Summer Jobs and Teens

Not Exactly 9 to 5…

Lots of teens get summer jobs every year. This represents a big level of commitment for a teenager. A teen might resist committing to a summer job because he or she is nervous or scared. Maybe they’ve got social anxiety about not being around their friends. Or perhaps there could be some FOMO at play, like what fun stuff are their friends doing that they could be missing out on?

Taking Care of Business

A summer job is a fantastic growing opportunity for your teen. They could have the kind of positive experience that changes their lives. They could make new friends and learn something about following through with a commitment. If you’re going to nudge or encourage them in some way to commit, you have to do it with compassion and empathy. Calmly state the reasons you want them to do it. The likelihood  they’ll come around to your point of view will increase dramatically!

There’s more to say and we get to work on it in this Tips on Teens:

“Our daughter signed up to be a camp counselor in training this summer at her old summer camp. We were really excited when she told us she wanted to do it. We thought it would be really good for her socially, and we were really glad for her to be getting a job. This weekend though she told us she wants to back out. We really want to see her follow through with the commitment. What do we do?”