How to prepare Christian young people for part-time work

By 8:30am most Saturdays I have already delivered two teenagers to their places of work (voluntary and paid) and am home again, hoping to get back in to bed only to remember that the younger children still need taking care of! If I’m extra lucky then on some Saturday nights, I also get to drive somewhere within a 20-mile radius to collect another of said teenagers from their place of work helping at events.

I am sometimes resentful of this taxi-ing that I must do, but I do it because of the value that I see it adding to their lives. They get to learn valuable life skills in a work environment, transferable skills, customer service, how to manage an income (that doesn’t come from the bank of Mum and Dad), time management and hard work.

But recent press has been a reminder to me that this, like so many other areas, is not without risk. Sadly, workplaces are potentially another area that we need to prepare our children for, to have conversations about appropriate conditions for working, treatment of staff, abuse and use of power and appropriate touch. (See here).  It’s another occasion when fear makes me want to withdraw my kids to a place of complete safety preferably wrapped in cotton wool, yet I know that’s not the best long-term plan.

So as summer is underway and there are opportunities for more shifts at work, volunteer hours or a potential job hunt – is it appropriate for our children to be doing this? Is it something they should be doing or only if they ‘need’ to? Should we encourage or support it and if so, how?