At what point do you expect your teen to get a job?

Well off or not I would expect kids to be working full time in the summer by 16. Ds is 15 this year and is umpiring, cutting grass for a few neighbors and watching a friends son for a few hours a day for a few weeks, so not full time but not doing nothing either.

DD (18) has been working/volunteering full time since the summer between grade 8 and 9. She is at a sports and science day camp. She spent a summer volunteering and then it turned into a fulltime job as a counsellor and this summer she is the science programmer.

If my teens chose not to work due to their own laziness they would not see one cent from me.


ETA -  DD managed to play competitive hockey, get straight A's and a very nice scholarship and a few bursaries to university all while working part time during the school year and full time during the summer.


Ds is not as focused on school and marks but that would be the same whether he was working or not, so he works.

It depends on what else the teen does.

IMO, school is a teen’s full time job and he should concentrate on that.

If he is busy with AP/GT classes, gets all As, and is involved in extra curriculars, then I don’t expect him to have a job while in high school. When I was in HS I was the valedictorian, dance captain, academic decathlon president type. I couldn’t have achieved everything I did if I had had to get a job. But my achievements led to numerous college scholarships.

If a teen is not that involved at school, my expectations would adjust accordingly.

My kids started when they turned 16. They wanted more spending money than I could afford to give them. They also needed to save to buy themselves a car. Working was/is great for them. Teaches them a lot of responsibility and how to deal with people. Sitting around and doing nothing at that age doesn't make sense to me.

ETA: My kids are tops in their respective classes, so they juggle a lot of academic demands. We limit their work hours during the school year, but over the summer they get a lot of hours, which they like.

I would say 16, but the expectation or training toward that would begin earlier. We're looking at this right now as DD only has one more summer (between 7th and 8th grade) where there is structured care for her. After that, she's on her own , summer before HS she'll be 14. So she can't drive but there's no care either. I'm looking ahead to what the expectations are going to be and one of the choices is going to be Junior life guard training. I have not looked into it, but I believe it's structured so that they take the training before 16 so when they're old enough to work they can come in as a life guard. As she's not at that point yet I haven't looked into it all that closely.

During the year, I'd expect her to take on something like babysitting but it's going to be a fine line as she pushes herself and has anxiety. I don't want her to think she has to balance all of it at once

For us it was different for each teen, based on schedule, other activities. I don’t think there is one right answer for each kid and/ or family.

Ds started working part time at age 16. Dd is 18 and just started applying for a summer job.

With my kids and their friends, very few were able to find jobs until they were 17 unless they worked in a family business. Some did pick up a little money babysitting or pet sitting. 

This has been a discussion in our house lately. My 15 year old dd is begging to be able to get a job. However, there isn't anywhere in our town of 800 to work so she would have to drive about 45 miles. Dh and I are in agreement that we 1) don't want her driving that far alone yet, 2) time she pays for gas and taxes she won't be making much and 3) we don't want our schedule for the weekends to be determined by her job.

However, both dh and I started working when I was 14.

Well we expected them to probably start looking around 16 but it was pretty hard at that time to find any jobs for a teen, right smack dab in the recession.  But my daughter found something pretty fast.  DS though never had an interest in working and he never needed much money.. He did some side stuff for a real estate friend which gave him his spending money.  He joined the AF right out of high school.  So that said he basically was a low key kid that just got by on some side stuff and then totally on his own when he joined the AF, he left 3 months after graduating. 

We didn't buy them cars (they both are within 14 months of each other) but when I got a new one, the older one was passed down to them to drive. A 1996 Honda Civic I think.  Good 2nd car and no money out of pocket to get it. They paid the gas and upkeep and we paid the insurance. When they bought their own cars, everything to do with their own cars at that point passed onto them, insurance, upkeep, payments, etc.

Edited to add... They had to maintain grades and extras. DD was honor roll student and JV and V volleyball... DS again was not into anything at school.. he made good grades but didn't have much school activities.. just wasn't into it. DS did more at home, mowing the lawn and such.  Helped DH with cars as well.  

My parents weren't well off at all, but paid my insurance and gas through high school, and my insurance through college.

I worked a job my junior year in high school (didn't turn 16 until the summer before that year) and then worked 2 jobs my senior year. That money was all banked and saved, other than my spending money, which really wasn't much.

My brother was mowing lawns at 14 and making more money than I was.

I'd love for ds17 (today) to have a summer job, he'd like one too, but it's just not realistic. Between basketball training, football training (he hasn't decided yet if he's actually playing), a couple basketball camps and a couple of family vacations I'm not sure exactly when he'd be able to work and I can't imaging any employer willing to work around his crazy schedule. So for now his job is school and the extracurriculars that come with it. We have some projects around here that dh said he'd pay him for so he can have some pocket money (we cover his insurance as long as he keeps his grades up and a reasonable amount of gas).

Basically that. 

My DD is 16 and job hunting now. She got her license in May and I provide a car for her. When she gets a job I have asked for her to pay for her gas and $40/week toward her insurance and car payment. I will pay the rest. She’s had a little over a month free pass since she hasn’t found a job. But right now I’m limiting her driving some because she’s not gonna run around all day and me foot the bill.

DS got his first job after he graduated from high school. His jobs during school were school and sports and those kept him plenty busy.

Junior year.  Part time summer and a few hours a week.  DD works at Panera and loves it.