. In other words, parents should encourage their kids to work a variety of jobs and volunteer positions and travel if possible.

 

Today’s employers are also on the lookout for

;

 1) hard skills: basic mathematics, problem-solving, and reading abilities at levels much higher than many high school graduates attain;

 2) soft skills: the ability to work in groups and to make effective oral and written presentations, skills many schools do not teach; and 3) computer skills. The workplace has diversified, and employers want hires who work well with a diversity of cultures, genders, and age groups.

 It’s never too late to encourage this. Boys need to learn how to connect. This is best taught by activities such as laughing and rough housing, especially involving dads, uncles, or grandpas. Have fun with them in a way that involves eye contact, conversation, and listening. Finally, the workplace values employees with perseverance, adaptability, humility, and entrepreneurialism and is wary of those who need almost constant direction, which micromanaged children become. Parenting that puts an emphasis on family meetings, collaborating, and mutual respect, equips boys to think for themselves.

 Men and women bring different approaches to the table.  Knowing this allows our sons to present themselves to employers in the best light, and to vigorously pursue working on any shortcomings. Here’s what experts say:  Men are more comfortable in a hierarchical, process-driven world, which means they formerly had an advantage, but more and more workplaces stress a creative and synergistic approach.

 Men tend to have a thicker skin and they’re more invested in “knowing” than listening and learning. Many white guys in particular “freely engage in competition and conflict without preoccupation or concern with how that might undermine the group or how others are feeling,” say the authors of Corporate Tribalism. If we enlist male mentors to help our boys understand that this can work against them in today’s work environment, might they work at moderating such tendencies?

 As the workplace changes, and as boys’ underachievement lowers their academic accomplishments, it’s time for parents to sit up and take notice. We resolved the math gap through paying attention and giving girls more support. That means we can nip the language-skills gap in the bud, and give our sons the guidance it takes to steer them to success in today’s changed economy.

 Excerpted from Jump-Starting Boys: Help Your Reluctant Learner Find Success in School and Life.