Hello Catric,
Thanks for sharing your interesting approach with us. I think this was well-suited based on the age of your client. She certainly seemed to enjoy the activity and to open up about her goals.
I noticed that you mentioned that she tended to regress a bit from time to time during your meetings. This reminded me of a few occasions when I worked with individuals that held me in high esteem. Sometimes when we are the ones that the clients look up to they may begin to relate or state things that they THINK we want to hear. This is very common but something we have to be mindful of in career development coaching. We want to help all of our clients and also to assure them that we are there to support and listen to THEIR goals. It's hard because we can see the potential but in most cases, they need time in order to actually get there.
I am probably preaching to the choir right now, because I know you are aware of this, but wanted you to know that this happens in career advising as well. I once had a student tell me she could work full time, no problem, but the only PROBLEM was that she had four kids and "iffy" daycare. She thought I wanted her to work full time and so that's what she agreed to. She never admitted this and I never brought it up. I just simply asked if she was also open to part-time roles too. She excitedly replied, "Oh, yes that would be great too!" The end result was I just looked for roles like this and stayed away from FT stuff!
Thank you for your insight. You are adding a great dimension and different perspective to this class!
Best,
Charise