<p>Sass, I guess I don’t understand why you picked the summer before his Junior year as some arbitrary milestone for him to start working. It’s 3 months. Why not save yourself the trouble and tell him to get a job and leave the house next year (like most normal graduates do). If finances are tight, stop paying for his “personal expenses” (I’m not sure what these include).</p>
<p>GTAlum, it wasn’t an insult. I was just pointing out that if I had to choose between staying in the mountains or going home for the summer and having to work, the choice would be obvious.</p>
<p>eits- sorry i took it wrong. He works pretty hard in the mountains - 12-14 hour days. Much harder than he would at home. But, he learned how much he hated being a waiter during an earlier job.</p>
<p>eits, I think the original question by the OP was simply the OP looking for validation that indeed other parents expect their kids to pick up paid or unpaid jobs during the summer. Even the most elite colleges expect a ‘student contribution’ which is a fancy way of saying that the elites expect that students have done something to contribute to the priviledge of attending those institutions. Having work ethic has never and will never be a “bad thing.” Clearly you can see that the OPs position is not unique. </p>
<p>As a parent, and as someone who has been in the workforce for over 30 years, I will say to any student who has never held any kind of job you will be somewhat disadvantaged when you do need to seek employment as you will have not had the experience of looking for and landing a job. To draw an analogy to something you can probably understand think about this. Some students are part of a high school family where they are challenged in rigorous classes, have the opportunity to take APs etc. The idea of this is that those students are better prepared for college life. Picking up part-time jobs or volunteer jobs doing down-time in college is much like a rigorous curriculum or an AP class in that it makes the young person better prepared for the adult working world.</p>
<p>Expecting your child to work in some capacity paid or unpaid is simply parents giving their kids the best preparation for the next step in life. There are always those kids, often referred to on these forums as slackers, who have the capacity to do well in high school but choose an easy route. College kids who just want to keep a status quo of simply attending classes while parents keep writing checks are in effect…alittle bit slacking. I am a parent who would loath to have my 21 year old home for the entire summer hanging out and watching cartoons. We, too, pay his tuition, fees, books, apartment rent and give him some money for food. We would think it incredibly immature of him to lay around eating food and producing laundry for the summer while we work. Fortunately, we won’t be as ours is staying in his college town and has a job lined up as he did last summer. I think that’s great and shows that he’s taking steps toward independence which is “kind of” like being on the honor roll of the college years. So yes, perhaps my husband and I are hard-asses but we’re betting in the short term of our kids early adulthood that it’s the accurate position to take just like we bet that by putting in some extra effort in high school they would be well positioned to do well in college.</p>
<p>^^^sassafras, I was wondering that too. I support your position completely, but do keep in mind that even at 20, your S may just not have reached the developmental stage of having a work ethic. This was something my S’s psychologist told me when he was 17. He said that for some young men, they just don’t develop a work ethic until well into their 20’s. This was true for my S, and I’ve seen it over and over in many young men I know. Still, you can’t let him lay around, and it doesn’t change your expectations of decent behavior. I just wanted to mention it as a way of keeping hope alive. :)</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I buy into the psychologist’s assertion. You can’t promise a kid that he’ll always succeed if he works hard, but you can promise him/her that if he/she doesn’t work hard, he/she will almost certainly fail.</p>
<p>A work ethic is the foundation from which you build the goals that you equate with success. Every worthwhile accomplishment, in sports and in life, is made possible by a strong work ethic. Kids that are in college clearly have work ethic by virtue of their success in high school (unless the parents helicoptered them to success). Kids that participate in sports successfully have work ethic or they would not have achieved what they did. I dont totally buy into the idea that kids somehow dont gain work ethic until their 20s because of some sort of delayed developoment process – I think they did so because somehow they never HAD to develop work ethic when they were younger.</p>
<p>“he’d remember being forced to get a summer job to come home when the time comes to pick out her nursing home.”</p>
