Four Rules for Working Teens

I'll begin by saying thanks to Michelle Singletary, personal-finance columnist for the Washington Post, for choosing my book, Raising Money Smart Kids (Kaplan), as the June selection for her Color of Money book club.

Singletary says the book is "an easy read, peppered with questions from parents and children" (that's you, the readers of this column). And she points out that she and I often agree about kids and money. For example, we both nix the idea of credit cards for teens.

She also appreciates the book's balanced point of view, such as on the issue of whether teens should get jobs, the subject of her recent column. Singletary is "increasingly frustrated" by the notion that children must be introduced to adult things so early in life (again, we agree). She puts working for pay in the same category as credit cards.

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Singletary has a point. It's important that kids learn the value of work, plus the other virtues it brings: showing up on time, taking on responsibility, getting along with bosses and co-workers.

The trouble is, a paying job can be a two-edged sword. If kids go to work just to earn money to buy more clothes and concert tickets, it's easy to create a generation of teenage werewolves, obsessed with feeding their ravenous spending appetites. And research shows that the more hours students work during the school year, the more their grades begin to suffer.

What's a parent to do? That's where the balance comes in. Yes, it's good for teens to work. But just because your kids are old enough to have a job doesn't mean they're grown up. They need guidance in how to land a job, set reasonable hours and manage their earnings. Follow these rules:

Start with a summer job, so there's no conflict with school.
Limit kids' hours if they want to continue working when school starts. Ten hours a week are plenty for high school sophomores, 15 for older teens.
Ask children to save a portion of their earnings. It's not unreasonable to expect them to set aside as much as half of their income to pay for the prom, class trip and other big-ticket senior-year expenses, or for college.
Encourage them to volunteer. Teens are often given more responsibility in unpaid positions than in paying jobs, and they're exposed to careers and life experiences that they might not normally experience.

Next week: Tips for teens on landing a job.

Janet Bodnar is editor-at-large of Kiplinger's Personal Finance, a position she assumed after retiring as editor of the magazine after eight years at the helm. She is a nationally recognized expert on the subjects of women and money, children's and family finances, and financial literacy. She is the author of two books, Money Smart Women and Raising Money Smart Kids. As editor-at-large, she writes two popular columns for Kiplinger, "Money Smart Women" and "Living in Retirement." Bodnar is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and is a member of its Board of Trustees. She received her master's degree from Columbia University, where she was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism.