<p>What will he or she be doing? My D doesn’t have a regularly paying summer job. She plays in a quartet on weekends. We won’t be at our home a good part of our summer so she isnt likely to get a regular job. I’m hoping for some babysitting.
What can I suggest or require that she do while she is home? She will be entering college as a freshman in August. See my other post about her interest in college parties if you want background info.</p>
<p>Do you mean money making or not necessarily???</p>
<p>If she has time on her hands she certainly should be helping out with household chores. Talk with her and decide on a few regular chores. Want to pay her to help you with some things? Take advantage of her time and have her organize your linen closets, clean out cupboards, cut the grass - I could think of a MILLION things!!! </p>
<p>Volunteering is always a good option. But she needs to be motivated to find the opportunity and follow through.</p>
<p>DD had two jobs fall through–bummer. She is volunteering two days a week and taking a computer class–C++. She is also polishing her Scrabble skills and pretty much whips me every game now. She does have a job lined up for the fall when she returns to school.</p>
<p>If you live in a neighborhood where this will work, your daughter could put out a flier for dog-sitting, mail gathering or other tasks needed while people are on vacation. It’s intermittent and works well for kids who don’t have too many commitments.</p>
<p>When my son didn’t have a job he went to the senior center and volunteered. He helped serve lunch every day, taught an origami class and gave a few concerts. (Including learning a bunch of tunes from the 1950s.) My older son did the same and also helped in the computer lab. (Simple stuff mostly - how to get on the web, how to double click (really!), simple troubleshooting.)</p>
<p>I am sure there are projects around the house she could do. Or volunteer work. Could she find some volunteer work related to her chosen field?</p>
<p>If she is looking for babysitting jobs, she could try care.com. I had my D register there…didn’t help much because she never looks at the emails she gets from them.</p>
<p>Have her put together a bucket list of things that she wants to do with her family/friends one last time before she goes off to college. Somewhat melancholy, I know…but it helped my D segue from high school to college life.</p>
<p>Great idea ellemenope. I may suggest that to my DD.</p>
<p>Not sure what office-type skills she has, but she could register with temp agencies. Some places just need someone to answer the phone, make photocopies, file, etc.</p>
<p>Son formally started his job today. I called and asked him to place a trade for me and he said that he’s busy working. I’m going to train our daughter to execute trades and watch the market since I just lost my broker.</p>
<p>Job markets are clearly local…both my D’s have great full time jobs,paying significantly more then minimum wage…they also kept their pt jobs,so once school starts,the HS D can work PT again,and D at college can get pt work during semester breaks…</p>
<p>Ds, rising HS junior, has an internship four days a week and a volunteer gig the fifth day. He’s also spending a LOT of time with friends in the afternoons and weekends.</p>
<p>Put the word out to friends and neighbors that you have a responsible summer vacation house-sitter available! I pay mine $20 per day to bring in the mail/watch the pets etc. She gets out of her parents house–she can still have a “regular” job - and she loves the$$! Trusted house-sitters are like gold around here.</p>
<p>Definitely suggest volunteering. Last summer my son didn’t get a job because he went to two different music camps so he volunteered, watched houses and mowed lawns. This summer two of the places that he volunteered at last summer offered him a paying job over minimum wage and are willing to work around the one music camp and college orientation that he will be attending this summer. (Plus each agency gave him some nice gifts for volunteering and he has some amazing references.)</p>
<p>Try checking craigslist; there are sometimes local one-week or one-day jobs.</p>
<p>Maybe have your daughter go through her stuff or the family’s stuff and sell unwanted things on eBay. Esp good if she’s moving far away to college and can’t take much with her.</p>
<p>My daughter boxed up several years of textbooks and I told her that she can have any money she gets for selling them on-line.</p>
<p>I was also going to suggest housesitting/pet care; I am currently looking as my regulars are away. She could flyer any neighborhood that would be convenient to her. I would be a little cautious with dog walking as some folks have no idea how poorly-trained their animals are and would be better served by someone experienced and, perhaps, bonded. (I admit I am probably overly-sensitive about this after being attacked by a dog, which was leashed, this spring.)</p>
<p>If your kid has a possible career interest, get them set up to do some shadowing with a friend who works in the field, or even better, to volunteer part-time as a way of seeing the workplace from the inside. </p>
<p>Do they have a social issue they care about? Do something to support an organization that works on that issue. There are lots of organizations that would find an extra pair of intelligent, reliable hands invaluable.</p>
<p>Have your kid set up a challenge for themselves: Achieve a new level of physical fitness by running or biking every day - prepare for a marathon or a 10k. Or sign up for language classes and make it a goal to achieve a higher level of fluency. Master a piece of music that they didn’t have time to focus on during the academic year.</p>
<p>Think they want to be in academia? Help them get their hands on the journals and check out what new areas of research are being explored. Who are the big names in their field? What have they published? Any profs at their college or university known for work in an area they are interested in? What have they published lately?</p>
<p>Frankly, there are so many options that the issue should be not ‘what to do’ but rather ‘which of the many choices should I pursue.’</p>
<p>D has a job, but it’s not full time. We made it clear that if she did not work full time this summer she would be picking up some of the slack around here. So she does laundry, dog care, runs errands and cleans, etc. She cleans better than I do. In addition, H showed her how to paint and she has painted her bedroom and bath (badly needed) as well as our deck.</p>
<p>All good suggestions here. I’ll add another. Summer after senior year in hs, D couldn’t find a job, so she put an ad in 2 local newspapers for odd jobs. She was deluged with calls. We live in a small town, so if the caller did not know her, they frequently knew someone who knew someone who knew the family…
She got calls to help clean the garage, pet sit, paint fences, etc.</p>
<p>If they live near me they can come over and clean up my house and mow my law, lol. Oh, and do they do dishes or laundry?? It sounds like I want to hire them to be my maid… haha!</p>