Do We As Parents Interfere If We Feel Our Teenagers' Employers Are Treating Our Teens Unfairly?

This is truely a very touchy subject and certainly a personal one for me. Both my teenagers, Ashley and Wesley, recently started their first paying jobs this summer. My son is working as a lifeguard at our local fitness center and my daughter has gotten a job as a waitress at our local Gold Star Chili Restaurant.

Recently, she had a difficult situation where one of her managers had a really bad day and took it out on her in an extreme way and the restaurant was very busy. I was informed by my neighbor who had gone there to eat with her children that it was very bad but my daughter had handled it with grace and patience but that she was immensely concerned as to the treatment that Ashley had received. I struggled as to how to handle this so I at least called to check on her to make sure she was okay and she assured me that she was. She was busy still so it was a very brief but reassuring phone call for me as her mother.

This incident got me to thinking as a parent in this particular situation. Do we, as parents, step in and defend our children when they receive this kind of treatment or do we instill in our teenagers that ability to let things like this roll off their backs as these situations will most likely happen again as they approach the working world in their future endeavors? I had to really let this one simmer in my heart and my brain in order to come to this conclusion.

I think we must tell our teenagers that they will most likely always deal with a situation now and again where someone of authority over them will either criticize, yell, embarass or make them feel badly while they are on the job and that does not mean they are necessarily bad. It just means alot of times that they, their boss, is having a bad day and they end up being the target and punching bag at that particular time. Also, that there are people in this world that do that to make themselves feel important and even though that is not justified, it is the way people have come to be and they will have to "go with the flow" so-to-speak and not let it get to them.

I really struggled with myself in not calling and speaking with my daughter's boss over speaking to my daughter the way she did and yelling at her the way she did in front of all the customers but I knew this needed to be a teachable moment for her and she needed to realize this probably would not be the last time she would have to contend with this situation.

So, parents, when your teenagers comes to you and says their boss put them in that situation, "dont" get involved unless they have been put in harm's way physically! They need to learn that life is not always going to be easy and that there are going to be situations where they need to let alot of things roll off their backs and take the high road and realize it is not usually "them" that is the problem. Most of the time, it is the other person having the "problem."