How do you know when it's time?

This post is for all you parents out there. In specific, those of you who have teenage children embarking on their quest to find a new sense of freedom. In my case, I have a daughter who just turned 16 years old last week. I guess the first step is coming to grips with the fact that I have a sixteen year old child in my house. Do you ever feel like you blinked and your child grew up in a matter of a few short days? Or perhaps you are like me and think that if I knew then what I know now I would have done some things differently in raising my children. We can only hope that we have done the best job that we knew how to do and trust they will remember the good advice given to them and forget the memories of not so good parenting through the years.

So how do you know when your sixteen year old is ready for additional responsibilities? In our house we have been talking about our daughter getting a job. The problem is how do you effectively coach them through adding this responsibility to their already busy schedules? There are two areas of which I do not want her to compromise her schedule. The first is that I do not want a potential job to keep her from being able to attend church or church related activities. Her growing faith is of utmost importance and I do not want to take her away from opportunities to participate in worship times and continue nurturing friendship with other like minded teens.

The second scheduling issue is when it comes to her after school activities. Our daughter is a photographer on the high school newspaper. Her responsibilities in this position require her to be available to stay after school or even return to school later in the evening to take pictures of events. These can range from club activities, sporting events, musicals and many other events that require her attendance either at the school or to travel to where the event is taking place to capture it. Since this participation is so varied and broad it does require a lot of availability and requires her to be at the school outside of normal hours quite often.

I say this about her photography because she is passionate about pursuing a career in journalism. The participation that she has by being a part of the school newspaper is gaining her valuable journalism experience and is continuing to nurture that passion to make this a career. I really do not want to severely limit or stop her participation in this area. However, I also realize that she can't have her cake and eat it too. She does need to get out there and start getting some life experience and make money on her own.

This is why I am turning to others who will read this blog. I know many other parents are either experiencing this or have already been through this before. So, please feel free to post your comments and thoughts on this topic and provide suggestions. I look forward to reading all of them and including them in our decision making.