I’ve come across the issue of how teens handle, or mis-handle, money many,
many times. This is a truly tricky topic. By and large, parents I work with want
their teens to be able to date, provided they are mature enough for that type of relationship. In the same breath, parents also want their children to have some understanding of the value of money.

A generation ago, maybe even a few years ago, the simple answer was
often that, in order to afford a dating social life, teens needed to get jobs. In the past few years, however, many of the jobs that were previously the bastion of teens alone now tend to go to unemployed or underemployed adults. Today, this does leave precious few jobs for teens, and I’ve known many who’ve made a valiant effort to overturn every stone, typically to no avail.

But I’ve worked with some pretty creative teens lately, who have successfully circumvented the economic limitations In the name of dating. Some perform odd jobs around the house to earn extra money or allowance. Others save money from holidays and graduations for dating, instead of spending it on Abercrombie shirt. – teens on a budget! A couple of smitten high school boys I worked recently took advantage of the recent Midwestern blizzard to set up a shoveling and snowplowing service. Hard work through a couple of snow days afforded them some relatively extravagant dates indeed. The broad point here is that, at least some of the time, teens can be industrious, and inadvertently teach themselves the value of money.

On the other hand, more often than not, most of my young clients date exclusively through the financing of Mom and Dad. I’ve witnessed this a number of times when one or both parents had been laid-off from jobs. The strange result has been that a teenager enjoys, with little or no effort or investment, a more active, satisfying dating life than their own parents. As you might guess, these situations concern me a great deal. These teens learn nothing about the value of money, first of all. But they also miss the value of dating, such that money for dating becomes expected and ordinary and, as a result, so do the dates
themselves. Appreciation is an important part of the life lessons teens can learn through the whole ‘money and dating’ issue.