A Qualitative Study of Parents’ Reasoning and Decision Making Process in Career Choice for their Children

The present study aimed to understand the parents’ reasoning and decision making process in career choice for their children and its impact on parents’ mental health. The research was designed primarily in the qualitative mode as it caters to a subjective experiential realm of the parents. The participants were 20 parents of children enrolled in classes 9^th to 12^th in Delhi schools selected through snowball sampling method. General Health Questionnaire-12 was used to rule out psychiatric morbidity and a semi structured interview schedule was specifically designed for the study. Face to face interviews of 40–50 minutes were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Result suggest Parents’ reasoning was found to be based on child, parent and future related factors in arriving at a suitable choice, being inductive, deductive or conditional in nature. Parents’ decision making was either based on rational models or deviated from rational models wherein either the index person or participants’ expectations and desires determined career choice. Mental heath impact of the process was defined by parents in terms of role responsibility fulfillment phase, confusion, distress creating phase that brought about changes in social and occupational routines, a protective function serving phase with a positive appraisal of the resulting changes. The study has mental health implications in terms of making the process more collaborative and planned between the parent-child dyad that ensures a better quality of life for both.