Summer jobs for teens, a good thing?

I didn't work as a teen. My mom wanted us to concentrate on school work during the year and being kids during the summer. My husband DID work and found out he could make alot of money so he didn't want to go back to school. That's enough for me to know I won't let my kids work until they are out of school.

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I worked some as a teen, not a lot.

I think a few hours a week in the summer wouldn't hurt. Clothes are expensive and if a teen wants to work to buy clothes or pay for the extra expenses incurred in high school, like dances, yearbook and prom I think it is good for teens to take on some of that finanacial responsibility. I also think working would keep teens out of trouble and from being bored.

Going to the beach and hanging out with friends is important too! It can all be balanced.

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My mom said, "If you want to drive, you have to get a job" and I was responsible for paying for my own gas and car insurance. It was one of the best things she did for me. I learned how to work with a wide variety of people, how to be responsible both financially and otherwise (having to be at work on time, working hard, etc.), and basic common sense and life skills. I averaged 10 - 15 hours a week, but I really learned alot from having a job.

I work with college age people, and it's amazing how protected so many of them have been - never working, never having to do anything for themselves. they don't know what it means to have responsibility because their parents have never required it of them. I think that it's a good idea to teach kids how to be responsible so they are ready when they are "in the real world" and have to take care of themselves.

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I wasn't allowed to work during high school. I should have been. I think I might have a much better handle on how to manage money now if my parents hadn't just handed me everything. I think I would like my kids to have summer jobs when they are older, but we would certainly limit how many hours they worked and discuss what the money would be used for.

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Hmmm...I had a nice long post that seems to have gotten eaten by the internet fairy...

Anyway, I'll summarize:

I had jobs in high school. I feel they taught me self-confidence (that I wasn't getting from home), how to manage money and time and how to live and act like an adult.

Like someone has already stated, there are many college students you meet who have lived extraordinarily sheltered lives up until college. Once that time hits, they let loose metnally and financially, and unfortunately, a lot of them damage their credit pretty badly and rack up a heck of a lot of debt as a result.

I had a credit card in high school and learned to budget and pay my bills every month. The one time I bounced a check or paid a bill late, I learned not to do it again, under the watchful eye of my parents (one thing they did very well was prepare us financially).

Also, having had one particularly bad job as a teen, I learned not to put up with shitty jobs.

To this day, I have excellent credit, own a home, and have a job that I absolutely love.

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I didn't work while I was in school - way too immature for that :) - but if I had, you can be damn sure that most of "my" money would've gone to the bills. We didn't have spare money that my income could go just for me.

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I worked for my father (NOT as cushy as you'd think-I got ALL the crap shifts) since I needed to money if I wanted anything. Having the attention problems I have, I found it really hard to "split" between work and school. But it had to be done. Then I go to apply for bursuries and scholarships at graduation, to discover I needed all kinds of volunteer work to qualify. Who had the time?!

My kids will work, but only a certain number of hours a week. I will encourage them to save/invest since my father never did, and now, I can't save money to save my life. Working on it though.

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I did not work until I was in college, but my brother worked from a younger age. I have always been more responsible with money, but I think it has more to do with personality than anything else. My daughter had a really rough job last summer in agriculture, and she learned that she'd rather be in business for herself than just take any old job for the money. She and her younger brother must earn all their spending money, and they are pretty responsible how they spend it.

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My 16-year-old will have her first summer job this year, through a program in our state that places kids with special needs in jobs as practice for future employment. She wants to go into childcare after high school and will probably work at a summer camp now, so it will be good experience for her; the money is really secondary in importance. We'll be working out a way for her to save some and have some to spend. She's been wanting a video iPod and I may let her put some money aside for that.

I didn't work much in high school -- had a low-paying job at the school library during the year and nothing, I think, during the summer. I did work in college, and that was soon enough. For my daughter, college may not be a good option for right after high school, so I think seeing what a job is like and learning what skills she'll need will be particularly important and useful for her.

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I worked summers as a teen, and once I started working, became responsible for many of my costs: clothing, gas, car insurance, school lunch, a percentage saved for college. This was what was expected of me.

I think that working as a teen fails when the money is "extra" (the teen doesn't shift to a more responsible position) and succeeds when the parents use it as an opportunity to create independence. My parents still paid for the bigger-money items: for example, I could have afforded my prom dress (my first truly "formal" dress, which I still own and wear to this day, fifteen years later), but it would have taken quite a chunk on top of the ticket, limo, and dinner I also had to pay for. So, my parents paid for the dress, I paid for the rest. They still purchased all the food I needed to take bag lunches, so it was up to me whether to purchase food at school (and watch how quickly that drained my money away) or take the same sandwiches, juice boxes, and granola bars I'd taken for years.

