Is having a part-time job during the school year doable? A parent’s real experience and tips
Last Tuesday, I was folding sweatshirts on my 16-year-old Lila’s bed when she dropped her canvas work bag, and a crumpled calculus quiz slid out. The big red B- scrawled at the top sat there next to the half-eaten granola bar and a bottle of hand sanitizer that smelled like lavender coffee cake. “I need a favor,” she said, flopping back against her pillows hard enough to make her fairy lights flicker. “I have a retake Thursday, and my manager scheduled me for a four-hour close that night. Can you email my teacher and ask if I can take it Friday?”
I’d seen this coming a little. Three months earlier, she’d begged for the job at the main street bakery, pointing out that all her friends worked, she was sick of asking me for $5 for gas every other day, and she wanted to save for a summer road trip with her friend group. I’d been torn. I worked 20 hours a week at a grocery store when I was her age, and I still think that’s why I got a D in chemistry first semester. My husband insisted it would teach her responsibility, so we struck a loose deal: max 15 hours a week, no opening shifts before school on test days. That was it, no other rules.
The first month went great. Lila packed her homework in her bag and did it during slow mid-morning shifts on Saturday, got up 20 minutes early to study before after-school shifts, and her grades didn’t budge. Then someone quit, her manager asked her to pick up extra hours, and before we knew it, she was working 20 hours a week. She started falling asleep in first period art, leaving her history reading for the bus in the morning, and that B- was the first warning sign.
I didn’t say “I told you so” that Tuesday, even though the words were right on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I pulled out my laptop and pulled up her Google Calendar, which she’d barely updated since the first day of school. We spent 20 minutes that night mapping out everything that mattered: all her tests, project deadlines, after-school club meetings, and 8 hours of sleep blocked out every single night, no exceptions. Then we plugged in her work shifts around those non-negotiables, and we texted her manager that she’d only pick up extra shifts if they fit the blocks we’d laid out. We added a clear rule we should’ve had from the start: if her overall GPA drops more than two tenths of a point from her average before she started working, she cuts five hours a week immediately, no arguments.
That’s the thing I’ve learned over the past few months: it’s not that working during the school year is inherently doable or not doable. It depends on the kid, and it depends on the boundaries you set before things get messy. I’ve seen kids thrive with 20 hours a week, and I’ve seen kids crash and burn with 10. But from what I’ve seen, and what I’ve heard from the high school counselors I know, most teens can’t handle more than 15 hours a week during the school year without grades or sleep slipping. That’s a hard line I’d tell any parent to start with, no exceptions.
The other mistake I made at first was assuming Lila would automatically know how to balance everything. Teens are good at a lot of things, but long-term time management isn’t one of them. Now we do a 10-minute schedule check-in every Sunday night. I don’t micromanage it—she tells me what she has going on, we just make sure she hasn’t double-booked a shift with a test, and that she’s left enough time to finish big projects. It takes 10 minutes, it’s low effort, and it’s stopped three last-minute crises like that calculus test in the past two months. I also had her put all her regular expenses (phone bill, gas, concert tickets, new clothes) on auto-pay from her checking account, so she sees exactly how much of her check goes to things she actually needs, instead of blowing it all on random snacks and stickers after shifts.
There are good parts, too. Lila now handles her own bills, and she’s stopped asking me to buy her random $30 sweatshirts she sees on TikTok. Last month, she had to de-escalate a customer who got mad because their wedding cake order was wrong, and she came home talking through how she fixed it— that’s the kind of problem-solving no worksheet at school can teach her. She’s already saved $900 for her road trip, and she’s proud of that, and I’m proud of her for that.
It’s not perfect. Last month she slept through her alarm after a close shift and was late to school, and she got a detention. Two weeks ago she forgot to transfer money to her savings account and almost spent all her road trip money on concert tickets. Some weeks she comes home exhausted and can barely finish her homework, and I have to remind her to talk to her manager about trading a shift.
Last night, she came home from work and told me her manager asked her to pick up an extra shift the week before AP bio midterms, so she can earn extra money for a new winter jacket for the trip. I didn’t say no, and I didn’t say yes. I just reminded her we’d go over the schedule together on Sunday, like we always do. Right now, working during the school year works for Lila. It might not work for your kid, and that’s okay. The answer isn’t yes or no—it’s starting small, setting clear lines, and checking in often enough to catch the problems before they turn into bad grades or burnt out kids. For us, that’s enough, for now.
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