Teen can benefit from job experience. But there are risks you must assess

The Benefits
-A teenager's job can teach work skills that will serve him well in college and prepare him for careers in adulthood.
-He can acquire confidence, develop a sense of responsibility and feel more independent.
-Studies find that students who work a moderate amount—no more than 10 to 15 hours a week during the school year—tend to earn higher grades than those who don't work at all.
-Earning money will enable him to buy things he wants and will provide an opportunity for learning responsible money management.
If you and your spouse work outside the home, an after-school job can give him adult supervision in those crucial afternoon hours.
-The right job—or jobs—may expose him to new work possibilities and set him on the path to a lifetime career.

The Drawbacks
-Working more than 13 to 20 hours a week is associated with lower grades.
-Teens who work too many hours find it difficult to keep up extracurricular activities and social relationships.
-Some studies have found that teens who work long hours are more likely to engage in such risky activities as using illegal drugs or alcohol—in part because they are exposed to older coworkers who lead them astray.

5 Steps to Teach Your Teen to Budget

Help your teen look at the big picture before they get a surprise in the form of credit card bills, bounced checks, or automated teller machines that refuse to surrender cash.

College students' budgets shouldn't be complicated. Simply follow these steps.

1. Work together to itemize your student's regular monthly expenses.

2. List total income, including money previously set aside, scholarships, loans, allowance or perhaps wages from a part-time job during school.

3. Subtract expenses from income to see if the budget is reasonable.

4. If the expenses outweigh the income, work together to trim expenses until the numbers agree.

5. Your teen's college budget should include a savings strategy. Encourage your kids to make regular deposits into a savings account for future expenditures (such as a car, an apartment, or student loans).

You may want to sit down together periodically to review the budget you've developed. Be sure your kids understand the importance of maintaining this budget to avoid overspending and debt trouble. But also remind them that it isn't carved in stone. If their favorite band is coming to town and they want to splurge on a concert ticket, they can simply cut back on other expenses for a month.

Should Teens Have Credit Cards?

The plight of college students in deep credit card debt is reported in the media almost daily, but for many young people, credit card issues begin in high school, not college. Should teens have credit cards?
Teens today are consumers, pumping billions of dollars into the economy, so there's something to be said about teaching them to use credit cards responsibly before they go off to college or out on their own.

Why Should Teens Use Credit?

Credit cards offer convenience, but their main purpose should be to establish a good credit history so your teen can, when the time comes

•qualify for car loans and mortgages
•be able to rent an apartment
•qualify for favorable interest rates on all types of loans
•obtain lower auto and homeowners insurance premiums
•qualify for a job (employers are increasingly using credit scores when evaluating job candidates)
The best way to learn is often by doing. Having a credit card in high school can be beneficial if

•the teen is responsible
•the teen is given a credit card with a low credit limit
•parents monitor the teen's spending and payments monthly
•parents discuss the choices made, the implications of those choices, the obvious and hidden costs with the teen
•parents make suggestions for positive changes

Has Preschool Prepared Your Child for Kindergarten?

Preschool can provide an important introduction to the notion of schooling. For many children, preschool provides a "head start" in learning certain academic skills that they will be expected to learn in kindergarten and first grade.

If your child has attended a good preschool program, he will already have some rudimentary knowledge of such concepts as colors, shapes, numbers, and letter recognition (as well as the sounds that different letters produce).

Although the introduction to academic skills can give preschoolers a head start on kindergarten learning, preschool can have an even more important role in preparing kids for school. If your child has been attending preschool, the experience has given him the opportunity to develop social skills in group situations.

Day care or preschool also gave your child the opportunity to develop strong friendships. Preschool provided day-to-day (or every other day, depending on how often your child attended) contact with the same children. Hopefully, this regular contact has allowed certain friendships to build. And his ability to form friendships will go a long way toward making your child's kindergarten experience easier.

Does this mean that if your child hasn't attended a preschool program that he will be socially backward when he first enters kindergarten? Of course not. A child who has had little or no contact with other children his own age may have a more difficult time adjusting to kindergarten. But classes for preschoolers (in swimming, gymnastics, dance, crafts, and so on), library reading groups, informal play at local parks, and plenty of playdates—in other words, a preschool program that you've designed and supervised yourself—can offer similar opportunities to practice social skills both in groups and one-on-one.

So if you have made sure that your child has had opportunities to play and learn with other children his age, he will have had plenty of practice at getting along and cooperating with others. And if you've made sure that your preschooler had the opportunity to make close friendships by seeing one or two other children on a regular basis, then you can be confident that he will make friends in kindergarten.

Is Your Teen Ready for a Job?

Your teenager comes home from school and declares he wants to flip burgers at the neighborhood fast-food joint. He says he needs money for CDs, clothes and to buy his own car.

Is this a step to maturity or a slip toward lower grades, inadequate sleep and a constricted social life? How do you talk with your child to help him make the right choice about taking a job? And how do you maintain the communication needed to assure he manages job, school and social time wisely if he goes to work?

Nearly every teen can benefit from job experience. But there are risks you must assess.