Four Alternatives to Summer Jobs for Teens

The Street list four alternatives to summer jobs for teens as follows:

1. Learn E-Commerce. Take the summer to learn how to sell items online.

2. Create your own job. Yard work, mowing lawns, house-sitting or babysitting are just a few of the many services you can offer that will allow you to earn some extra money.

3. Volunteer. If a cause or project is dear to your heart, volunteer to help with it. In addition to making a difference, volunteer activities and the experience that comes with them will look great on both college and job applications.

4. Apprenticeship or Internship. If you have the desire to learn some specialized skills or learn more about a certain career, volunteer to be an apprentice or offer to do a free internship. In return for your work, you'll get skills in an area of interest that can launch you onto a career. It will also give you a great opportunity to find out if that is really what you want to do before spending time and money and discovering it's really not for you.

This seems like an excellent list to me. My kids aren't old enough yet to follow/need this advice, but I'm filing this one away for future reference.

Here are some of my thoughts on each of these ideas:

1. If my kids were old enough to write some quality stuff, I'd pay them to write some posts for Free Money Finance.

2. A couple other ideas: walking pets and pet sitting while people travel. You can make $15 to $20 per day -- not bad for a kid.

3. Lots of opportunities at church to volunteer, especially in the youth camps held every summer.

4. Excellent, excellent idea. If you can't get a job somewhere, certainly don't waste the summer -- get some much needed experience.

Any other ideas I missed?

Comments

[Irina]

And.. my personal favorite: Event Entertainment! Kids are naturally artistic. The older we get, the harder it is(for some of us) to express ourselves. However, for most kids artistic expression comes naturally. Most kids can learn basic balloon art, face painting and basic entertainer skills in a day or two.

I know many young adults who worked alongside their parents, professional clowns, while growing up. In about 3-5 years those "kids entertainers" were able to buy their own real estate, all from their personal earnings as event entertainers.

Granted, not everyone's mom or pop are clowns. The solution is to find a local pro event entertainer and intern for them.

[john]

one other place to look for work is at your school, and you can get paid. When i was finishing middle school and in my early high school days, i worked for my school's theatre department (our school's theatre was also a cultural arts center and had professional shows). I build sets, did lighting etc. because it was through school, all i had to do was have my parents sign a sheet saying it was cool that i was working.

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I would like to add data encoding (I've done that). Volunteer work is great for personality growth.

[Caren]

My teenage son is doing interior house painting. He learned to paint at our house, painting along-side the rest of the family when we painted every room. Great skill to have.