When I got to college, I'd been budgeting myself for several years. I moved into a larger budget, with checking account and credit card, pretty naturally. I didn't run up credit card debt (I have never carried a balance), bounced a check once (learned from that!), and learned how to save for things I wanted rather than give into the "purchase NOW!" desires.

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I looked long a hard for a job while I was in school. My mom didn't have much money and I often had to skip school projects, socials, and clubs because we didn't have any money. I pretty much missed out on everything to do with school (including Prom) because of no money. I was starting to find thing online that made you a little bit of money, not much but it was all I could find. I think it is a GREAT idea to let teens have summer jobs, maybe you can work a compromise? Put half in savings and spend the other half.

Also you don't need a job to teach financal responsabily. Just say no to EVERYTHING they want, tell them you don't have any money. My mom taught me how to be the cheapskate I am today because my dad never paid child support (current owes over 42 THOUSAND dollars to her) and she didn't make much money and was a single mom.

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I worked in childcare all through high school, from age 12 up, and I think it was a very good thing for me. After school I rode my bike over to a in-home family childcare center, and worked there until 6 pm. In the summers I went to summer school, or worked for the YMCA as a counsellor for summer camp. The first thing I did with my Mom when I got my first job was set up a savings account, and I put a percentage of my salary in it every month. I paid for college almost entirely on my own, so I had plenty to save for. And taking care of kids took a lot responsibility. My parents never gave us cash, unless we really needed something specific. If we wanted money, we earned it, and we were told that if we wanted cars, we would need to first pay for the driver's ed course, and then pay for the car and the insurance. I didn't get a car until after I graduated from college.

I'm not sure the situation was ideal -- I was sufficiently financially strapped that I didn't move out of my parents' house until after college, and then I moved cross country. But I did learn to save money, and that you don't get things for free. And this wasn't real financial tightness on my family's part -- I grew up in a middle-class family. They just felt that it was important.

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I worked much of the time. Baby sitting and housekeeping at first, then in a record store (fun), a shoe store (not fun), and finally Woolworths (yuck).

Never had too many hours and never made much but what I made was mine and enough for the little extras my folks couldn't afford. It paid more than I would have received as an allowance.

It had one other advantage. It convinced me I didn't want any part of standing behind a counter for the rest of my life.

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I worked as a kid, in my dad's CPA office. I could do 10-key touch almost before I could walk. We all did. Later, I did do some work for other folks in the building -- I xeroxed the review copies of one of Galen Rowell's books (and read part of it before anyone else). I didn't get paid for working for my folks and most of the other money went into the family pot.

My kids will probably work, but we really like the save/invest/donate/spend model (http://www.bloggingbaby.com/2006/02/24/money-savvy-pig/) that was mentioned a while back. We're going to have our kids do that. Hopefully, it will teach them a little restraint and responsibility -- something I never learned.

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Wow. Thank you for all the input. It is so good to hear all the feed back.

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I am 15, and plan on getting a job at a day care/private school once I come back from the beach this year (I'll be 16 then too). I'll work mostly 6 hour days when I don't have school and when I do, I'll have a 2 hour day.

I don't want this job for the money, but to spend time with kids so I can be sure that I want to head in the education track after high school. The money will be nice though.

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I have mixed feelings about this. I worked as soon as I turned 16. Having to manage my money myself, I was able to be responsible enough to move out right after graduation. I also saved my money and tithed on it. but I don't know if I want my kids to work 40 hrs/wk during the summer like I did. I never got to go to any summer camps or have a lot of fun. I was always working. I'm torn.

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My parents didn't allow me to work during high school. They always said that school was my job. I could do chores around the house or for neighbors for money, but no regular job. My parents never really discussed money or finances with us either - it was "none of our business". I have always been really responsible with money - but also very uncomfortable with it. I save like crazy, but hate spending money on anything. Big purchases requiring loans (house, car, etc) give me panic attacks. I think if I had had earlier experiencing managing my own finances, I wouldn't have these issues.

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Hella yea they should work. How else are they going to have good stories of humilation from first jobs? Besides, kids that don't work grow up to be adults that are jags to the waiters/waitresses, retail clerks and anyone else that has had to do a crap job. Case in point...

My first tween job was to sit outside the locker room of our local pool and tell people to go back in and take a shower if they didn't come out wet.

Lotta,
http://mom-o-matic.blogspot.com/

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My daughter looked for a summer job last year, but our city has several colleges and universitys and most employers require you to be 16. This year in an effort to minimize the amount of time she had available for a boyfriend I'm not pleased about we arranged for her to be a summer intern at my workplace. She will be working 37.5 hours a week for 6 weeks and we've already agreed on how much she is contributing to the transportation costs, how much she is putting into a savings account for university, and how much she is putting aside for a school trip she wants to participate in next April. Once all that is taken care of she will still have more disposable income than she's had before, but I've made a deal with her supervisor - she has promised to make this a "good for the summer but I wouldn't want to do it forever" job :)

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