<p>If this prediction comes true, then it will be because Sassafrass failed to instill any decent values in the first 20 years, not because she set reasonable rules in year 21. I doubt that’s true. People who love their parents don’t abandon them because of a disagreement over house rules one summer!</p>
<p>Raising children to believe that there are no consequences for failing to think ahead is not a good strategy for raising a future parental caretaker. I don’t want a selfish, short-sighted person to pick out my nursing home.</p>
<p>I expect threats of this kind to come from 8-year-olds being made to clean their rooms, not from people old enough to use the internet unsupervised.</p>
<p>Jumping in late and I apologize if this has been covered/off topic but I wanted to mention that summer camps, especially day camps, are often looking for staff up until the week the camp starts. </p>
<p>The pay is not great and it’s hard work. However, it can be very rewarding and it certainly is an important job. Even better, if your child can volunteer, camps that serve special needs populations are typically even in more dire need for help.</p>
<p>When I was looking for my first summer job, I had to go to more than 120 places because the economy was so bad. Last year my son went to about 75 places and I was ****ed off at his laziness–and he never did get a job. Lots of the most motivated kids I know got nothing. It drove me crazy to have him lying around, though, which he eventually did. Thank god he got a paid internship at his school this summer. But I definitely feel for the mother!!</p>
<p>In my area, all the daycamp jobs were snapped up in March. They opened up a Sonic and there were long lines looking for a job there–as if that many people have roller-skating carhop experience! I went to an Arbys and there was a 70 year old man who picked up my absentmindedly dropped napkin. I apologized for missing it and he said, “Oh, that’s okay. I call it job security.” So yeah, it really is a bad market. Even worse than the one in my teens.</p>
<p>Philmont Scout Ranch in Northeast New Mexico offers 100’s of college kids a summer job/year. Eagle scouts often get the cool back country jobs but lots are hired at base camp. They often have job openings till the beginning of May. Salary plus room and board (though room is in a tent).</p>
<p>Haha GT Alum, I went through Philmont in '02 and earned my Eagle in '05. If your S is working at Philmont now I REALLY understand why he isn’t coming home for the summer.</p>
<p>Last summer, S1 completely “blew off” a real opportunity for a technical internship because he was waiting for an offer from another company (that never materialized). I was so angry at him that I told him he could not come home for the summer because there were no decent jobs within walking distance of our house, and I did not have a car for him to use. Luckily, his Dad supported my stance, and he went to live with him because his house was near public transportation. He ended up taking the train to work where he served beer in an amusement park. But it was a 40+ hour/week job; he made good money and he learned a valuable lesson. We’re now hoping he has better prospects this summer, but the economy is making it real tough. He still regrets not taking that original offer.</p>
<p>But I agree - unless you are in school, you work.</p>
<p>The bird-in-the-hand quandry can be difficult. You may have been accepted at the one that you didn’t want and be waiting to hear from the ones that you really want. In the current environment, it’s always safer to take the one in hand, even if it’s not your top choice.</p>
<p>He probably realizes the benefits that he won’t have on his resume of a career-related internship. Fortunately there are three summers between undergrad years.</p>
<p>In the internship forum, we recently had a discussion on calling the company where you accepted to change your mind because the one that you wanted offered you a job after you accepted the other one.</p>
<p>“Sassafrass, keep in mind he’ll remember this when he picks out your nursing home.”</p>
<p>I’m SO sure he’ll be in a position to pick it out and pay for it…</p>
<p>"I was just pointing out that if I had to choose between staying in the mountains or going home for the summer and having to work, the choice would be obvious. "'</p>
<p>Good! The choice is SUPPOSED to be obvious!</p>
<p>"If your S is working at Philmont now I REALLY understand why he isn’t coming home for the summer’</p>
<p>I don’t get it. Please explain. We are a girls scout family, and my D is working girl scout camp. How is boy scouts different with regard to summer residential camp?</p>
<p>I only read the first page of this, so forgive me if this has already been said, but… We have made it clear that extras (beyond tuition,room,board) are paid for by the student. This pretty much forces the summer job issue because no job = no fun. My d is currently a college freshman and has stretched last summers work money through the school year and will be doing the same next year with hopefully a part-time job while at school.</p>