Parenting

The allowance you assess will reflect the amount you can afford to spend on your teenager. If they want more, it is entirely reasonable that you require that they go outside the family and earn it. Some parents are willing to offer an extra amount if jobs are undertaken around the home, but you might like to consider your attitudes to this. On the one hand is the argument that, as members of a family, they have a certain share in the duties as well as the privileges. Mum doesn't get payment for the cooking of meals, nor Dad for mowing the lawn, so why should anyone else? The argument against that might be that she chose to have a family, and he chose to have a garden, neither of which applies to the youngster! The problem with giving money for household chores is that it implies that contributing towards the family's well-being is only a responsibility for some of its members. In effect, it says that parents are there to give and young people only to receive - an attitude that makes for selfishness and laziness.

At what point do you draw the line and say 'From here on, you have a responsibility'? It could also give some young people the idea that, for instance, only women should be doing housework and only men go out to work - a division of labor that most people today find unworkable. Equipping young people to pull their weight both in and outside the home should start long before they leave it. However, many parents would still prefer to give extra money in this way, rather than have their teenager go into paid employment while still in their care. In some cases, the argument is that 'childhood' is a time of innocence, free from responsibility, and it would be a pity to expose them to the hardships of commercial reality too soon. Against that is the view that young people need and want such experience, and that too often it is not the young person's innocence that is being protected but the parents' power and possession of them. They will come up against the real world soon enough. Surely it is better to do so in small doses from a safe base early on, rather than in a single, uncontrolled and unprepared-for rush when they leave school or home?

Young people can legally work from the age of 13, with certain provisos, and most will be happy to have a Saturday or morning job if it means that they have money of their own. It hardly needs to be stressed that money earned by the sweat of their own brow is theirs and not subject to anyone else's direction. However, in a family with genuine financial problems, most children would be proud to see their own earnings as a part of the family's income, and to relieve you of the need to give them an allowance. You would want to be assured that their job does not interfere with their education or their necessary social life, but beyond that, you should leave them to handle it their own way.

The only time you might be needed is if the job puts them at risk of any kind of exploitation. A young person in an early job may be eager to prove themselves and loath to come to you for help, especially if they think you might say 'I told you so!' Some unscrupulous employers are well aware of this and might offer poor wages or conditions, or even demand harder and heavier work than the law allows, secure in the knowledge that few youngsters will complain. Worst of all, some will sexually harass their employees, knowing they will be too scared to tell their parents. The more supportive and positive you are about your teenagers taking this first step into the world, and the more you encourage them to discuss it with you, the less likely this is to happen.