Thoughts on 16yr old having a job

[youareadarling]

My 16yr old daughter has an interview on Fri for a fast food establishment. I'm unsure if I'm happy that she would be working some nights a week until 10 when it's her GCSE yr however I don't know if I'm being ridiculous. What's the consensus?

I had a job when I was 16 in a restaurant. Just means you have to be more organised with study.

Let her give it ago. If it turns out it's too much, she can always stop.

Moving forward, it could mean she has work immediately after her GCSEs. If she intends to continue studying and has been there a while, it might be they'll consider holiday work only so she can cut back.

It's work experience, she can learn and get used to mixing with lots of difference personablities, which at school you pull away from to some extend as they wouldn't be your friends.

I advise people who want to go into dentistry. The number one thing I advise is a part time job. It teaches the value of money and hard work , how a business runs , but most importantly how to interact and speak to people who are not your peers and with whom you have little in common. These social/work skills are critical and very often lacking . That being said I mostly don’t advise people to go into dentistry!

I had a job at 16. I wanted money for going out with friends and buying my own things and my parents were reluctant to give me anything. It was a good thing for me. It taught me the importance of work and finances, what the real world is like and it gave me a lot of confidence that I was lacking in before. I was not particularly academic though. I did well in some GCSEs and failed a couple. Maybe I could have done slightly better if I wasn't working but I gained more from working I think.

I think it's a good thing. I did it, my daughter did it and my grandchildren have done it.

I know 16 year olds locally who have jobs in hospitality. They just work minimum hours in the run up to exams.

This is our thing. Hobbies are more important at this age IMO

Tbh I get what that poster is saying. If it’s McDonald’s that the posters dd is going to working for then there has been a culture of sexism, inappropriate sexual behaviour which made the news recently. My ds aged 16 at the time worked there for 3 years and confirmed it happened on his branch. He also ended up dropping out of college as they kept pushing and pushing for him to do more shifts as they were short staffed.

Definitely don't stop her, she'll be fine and it's great that she is motivated to go and earn some money. I had a similar job from younger than GCSE age and loved it, it didn't affect my studies at all. She can pick up extra shifts in the holidays when she wouldn't be studying anyway and earn what seemed like loads, that's what I did, it was fantastic! I did save a lot of my wages which helped through the uni years; plus I had a job to go back to in the long holidays and didn't need to work term time which I appreciated.

This has always been our experience- the pressure to work late and work extra shifts, plus the difficulty in getting time off for school related stuff. When I was at school we all had Saturday jobs, but those just don't seem to exist now. Employers don't seem to want fixed hours.

Yes this! She had a 6 hour contract and they put her down for 4x 8 hours shifts a week. Then were arsey when she said she had college, even though that was discussed with the very same person at interview. I’d worry that some 16yo would give in to the pressure and college would suffer.

It's really good for youngsters to have a job. It gives them some insight into the world of work, it gives them independence and some money of their own, and helps them to mature too. I'd be supportive and encouraging but of course, she can stop if it makes her too tired or the place isn't right for her.

I worked in a clothes shop when I was a teenager, mostly it was Saturday work but it meant I could go in extra during the holidays and sales times etc. We were often very late back home when stock-taking, sometimes it was midnight as I had to take the last 'bus out of town.

My own daughter worked for years, she started off taking a heavy paper round before school every morning when she was twelve and by the time she was a couple of years older, had a variety of shop work and waitressing. It's good for youngsters to have the responsibility. It never impacted on my own exam results nor my daughter's.

We felt that a job in the lower sixth was a good thing but not in GCSE year or A Level year. There’s quite a few summer job opportunities here for relatively casual work

My DD is doing A levels and the started a waitressing job a couple of months ago - she does about 12 hours. It's been so great for her confidence and she's lots of interesting people where she works and has really surprised me with her new found work ethic. I'd say let her do it but if you feel it does start to effect her studies address it then.

We were really keen for ours to get jobs at 16. You do have to be careful that they don't get roped into too many shifts though and it can be difficult to plan life when the management don't organise the rota in good time.

DS trained as a lifeguard as soon as he turned 16 which is great as you get £12 an hour instead of the usual £6.40 or whatever it is now. Unfortunately even though he was on a 12 hour contract they wanted more and more from him and we eventually had to ask him to leave as he was regularly working 20 hours a week on top of full time sixth form and his grades slipped quite badly. He never really recovered from this and his A levels results were way below what he should have got.

DD started at a restaurant just after her 16th birthday earlier this year. She comes back physically exhausted but loves the money. She is regularly doing 16 hours around her college course which is much more doable than working around full time sixth form and A level study but we've told her she will have to give up working one day in the week if she gets behind on her assignments.

It gets frustrating as it's a zero hour contract at a tourist attraction that can be affected by bad weather and a few times she's had her shift cancelled while she was on her way to work ( having already paid her train fair) and last week she was sent home after two hours because the restaurant was quiet due to the bad weather. She is trying to get a job with contracted hours in a shop instead but she's finding that most places want you to be 18.

16 is too young in my opinion. Let your dd finish her GCSEs, she can always start a job after that. I wouldn't be comfortable with this.

Personally (unless there is a genuine need to get a job ie: lack of family funds) I believe that 16 year olds should be focusing on GCSEs and enjoying the last of their childhood rather than working. They’ve got the rest of their lives ahead of them and will probably be working well into their 70s the way things are going.. 16 is for fun and freedom, not a minimum wage part time job.

Shifts after school until 10pm sound like a recipe for disaster. No time for homework/revision/hobbies and no downtime either.

If u r thinking ahead to uni, the fact they can juggle various things is a positive.

I work at a university and the difference between first years who’ve got experience managing a job and their studies, or hobbies as well, against those who have been told to just ‘focus on gcses and a levels’ is really stark. It’s often students in the second category who really flounder when they’re asked to do more, as they have no introduction. Of our student workers I’ve had to have disciplinary meetings with, they have without fail because they’ve had no concept of what working was like before.

Let her try. If it gets too much around GCSEs she can always pause it or leave, and start again afterwards. But ten hours a week shouldn’t make or break anyones exams, and as a PP said - much better than doom scrolling or roaming the streets!

Mine does local dog sitting and walking to get some extra money
It's ad hoc so no massive time commitment and if she can't do it when asked it's no big deal.

My teens aged 15 and 17 have jobs, I think it's fine as long as it's not too many hours per week.

I would encourage it.

If it gets to be too much she can quit. The benefits of working part time are huge. Can you honestly say, hand on heart, that you think she would devote all the time she spent at this job to study anyway?

That is not due to not having a job but to bad parenting and not being taught life skills.

DD doesn't have a job, she has ASD and needs too many breaks to fit a job into her A-level work.
But, she does volunteer since she is 13 with the Beavers, is an Explorer whose group is lead by a leader who is determind to make the teens independent and provide skills.
On top of that we as parent ensure she is able to do all these things.

A job, unless absolutely needed to pay for essentials, should come after school work and is not the end of the world if you don't have one.