Parents Intervene in Teen Jobs as Big Tech Pushes AI in Schools, Reports Say

CNBC reported that Jason Purvis, 49, owner of Sidewalk Coffee & Bagel in Queen Creek, Arizona, has hired teenagers for years. After 17 years at Chick-fil-A, where 16- and 17-year-olds were 'a good 40% of our team' in restaurants, Purvis noticed before the pandemic that parents at other chains were coming in 'demanding to know certain things about their kids' schedules' and what they were being taught, he told CNBC.

Jennifer Wallace, author of 'Never Enough' and 'Mattering,' told CNBC she has seen parental involvement follow young people into first jobs. Some employers now receive emails from parents asking about schedules or notifying managers when a teen cannot work a certain day, CNBC reported. Wallace and other employers call the practice 'snowplow parenting' or 'helicopter parenting.'

Esther Wojcicki, educator and author of 'How to Raise Successful People,' has defined snowplowing as parents constantly removing obstacles so children do not have to face challenges, CNBC reported. Wallace told CNBC that many parents have absorbed the message that every grade, activity, recommendation and early work experience could affect their child's future, and they intervene out of love and anxiety.

Wallace said an employer may reasonably wonder whether a teenager can communicate independently, accept feedback, exercise judgment and take responsibility, or whether the teen can do the job at all. She said the deeper cost is developmental. Denise Beckson, vice president and chief administrative officer at Morey's Piers in Wildwood, New Jersey, told CNBC that when a parent sends an email on a child's behalf, young adults do not learn to do it for themselves. Wallace added that fighting battles for children removes the evidence they need to believe, 'I can handle hard things.'

Wallace advised teenagers to ask parents for help by weighing in on an email the teenager writes, not by having parents send it, and to acknowledge and apologize for mistakes at work when appropriate. She said that ownership may leave an employer with a stronger impression of maturity. For parents, she said, before intervening, ask: 'Am I helping my child build a skill, or am I demonstrating that I don't believe they can use it?' Never do for a teen what you know they can do for themselves. 'The goal is not to guarantee that your child never struggles at work,' she said. 'It is to help raise a young person who knows that when struggle comes, they can meet it.'

Separately, Slashdot reported on a new book by New York Times business reporter Natasha Singer, 'Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools,' which promises 'the inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America,' according to a review in the nonprofit education news site The 74. The review says the book tells the story of the nonprofit Code.org and its Harvard-educated leader, Hadi Partovi.

According to The 74 review cited by Slashdot, Partovi warned 13 years ago that children who did not learn to write code would be left behind and that the long-term success of the U.S. economy depended on training students to fill a million open tech jobs. By 2026, the focus has shifted to AI, and Singer told The 74's Greg Toppo that the moment is 'different, but also similar.'

Singer told The 74 that many people have increased distrust of huge tech companies, and there is a wave of parents pushing back against technology in schools. She also pointed to pushback against Flock cameras and data centers, and a feeling that technology has taken so much that people have lost control. Parents are worried about unfettered tech access and children's compulsive use of social media and phones, she said.

Yet Singer said there is a disconnect with AI because Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are competing to get AI tools into schools, while school districts announce partnerships with OpenAI, declare themselves 'ChatGPT Pioneer Schools' or say they will use 10,000 licenses of CoPilot. She said schools have gone through cycles of technology promises involving laptops, learning apps, massive open online courses, virtual reality and big data, and she worries that people do not learn from them. 'It feels like we have collective amnesia,' she told The 74, adding that the current push for AI in schools is the sixth or eighth such cycle.

Slashdot noted that two of its posts, both submitted by long-time reader theodp, are cited in the book, and theodp is thanked in the acknowledgements along with consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Slashdot also noted that an Amazon Vine reviewer, who received a free copy in exchange for a review, appeared to misunderstand the book's subject, describing it as a good introduction to coding that makes coding 'feel approachable and even fun.'