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Friends and Work should not be used in the same sentence. Shame on you. Too many teens don't even want to work. Both of my college seniors worked part time during school year and full time in summer as soon as they started driving. They have a strong work ethic and a bright future. I hire people for entry level and skilled level jobs in Telecom industry. A lot of the young people who apply have never worked anywhere before. Their team skills and work habits can be bad enough to get them canned before they even get started.

Look, I'm not defending their work ethic----this is the result of post-industrial society's epmphasis on completing high school and college before getting a "meaningful" job (or "career"). Suburban teens know that the jobs they take during high school are largely for spending money. They will still have a roof over their heads, food on the table, and clothes on their backs if they don't work. We have moved the transition from childhood to productive member of society back about 10 years from where it was during the industrial revolution. Kids are expected to go to the national day-care for teens called high school, because in a skilled, post-industrial workforce, there is less demand for unskilled work, and more of a stigma attached to it, requiring more training and schooling to get the skilled jobs. Unskilled teens aren't much good in such a specialized workforce, but we don't want them running around wild either. Therefore we stick them in high school until they're legal adults and can begin their *real* preparation for the work they will live off of the rest of their lives.

If you really want your teens to develop good work ethics, pull them out of school at age 14 and let them become apprentices to blacksmiths or carpenters like kids used to 150 years ago. I doubt this will happen, however.