When Your Child Can't Get a Part-Time Job Practical Alternatives That Actually Work

Day 2049. 20,490 kilometres covered. 19,585 still to go. And this morning, like every morning, I laced up my Vibram FiveFingers and headed out the door before most people had opened their eyes.

Running daily in barefoot-style footwear for over five and a half years gives you a lot of time to think. About the mission. About the kilometres still ahead. About why I'm doing this in the first place. And this morning, my mind settled on something that feels a long way from ultrarunning but is actually very close to the heart of everything I care about children, their futures, and the practical realities families face every day.

Today's episode of the diary was about what happens when your child is old enough to work part-time, wants to earn their own money, but simply cannot find a job. It is more common than most people realise, and it is worth talking about honestly.

When I was growing up, part-time work for teenagers felt straightforward. You got a paper round. You worked a Saturday shift in a local shop. You stacked shelves. Those routes into early employment were imperfect, but they existed. They taught you something about showing up, about earning rather than expecting, about the small discipline of doing a job even when you did not feel like it.

Many of those entry points have closed. Retail has contracted significantly over the last decade. High streets look different. Paper rounds are nearly extinct in a lot of areas because the papers themselves are barely being delivered — people read the news on their phones. The landscape of accessible, entry-level, part-time work for young people has genuinely shifted, and it has not been replaced with anything obvious.

For parents watching their teenage children apply for jobs repeatedly and hear nothing back, that is a real frustration. And for the young people themselves, it can be quietly demoralising in a way that is hard to articulate. They want to contribute. They want a little financial independence. They want to feel capable. Being told there is nothing available, again and again, chips away at that.

So what can you actually do about it?

One approach I have seen work well, and that my own eldest son has been using, is to start selling items online on behalf of close friends and family. At first glance that might sound overly simple, or you might wonder why anyone would hand their items over to a teenager to sell when they could sell those items themselves. The honest answer is that most people are busy. The intention to sell old items has been sitting on a mental to-do list for months, sometimes years. The friction of photographing everything, listing it, answering messages, arranging postage — it adds up. Most people simply never get around to it.

A young person with time, a phone, and a willingness to learn can take that friction away. They photograph the items, create the listings, manage the messages, and handle the postage. The proceeds get split between them and the person whose items they sold. It is straightforward, it requires no experience, no formal employment, no interview, and it builds a genuine set of transferable skills — communication, basic sales, money management, logistics, and the ability to see a task through from start to finish.

My son has been fortunate in one particular respect. My father had a retail store for many years — he sold jewellery, electrical items, all kinds of stock. The store closed a long time ago, but the leftover inventory did not disappear. It sat in boxes in his garage, largely forgotten, for years. When my son started this approach, that stock became his starting point. He has been working through it, selling items, managing the process, and learning about money in a very practical and grounded way.

Not every family will have a garage full of old retail stock to draw from. But most families have something — clothes that no longer fit, books that have been read, gadgets that have been replaced, furniture that is taking up space. Most people in a teenager's extended circle of family and friends have things they would genuinely like gone. The question is just whether someone is willing to take on the task of moving those things along.

The lesson for me in all of this is actually about something I think about almost every day on the run — the relationship between initiative, consistency, and small daily action. Waiting for the right opportunity rarely produces results. Creating your own pathway, even an unconventional one, almost always teaches you more.

When I started this running streak 2049 days ago, there was no guarantee it would become what it has become. There was just a decision to show up each day, in barefoot-style footwear, regardless of the weather, the mood, or the circumstances. That consistency has accumulated into 20,490 kilometres. The goal is 40,075 kilometres — a full lap of the earth — and I am more than halfway there.

The fundraising mission sits alongside that. Over £1 million for children's causes — Great Ormond Street Hospital and BBC Children in Need among them. Every episode, every run, every day of the streak exists in service of that goal. I raise awareness by showing up. That is the only mechanism I know that works.

And it connects back to this conversation about young people and work in a way that feels genuine to me. The children who benefit from those fundraising efforts, and the children in our own homes trying to find their footing in an economy that does not always make room for them — they deserve adults who think creatively, who problem-solve practically, and who are willing to say out loud that the old pathways are not always available anymore.

So if your child is struggling to find part-time work, try the simple route first. Reach out to family, close friends, people in your immediate circle. Ask whether anyone has items they have been meaning to sell. Let your young person take on the job of making that happen, and split the proceeds fairly. It is not glamorous. It is not a career plan. But it is a start, and a start is what matters most.

2049 days in, 19,585 kilometres still to go. I will be back tomorrow.