Buy A Summer Internship?

What's your teen doing this summer? Building a resume? Hanging out? Traveling? It's about now that families begin to worry how their kids will fruitfully fill all those summer hours. And this summer, jobs are in short supply, which means the competition for paid internships is more intense. So what are the options?

Sue Shellenbarger, writing for the NYT, recently described a growing trend in buying internships for teens. She writes about how, In a tight market with limited employment opportunities for young people, families who can afford to are using services which promise to place students in 'meaningful learning experiences.'

One parent reportedspending $8000 on an internship. Her daughter Megan Sommers had applied for 25 summer internships and hadn't received any replies. While at first reluctant, the Sommers family decided to use an placement service and report "they are glad they did." Megan took an internship with a sports-memorabilia company, and, according to her mother, has 'come out of her shell. It really made her grow as an individual." Megan agrees, saying the internship helped focus her post-graduation plans.

Is this the solution for your teen? If you can afford it, why not? You may even be able to use 529 funds to pay for it, depending on the criteria for education described in your plan. It's an option.

But there are unintended consequences of purchasing an internship. Most parents share the intention to encourage exploration and tenacity, to nurture initiative. An internship is meant to hone life skills as much as it’s a chance for exotic experience. So if your high school or college student applied to 25 internships and didn't get any responses, what would you do? More importantly, what would you expect them to do?

Alternatives to Plunking Down $8 Grand.

1. Analyze Actions. Megan Sommers said she applied to 25 internships and got no responses. At this point, her parents had a teaching moment and missed it. What would you say to a child for whom repeating the same action 25 times brings no good outcome?

a) __Don't worry baby, I can buy you one.
b) __Maybe it's time for a new approach. Let's review those applications and the process you used.

Every successful person knows that failure is just a door to learning. Review those applications with your son or daughter. How strong were they? Encourage them to make follow up calls to find out what distinguished the winning applications. Did they do their homework before applying? What did they know about the position? Had they gathered recommendations and supporting material to make a case for them self?

The competition is fierce. Teens are vying with laid-off adults for part-time, full-time, even volunteer jobs that can lead to a paying position. If you want kids to understand the difference between bringing their "A-game' and 'letting someone else take care of it' this is the moment. Megan's parents could well afford to take care of things for her, so they did: a perfectly loving and generous thing to do. But they sacrificed the teachable moment. Self-advocacy, self-evaluation, and tenacity are important life skills. Helping kids master them early is a rarer gift than 'taking care of things.'

2. Clarify purpose. Internships should be fun and engaging, but they’re also vehicles for gaining skills and experience, earning references, and expanding social networks. And the level of competition that even the best and the brightest face today means that adult mentors need to help kids focus on the less exotic benefits of a good internship.

3. Open up your social networks. Why tap new networks when the ones you have may be safer and more bountiful in terms of opportunity? Access to your networks is a legitimate gift to your children--it is part of the legacy you've created for them--and the networks they create for themselves are fresh additions to yours. Blind application to 25 programs is never going to be as effective as targeting one's own network to offer free labor in exchange for a great learning experience. For example:

o You have a friend who owns a chain of retail sports shops. She may not have an inclination to put an inexperienced teen in sales, but you can introduce your son/daughter and ask her to explore possibilities for 'free labor.' Coach your kids to go in with a plan. And offer an internship in exchange. Families who open up their networks to other kids will have no problem placing their own.
o Your brother is a professor at a local college. Ask him to take a free research assistant for the summer. Nepotism is favoritism based on relationship, not competence. Giving kids and opportunity to prove themselves is not nepotism. It's good mentoring.
o If your son/daughter have their eye on a vague/specific goals (art, writing, the environment, etc.) help them create a proposal related to those interests. Again, they may not secure a paid position right aay, but a well structured job for a friend or colleague will offer experience that pays off in a good reference and/or new insight into their goals.

4. Help them focus. Kids may resist seeking a job or internship because they genuinely have no idea who they are yet/what they want to do. Create forced choices. For example, if you know that Susan has passing curiosity about children, art, soccer and animation, give her a four-square chart and ask her to choose: Child Development; The Arts; Sports; Animation. Helping kids think in macro, rather than micro-terms gives them room to explore and open opportunities to them.

5. Encourage, Don't Do. Self-created safety nets, resourcefulness, self-sustaining lives: these are skills the 21st century child needs. The future of work--no matter the level of privilege-is increasingly about knowledge and self-sufficiency. And even if you have the good fortune to create a powerful safety net for your kids, young people who have the skills to build safety nets of their own will be less vulnerable than kids accustomed to being bailed out of everything from paying their own credit card bills to mailing their college applications and securing their own summer internship.

The Passive Child.

Some families will choose to buy an internship because this level of involvement with teens is just too much effort--and the teachable moment is felt as a burden instead of a gift. But what if your teen simply refuses to be involved in her/his own destiny? What if they refuse to take no part in the creation of a summer plan?

The passive child is not a helpless child--they may be hampered by fear, anxiety, or entitlement. And they are frequently operating in their own short-term worst interests. So don't be too quick to buy them out of their challenges--you may rob them of exquisite opportunity.