Part-time jobs for teenagers: Education for the real world

By Patricia Carswell 1100AM GMT eleven March 2010

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Raking it in Tom Hall gets stranded in to a mark of gardening, watched by his mother, Patricia Carswell Photo CHRISTOPHER JONES

Of all of the teenage rites of thoroughfare so far, one of the majority gratifying has been dropping my son off for his initial paid job. Admittedly it was usually raking leaves for a next door neighbour not only enrolling at Goldman Sachs but this one small step in to the universe of work felt similar to a hulk step in to adult life.

Since afterwards (still, maybe mercifully, display no enterprise towards banking) he has branched out in to car washing, portrayal and decorating, timber chopping and guitar lessons. The money, that he"s saving for a post-GCSE plea expedition, has, gratifyingly, proposed to hurl in and the outing is apropos a reality.

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More gratifying than saying him lift the cash, though, is my flourishing clarity that he is removing a ambience of what genuine hold up is all about. I can harass and evangelise all I similar to about the worth of money, but but saying it for himself, the chances are that my divine difference will be filed in the territory of his teenage mind clinging to uninteresting adult lectures, to one side the dangers of the internet and the state of complicated cocktail music.

A back-breaking afternoon chopping logs, rewarded by a handful of frail notes, is an forever some-more in effect approach of removing the summary opposite that income doesn"t grow on trees.

As any primogenitor of a operative teenager will discuss it you, the advantages go over the quite financial. Suddenly under obligation to someone alternative than their relatives and teachers, they fast find that slacking off has consequences over a dodgy report. Made to wash up all over again, flustered in front of colleagues they"re penetrating to stir or worse not removing paid at all; the lessons are fast learnt.

These lessons will mount them in great stead for years to come. Jackie James, whose children, Rhys, 22, Philip, 19, and Nicky, 18, all juggled part-time jobs around their schoolwork, has no disbelief that it did them good.

"It gave them all majority and responsibility." she says. "And when Rhys was seeking for jobs after on, it gave him certainty as he knew he had the capability to do things for alternative people."

Some superbly idealistic teenagers even select to work for no money. Julia Marshall, 15, volunteers at a Cancer Research UK gift shop. She tells me that she was encouraged to request by a enterprise to help.

"Cancer is a big thing at the moment," she says, "and as I can"t work in a lab, this was the most appropriate thing I could do. I get a clarity of compensation from you do it, generally when the gift tells us how most the emporium has done during the year. But I regularly feel I could be you do more."

Inspired by these heartening examples of sedulous youth, it would be easy feel a hold complacent. In enlivening my son to work, maybe I"ve stumbled on a form of amicable fast-tracking that no volume of whim education or old-school-tie networking could buy something to interest both to my unapproachable clarity of preservation and my less estimable clarity of parental competitiveness.

Before I get carried afar with thoughts of amicable benefits and negotiable skills, though, I"m reminded that rising in to the marketplace isn"t all solid sailing.

Balancing schoolwork and a amicable hold up with the final of a trainer however good and internal is a challenge. Most teenagers aren"t sanctified with a entirely functioning time government gene and the pressures can mountup. Deciding in between a square of coursework that counts towards a GCSE and a joining to an employer or customer can be a difficult call.

Sam Kerr, 15, spends his Saturday evenings washing up and watchful tables at a internal pub.

"He does find it tough to fit it all in," says his mother, Louise. "He mostly plays rugby on a Saturday afternoon and comes back, lonesome in mud, with frequency any time to showering and eat prior to he goes out again. He has to have certain that he lets his trainer know if he"s going to be late and he has had to sense to think ahead."

Having a unchanging pursuit can be a draw towards in alternative ways, too. Sam has had to miss parties in sequence to go to work and infrequently it feels similar to a scapegoat as well far.

"It would be simpler to contend "Don"t go to work"," Louise says. "It"s a prolonged day at the finish of a prolonged week and infrequently he doesn"t feel similar to it."

For all that, she is austere that the benefits transcend the pitfalls.

"It"s taught him about joining and has since him a work ethic. He understands the worth of money, as well and he unequivocally appreciates his private, personal time."

That"s a toll sufficient publicity for me. Early practice competence not be the pass to success that I"d similar to to imagine, but it really has the advantages. And who knows? With the economy in the state it is, all those gardening and washing-up skills competence only come in utilitarian one day.

KEEPING TABS

Do

Check out the taxation position. Mr Darling might be after their cash.Give them a leg up. Tools and apparatus arent cheap.Cut them a little slack. Real work is tiring.

Dont

Keep popping in. Really, dont.Snigger when they discuss it you how tough it is.Insist on pity their earnings. Payback time comes later.