Career change advice

I find it difficult giving advice to our kids about college education and careers because I have no experience other than High School to go on .

When our kids were small even though my husband and I were Witnesses we always encouraged them to get good grades and to strive for more education than we had. We didn't give in to the Home School craze in our hall (which at the time made one of our sons very mad) . We thought they would get a better balanced education in public school and figured dealing with real world situations better prepared them .

One of our sons did get a college scholarship and recieved a degree . At the time he was dating a young pioneer sister that tried very hard to get him to quit half way through his training in order to take a part time job and pioneer .I put my foot down on her and let her know in no uncertain terms would we allow that to happen ,not until he graduated then he could choose . Glad he chose to finish school because by that time she was out of the picture .

Our oldest son took advantage of a High School area career center program . At eighteen he was trained as a GM mechanic and had a full-time job out of school . He continued with GM training until he had his Master tech certification . Now that Gm has down sized it's franchises he is being sorely affected . He would like to change careers now ,but does not know what to get into next . He is a natural mechanic ,but sick of working on cars , want s to do something that will let him be outside some of the time . He also needs to keep busy because he hates down time when he works .

So what suggestions can you come up with ??  How do you get schooling when you are married ,and have a mortgage to pay ? I don't know how some of you do it as adults going back to school ....what secrets don't I know about ?

not from over there so dont know how it works there

any chance he can diversify using the skills he has?

my hubby was a great natural mechanic, he went on to motorbikes,roadside recovery,joined up as a  retained fireman, did hot rod mechanicing then race marshalling as a hobby went onto race rescue and extrication also hobby then onto first response (and a few other things in between) he's ended up with a well paid job in the fire brigade.

ok it didnt happen over night, but by combining work and play he widened his existing skills and cv

Both the Tech college and University have programs for career change.  I took  some tests and it gauged what I knew against my abilities and experience.  Do they have such programs around there.  The state government also has a department geared toward this.

I wish I had you as my parents when I was growing up.  You definitely had your children's interest at heart instead of only the WTS interests.

Depending on the state you live in and the length of time your son has been out of work, some states offer training to learn another skill and get paid unemployment.   For ones who were unemployed for several months, there was agencies that would reimburse an employer half of the wages of hiring such a person.

Unfortuately with the economy at a bottom, there are alot of unemployed and few employers hiring.