Christo - My name's Christo. I'm 20, turning 21 in like a month and I finished school in 2013.
Pru - My name is Pru. I'm the mother of three children. I work full time. 
Christo - I got really stressed during exams just because I felt like I knew that I wasn't gonna do too well and deep down I didn't actually care too much and the only thing I was stressed about was what I was gonna do after school. 
Pru - When Christo finished school, I was hoping that he might want to go to university or go to TAFE. 
Christo - I wasn't really interested in doing anything that required a high ATAR. I was more into something which required a portfolio or maybe even something that was more hands on, like carpentry or a trade. 
Pru - I was I think hoping that he would go straight into doing a course. I didn't believe in gap years but with Christopher I changed my tune on that one. I realised that Christopher was not going to go straight into doing a course and that he definitely needed a gap year. 
Christo - Mom and dad, they kind of would just throw me random options and say would you like to try that? And no, not really. That wasn't a negative thing for them to just give me random. It was food for thought and it did help me choose what I wanted to do. 
Pru- Talking about having some sort of ambition for doing something after you've finished school gives the student this impetus to perhaps push themselves a little bit harder. 
Christo - Maybe it was just me not liking that, being like forced to think about it because I was just like putting it to the back of my head and just forgetting about it. 
Pru - Christo and I started having discussions about his future. When we went to a careers night he actually was quite interested in seeing what there was to offer. 
Christo - My third year out of school I'd found, you know, that I was comfortable trying something. I ended up going into design school, so, Billy Blue. 
Pru - I don't think you can force your children to follow a career path that you always wanted to or follow a career path that you think would be good for them because really by the time they're 17 they have an independent, well, they should be thinking independently. 
I think you're there to guide your children, not to tell them what to do.