Diana Clement: Why children should learn to love labour

Child labour mightn't be a bad thing. That is, if the child in question is on a slippery slope to believing they're entitled to life's luxuries without working for them.

Working for money teaches young people values that could stand them in good financial stead for life. In fact, getting tweens and teens to work for their money may be almost as important for long-term success as academic study and all the endless after-school activities they do.

The question of whether children should work for money came up recently when I read a CNN article in which Barack Obama had said that his girls, Malia and Sasha, might have to earn their own money by babysitting.

Plenty of Americans think Obama's comments were a publicity stunt. As one CNN reader said: "Sasha and Malia would be the best babysitters on the planet. Hire one, and you automatically get an armed Secret Service agent for free."

Closer to home our own Prime Minister, John Key, went a step further than suggesting his children could work for their money. He sent them out to work when they wanted the things money buys that weren't covered by their allowances.

The Prime Minister and his wife, Bronagh, grew up in families with hard-working parents and no doubt had to work for everything they wanted. They've tried to impart the same values to their children.

When daughter Stephie wanted more than her allowance would buy, she got a job at the hair salon frequented by the Key family, Headquarters, in Remuera. Son Max works in a fast-food restaurant.

"I think it is important that children are taught the value of money," Key says. "By working hard, they are rewarded for their own efforts and having a job teaches them life skills."

Parents of all walks of life have a dilemma when it comes to children and money. It's normal to want your children to be happy. It's a mistake, on the other hand, to believe that giving them money or buying them the best of everything brings happiness.

That doesn't mean they should be cut off without a cent. Children who are given small amounts of money from young learn some good financial life skills - especially if they have to budget that money to cover certain purchases.

Pocket money needs to be large enough so they can dream, but small enough so they see the value of supplementing it with other income, such as birthday money, part-time work or doing bigger chores that aren't expected of them. For example, they might help with a garden tidy-up or spring-cleaning the garage.

Whether children should "earn" their pocket money is a vexed question. I believe they need to complete their chores before pocket money is handed out, but the two aren't tied together. Chores teach co-operation and contributing to the family.

The argument against paying children for regular jobs is that they'll expect to be paid for every job.

I've experienced this myself with under-10s. One way around this is to have certain set jobs that each child must do. Once they've finished those family chores, and they want more money, there are jobs that can be done for a certain sum.

I attended a "challenging boys" workshop run by early childhood educator David Spraggs, who recommended one job per year of life. It worked for his family of four children.

Getting children to sell something - either their old toys or lemonade at a street stall - can help light up the financial part of their brains.

I feel it's my duty to support children who are being enterprising - like the ones selling especially yummy chocolate muffins on Papamoa Beach Rd last weekend.

Within reason, I'll buy virtually anything kids come to sell at my front door - although it's important to be wary of reinforcing the attitude that they can sell anything regardless of quality and presentation. That might backfire in adulthood.

Part-time work outside the home gives children and teens independence from mum and dad. Child psychologists say it can also help give young people a sense of achievement, responsibility and direction.

There are pros and cons of working for your parents, self-employment and paid employment. Doing jobs at home is probably the least effective when it comes to developing a work ethic and learning customer service skills. Children will often try to short cut on a job done for their parents and still expect to be paid. With self-employment, they learn entrepreneurial skills, but may learn that it's possible simply not to turn up for a job if they can't be bothered. In the paid workforce, even if the pay is low, they learn to turn up for shifts or risk losing their employment.

Jobs traditionally done by teens don't pay well and I could see why some parents think it's hardly worth their children's effort to go out for $12 an hour. On the other hand, the children are actually competing in the real world.

More enterprising children can take the self-employed route. Businesswoman Diane Foreman is said to have set up a babysitting company in her teens - arranging babysitters and taking a percentage from each job for herself.

A couple of school holidays back, a group of Takapuna Grammar School teenagers were selling their services doing jack-of-all-trades type jobs around Devonport. One of the boys was in charge and paid his mates an hourly wage.

"He was very enterprising," a friend of mine who employed him says. "He had a painting crew, a fence maintenance crew, a gardening crew, or whatever was needed. He would organise the lot of them." That young man, who I'm told is now at university, will go a long way in life.

This type of article always brings out the cup-half-empty brigade who will no doubt email me and tell me there's a recession going on and there isn't any work around. That's no attitude to impart to children.

Jobs don't always come to teenagers. But teenagers can go looking for jobs. If one had knocked on my door up until last week, they would have landed the job of cleaning my windows. Talking to neighbours and friends, I'm not the only person who would employ a teenager to do odd jobs if one fronted up.

A call to McDonald's New Zealand head office this week elicited the fact that most of its restaurants have vacancies.

Many such jobs are never advertised. The managers would prefer to employ someone who has the motivation to go door-knocking for work.

Whether or not I like McDonald's food, I'm a believer in young people having a stint working at Maccas or a similar large, highly organised, customer-focused business.

One thing young people learn from working at McDonald's (and I did it myself aged 16 and 17) is the importance of customer service. I learned the value of greeting people, smiling at customers and always doing your best to meet their expectations.

They're unlikely to get rich working at McDonald's, unless they progress to buying a franchise, but they will come to appreciate the value of exchanging labour for money, which isn't a bad thing. Some will also realise that they don't want a future of minimum-wage employment, which can be very motivating.

Another issue the nay-sayers will bring up is that jobs and exams don't mix. True, but plenty of teenagers and university students do hold down jobs over exam time by being disciplined. They can't study 24 hours a day.