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Protecting Your Working Teen: A Guide for Parents

Work is a valuable experience for many teenagers. It can give teens needed money, skills and self-confidence. It should also be a safe and healthy experience. Sometimes, however, work has risks. A job can affect a teen's schoolwork. Also, teens are more likely than adults to get hurt at work, even in places that seem safe. Some 200,000 U.S. teens are injured at work every year. One-third of these are hurt badly enough to visit the hospital emergency room. Injuries at work should not be considered "part of the job." Most injuries can and should be prevented. Employers, young workers, and parents all have roles to play in ensuring that work is a positive, safe experience. Many teens say they want their parents to help them with job-related issues.

Protecting Your Working Teen: A Guide for Parents gives you information about:

• health and safety risks to teen workers

• how to help your teen with a problem at work

• the laws and agencies that protect teen workers

Protecting Your Working Teen: A Guide for Parents was adapted for Maine by the Maine Department of Labor from a booklet developed by the Protecting Young Workers Project at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Education Development Center, Inc., Newton, MA.

If necessary, Download the PDF Reader

Respect yourself. Protect yourself.

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