When I was growing up, I had a boombox and I recorded music from the radio station, by hitting the record and play button. This was equivalent to now a days we all stream music and pay per song downloaded to your device.

I kept my boom box on dresser, and on special occasion, such as a party or bbq I broke out 10 D batteries and took the boombox outside, so it than became a portable device.

I made sure I kept a close eye on on my boombox and my playlist of records tapes, because this was my prize possession. I wouldn’t dare walk away from my portable device, not would I let you borrow it even if I’ve known you since kindergarten. It just wasn’t gonna happen.

Now let’s fast forward 20 plus years and I look at the kids, including my own who have real portable devices such as gaming systems, cell phones, tablets, laptops, and whatever else they have today.

I’ve seen kids break, lose, or lend out their valuable items and not blink an eye. This is something that frustrates me and many adults, because we work hard for them to have these items, and it’s obvious that they really don’t understand the value of these items.

My teenager recently was told to do her homework, and she placed her laptop on the ground and then steps on it! She calmly brings it to me and says “hey this is broke”. She had no fear, no worry in the world. Did she think I was going to run to the store and buy a replacement? I asked why it was on the floor in the first place, and she said I don’t know I just put it there and now it’s broke.

I  thought about a million scenarios if this had been me growing up with my parents?!! I would have grabbed the laptop and ran out the front door to avoid getting the beat down of my life. Or would I have faked an alien invasion and said E.T. touched my screen? Or would I have hid it under the sofa cushion and pretended it was stolen? Or would I leave it on overnight and say it overheated, because back in the day stuff overheated all the time..like Nintendo cartridges and cordless phones.

I just know how important it was to take care of anything you had, because you knew you would most likely not get another one…ever ever again, or you lived in fear like I did, and didn’t like the idea of being beat down for letting someone take your Walkman, garbage pail kid trading cards, or any of your sweet valley high books…or whatever valuable item’s you owned.

We took care of things, maybe out of guilt from watching our parents work 16 hour days, or because we earned the money ourselves from babysitting, washing cars, paper routes, or a combination of a few things. I worked hard and I saved up a ton of money to buy things, and I’m realizing now that I need to teach my kids the value of hard work and a dollar doesn’t come easy.

I did make her give me a portion of the money to repair the laptop, in addition she is doing things around the house to pay off her debt to me, because my money is earned, and I feel her’s should be too!

What kinds of chores or task does anyone else suggest for a teenager to do to  in order to earn some extra cash?