How to get teens to work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teen is dying to work and had a lot of trouble getting a job. He submitted dozens of online applications and heard back from almost no one. Maybe this os because he had nothing to put but volunteer gigs in the “previous experience”? Anyway, I keep hearing abt all the jobs going infilled but my teen got almost no response. (And these were definitely teen appropriate jobs-he wasn’t shooting high or anything.)

He should just walking into places that have now hiring signs and offer to start right away, like that minute.

I already responded to your post but also wanted to address this point.

You aren't going to be able to start "that minute." There is a hiring process. Background checks. Drug screening. TB testing if working with food. Training.
Some jobs will require specific attire like non-slip shoes (my kid who worked in fast food was required to have) or steel toed shoes if working in other places.
The onboarding process can take weeks.

Yes, and each of these steps is a place where managers can and often do drop the ball in the hiring process (through no fault of the applicant).

[Anonymous]

To the poster who asked about age appropriate jobs, here are my son's summer jobs.

Year he turned 16, he worked at a pool cafe at a nearly country club. Good first job. Made tons of money especially at the end of the summer when the college kids left. He was working 12 hr days nearly every day for 2-3 weeks. Not set schedule.

Year he turned 17, he wanted something else. He applied everywhere with help wanted signs and only got one interview. He must have applied to 25+ places. He was hired at a chain restaurant as a host but didn't start until mid July. No set schedule.

This summer, he is 18 and I made him apply to summer camp jobs back in Jan/Feb. He interviewed with one in mid March and was hired in early April. Set M-F schedule and he knows exactly how much he is making. He has time in the evenings to go to the gym and spends weekends with friends.


My vote is to look early for summer only jobs- pools, country clubs, summer camps, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another out of touch OP, or maybe just the same one that keeps obsessing over this and getting all the ignorant parents riled up.

DCUM is divided between the lower class whose kids tend to have jobs;

and the upper class whose kids tend not to have jobs.

A job at Giant does nothing for one's future career if the family does not need the income from their working teen.

Teens these days have already developed work ethic, teamwork, etc, in all the expensive activities and internships that they've done over the years.

This needs to be repeated on every single thread where the OP moronically complains about lazy teens not working.

- parent of non-working teen. I didn't work as a teen either. Teen jobs are not a rite of passage. Indeed, most things posters tout on this board as "rites of passage" are... simply not.

And this is not just my own teen's experience. He just graduated from high school. NONE of the teens we know work - some may have had a part-time job, like my kid (during the pandemic, something outdoors since all his usual activities closed).
Jobless teen does not equal lazy teen.
Just putting it out there because I hate these threads that always dump on teens, and call them lazy every time they aren't straight A, Ivy-bound students with jobs.

We live in CCDC, kids with multiple teens and I can't think of a single friend of theirs without a job. None are Ivy bound or attending. Ha! Mine that just graduated is working as a camp counselor with a bunch of friends. Parents educated and with money and still make their kids work. I really don't blame the teens, they are lazy by nature. But it is lazy parenting to not insist your kids know what it is like to have a crap job with a crap boss and crap hours.

No. Insisting that your kids have “a crap job with a crap boss with crap hours” is bad parenting, unless your family needs that income to survive. You sound old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stop providing things for them that are not the basics and they’ll get a job.

At the expense of time to study? Time in ECs? Volunteer work?

Are you going to be a happier parent when your 16 year old can't come to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Carol's because they have to put in their 4 hour shift at Giant?

A job is an EC activity. It’s extra to curricular activity.

It’s not 1990, folks. A crappy part-time retail job isn’t helping your kid get into a good college. Sorry to disappoint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teen is dying to work and had a lot of trouble getting a job. He submitted dozens of online applications and heard back from almost no one. Maybe this os because he had nothing to put but volunteer gigs in the “previous experience”? Anyway, I keep hearing abt all the jobs going infilled but my teen got almost no response. (And these were definitely teen appropriate jobs-he wasn’t shooting high or anything.)

He should just walking into places that have now hiring signs and offer to start right away, like that minute.

Go back and read the thread, slowly this time, until you understand it.

[Anonymous]

Step mom alert

[Anonymous]

Here is my take. My 14 year old got a job this summer working part time at $14 an hour. He gets maybe 1 or 2 shifts per week, which is great since he has 4 weeks of vacation plus camps this summer. His best friend, also 14, applied to several jobs and got no offers - just luck of the draw and both kids are upper middle class at public schools. Benefit is that being at public school with a no homework policy, all he does is sports travel practice 2x per week, and then YouTube or video games. Keeps him grounded, and anything he makes we will match for his Roth IRA. We live close enough that he can get to work on his own,
But it is tough for 14 year Olds to find a job with set hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stop providing things for them that are not the basics and they’ll get a job.

At the expense of time to study? Time in ECs? Volunteer work?

Are you going to be a happier parent when your 16 year old can't come to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Carol's because they have to put in their 4 hour shift at Giant?

A job is an EC activity. It’s extra to curricular activity.

It’s not 1990, folks. A crappy part-time retail job isn’t helping your kid get into a good college. Sorry to disappoint.

My DH sits on a committee to hire college interns and he says they often pass on applicants who've never had any job history. I'd be embarrassed to submit a resume at age 20/21 with no employment history at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another out of touch OP, or maybe just the same one that keeps obsessing over this and getting all the ignorant parents riled up.

DCUM is divided between the lower class whose kids tend to have jobs;

and the upper class whose kids tend not to have jobs.

A job at Giant does nothing for one's future career if the family does not need the income from their working teen.

Teens these days have already developed work ethic, teamwork, etc, in all the expensive activities and internships that they've done over the years.

This needs to be repeated on every single thread where the OP moronically complains about lazy teens not working.

- parent of non-working teen. I didn't work as a teen either. Teen jobs are not a rite of passage. Indeed, most things posters tout on this board as "rites of passage" are... simply not.

And this is not just my own teen's experience. He just graduated from high school. NONE of the teens we know work - some may have had a part-time job, like my kid (during the pandemic, something outdoors since all his usual activities closed).
Jobless teen does not equal lazy teen.
Just putting it out there because I hate these threads that always dump on teens, and call them lazy every time they aren't straight A, Ivy-bound students with jobs.

One of my teens wants a job during the school year but I’m not really encouraging it. The thing I’ve pointed out to my kids is that jobs aren’t flexible, you need to show up if you are scheduled. While my kids have good time management skills and multiple activities, with heavy AP class schedules I would rather they not commit their weekday evenings to a job. Their activities are also commitments but there is often a bit of flexibility if they need to study for a big test or finish a project. I don’t want school coming second to working as a restaurant hostess or at an ice cream store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stop providing things for them that are not the basics and they’ll get a job.

At the expense of time to study? Time in ECs? Volunteer work?

Are you going to be a happier parent when your 16 year old can't come to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Carol's because they have to put in their 4 hour shift at Giant?

A job is an EC activity. It’s extra to curricular activity.

Ok fine.
At the expense of time to study? Playing a sport? Playing a musical instrument/singing? Performing in a school theater production? Taking part in a robotics competition?

How happy will you be when your 16 year old has to miss out on family events like birthday parties, Thanksgiving at relative's house, etc. because they have to work weekends/evenings/holidays?

My daughter has 2 jobs and has never missed an important family event due to them. She also takes Taekwondo and is in Marching band and is a 4.0 UW GPA student.

Time management matters. That’s why people are saying it’s a good thing. It’s not at the expense of other things, it’s a valuable activity in its own right. I’m not saying all kids have to have a job. I’m just saying that a job can be rewarding in more ways than earning a paycheck.

"Time management" has nothing to do with it if your work schedules you to work noon-4 pm on Thanksgiving and the entire family has dinner at 5 at Aunt Carol's in Scranton.
Maybe your kid's workplace wasn't open on Thanksgiving, but many of the examples given here (like grocery stores) definitely are.

Okay. You need to stop with this very specific example. Most people don’t work on thanksgiving and kids can actually request off and they can quit if it’s an issue. You’re making an example of like one day out of 365 days. And if my kid had to work on thanksgiving I’d not be angry about it.

In the unlikely scenario that I have to go to Scranton on thanksgiving a 5PM and my child is scheduled to work at Giant that weekend, I will deal with that bridge when I come to it.

You need to stop thinking you can tell me what to do. Your daughter's situation is also a "very specific example" yet you keep bringing it up.

It's not just "one day"--most families have multiple special days, holidays, an occasions that are harder to accommodate when you work low level service jobs.

NP. *shrug*

Do you have teenagers? My kids are still little but I cannot count the number of "special days" and family events that our teenage family members have missed due to sports practices/events, theater productions, rehearsals, etc. That's part of being a being a teenager. It's not just jobs. If you're concerned about your child missing family events as teenagers, they better not get involved in pretty much anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another out of touch OP, or maybe just the same one that keeps obsessing over this and getting all the ignorant parents riled up.

DCUM is divided between the lower class whose kids tend to have jobs;

and the upper class whose kids tend not to have jobs.

A job at Giant does nothing for one's future career if the family does not need the income from their working teen.

Teens these days have already developed work ethic, teamwork, etc, in all the expensive activities and internships that they've done over the years.

This needs to be repeated on every single thread where the OP moronically complains about lazy teens not working.

- parent of non-working teen. I didn't work as a teen either. Teen jobs are not a rite of passage. Indeed, most things posters tout on this board as "rites of passage" are... simply not.

And this is not just my own teen's experience. He just graduated from high school. NONE of the teens we know work - some may have had a part-time job, like my kid (during the pandemic, something outdoors since all his usual activities closed).
Jobless teen does not equal lazy teen.
Just putting it out there because I hate these threads that always dump on teens, and call them lazy every time they aren't straight A, Ivy-bound students with jobs.

One of my teens wants a job during the school year but I’m not really encouraging it. The thing I’ve pointed out to my kids is that jobs aren’t flexible, you need to show up if you are scheduled. While my kids have good time management skills and multiple activities, with heavy AP class schedules I would rather they not commit their weekday evenings to a job. Their activities are also commitments but there is often a bit of flexibility if they need to study for a big test or finish a project. I don’t want school coming second to working as a restaurant hostess or at an ice cream store.

That's the whole point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stop providing things for them that are not the basics and they’ll get a job.

At the expense of time to study? Time in ECs? Volunteer work?

Are you going to be a happier parent when your 16 year old can't come to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Carol's because they have to put in their 4 hour shift at Giant?

A job is an EC activity. It’s extra to curricular activity.

Ok fine.
At the expense of time to study? Playing a sport? Playing a musical instrument/singing? Performing in a school theater production? Taking part in a robotics competition?

How happy will you be when your 16 year old has to miss out on family events like birthday parties, Thanksgiving at relative's house, etc. because they have to work weekends/evenings/holidays?

My daughter has 2 jobs and has never missed an important family event due to them. She also takes Taekwondo and is in Marching band and is a 4.0 UW GPA student.

Time management matters. That’s why people are saying it’s a good thing. It’s not at the expense of other things, it’s a valuable activity in its own right. I’m not saying all kids have to have a job. I’m just saying that a job can be rewarding in more ways than earning a paycheck.

She'll have a lifetime to work. Sad that she's missing out on just being a kid.

She wanted to work. I didn’t ask her to get a job. There’s a big difference between having a job and having a career. A job at this age, for her, is an activity she enjoys for which she is paid money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stop providing things for them that are not the basics and they’ll get a job.

At the expense of time to study? Time in ECs? Volunteer work?

Are you going to be a happier parent when your 16 year old can't come to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Carol's because they have to put in their 4 hour shift at Giant?

A job is an EC activity. It’s extra to curricular activity.

It’s not 1990, folks. A crappy part-time retail job isn’t helping your kid get into a good college. Sorry to disappoint.

Not all things are specifically geared toward getting into Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stop providing things for them that are not the basics and they’ll get a job.

At the expense of time to study? Time in ECs? Volunteer work?

Are you going to be a happier parent when your 16 year old can't come to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Carol's because they have to put in their 4 hour shift at Giant?

A job is an EC activity. It’s extra to curricular activity.

Ok fine.
At the expense of time to study? Playing a sport? Playing a musical instrument/singing? Performing in a school theater production? Taking part in a robotics competition?

How happy will you be when your 16 year old has to miss out on family events like birthday parties, Thanksgiving at relative's house, etc. because they have to work weekends/evenings/holidays?

My daughter has 2 jobs and has never missed an important family event due to them. She also takes Taekwondo and is in Marching band and is a 4.0 UW GPA student.

Time management matters. That’s why people are saying it’s a good thing. It’s not at the expense of other things, it’s a valuable activity in its own right. I’m not saying all kids have to have a job. I’m just saying that a job can be rewarding in more ways than earning a paycheck.

She'll have a lifetime to work. Sad that she's missing out on just being a kid.

It's sad that getting your first job is no longer considered part of being a kid (/teen). My first job as an ice cream scooper was so formative and where many of my best teenage memories were formed. My daughter (who graduated from college two months ago) also has discussed many times over the years that her first job (as a concessionaire at a movie theater) was an integral part of her high school experience and taught her so many life lessons. It was work but it was also fun. She is still friends with many of the people from the "movie theater crew."

I guess I don't understand why you think being a kid and having a job are mutually exclusive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stop providing things for them that are not the basics and they’ll get a job.

At the expense of time to study? Time in ECs? Volunteer work?

Are you going to be a happier parent when your 16 year old can't come to Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt Carol's because they have to put in their 4 hour shift at Giant?

A job is an EC activity. It’s extra to curricular activity.

It’s not 1990, folks. A crappy part-time retail job isn’t helping your kid get into a good college. Sorry to disappoint.

And? This is just such a bizarre mindset to me, that teenagers should only be doing things if they help them get into a "good college."