Creative Ways For 12-Year-Olds To Earn Money In 2023

The fair labour standards act enacts child labour rules, but they differ depending on the specific age of the child and the related job. The FLSA child labour law serves to regulate the hours laboured, wages earned, & working conditions of the minor. 

Generally, the age restriction for traditional jobs is 14 years old, but some states have their own child labour laws and the minimum age for employment enacted. Where both state and fair labour standards act age restrictions for labour, apply, the federal statute’s minimum standard must be complied with. 

As a 12-year-old kid, you can still learn creative ways to earn money despite age 14 being the minimum age for employment. It is essential to learn about entrepreneurship & financial responsibility at a young age because it equips you with the skills required to successfully achieve financial independence.

Suppose you cannot attain a traditional job because you are a pre-teenager and you need creative ideas on how to earn money. Then, this article will benefit you greatly as the ideas provided below serve to give a real insight into how to earn real money as a 12-year-old in 2023.

Benefits Of Working As A Tween (Pre-teenager) 

Tween employment has a variety of advantages; apart from the needed family moral training & academic training, tweens also need to have some work ethic orientation instilled in them. Here are some pros of working at a young age. 

• You will develop a sense of personal responsibility.
• Self-awareness will be developed
• Financial independence will be achieved
• Working helps a tween improve his or her time management skills 
• Working equips a tween with knowledge of how to save money and be very organised
• Self-confidence and reliance are built 

Regardless of these tween employment benefits, they still have to keep in mind that school work should be taken very seriously. 

Handling the responsibilities of a job and academic work should be well balanced, and in order to do this effectively, proper research indicates that a tween’s working hours should be limited to at least 3 hours a day when school is in session and 8 hours a day when school is not in session.

Pre-teenagers with an academic work-job balance stand a better chance of earning excellent academic grades than pre-teenagers who do not have their balance. 

Creative Ways For 12-Year-Olds To Earn Money In 2023 

Around the home and in their neighbourhood, there is a variety of money-making opportunities for 12-year-olds today. On an unofficial & informal employment basis, here are some innovative job ideas for a pre-teenager to earn some extra pocket money or allowance. 

Yard Work And Pet Care Services 

In communities and neighbourhoods where there are residences that require yard work and owners of pets, both indoor and outdoor, the demand for individuals who can perform yard work and pet sitting services is of great value and high demand. 

The demand for pet care and yard work doubles every day in the United States, and there is no sign that the demand for 

Yard work business encompasses responsibilities ranging from:

• weed control
• gardening
• cutting of lawn grasses
• lawn edge trimming
• pest control
• removal of debris
• Overall lawn maintenance

Meanwhile, pet care services encompass responsibilities ranging from:

• pet grooming and brushing 
• dog walking
• administering medical treatment to a sick pet
• feeding and watering of pets
• Engaging pets in playful activities and keeping them company at all times
• Changing the pet’s litter box
• Regular kennel and cage cleaning 

Tips On How Teens Can Market And Promote Their Yard Work & Pet Care Services 

Before you start a yard work or pet-sitting service business, there are some strategies you must implement in order to achieve clientele and financial growth. We will provide insight on the promotion tips step by step, starting with pet care services, followed by yard work services.

A Tween Should Implement These Marketing Strategies To Promote His Or Her Pet Care Services : 

• Create pet-sitting sticky posters and paste them on doors, poles, fences & gates in your neighbourhood. The poster should have details such as the services you can provide, your availability & schedule, your skills, your price range and contact details.
• Create flyers and distribute them to residents in your neighbourhood. The flyers should have your phone number & email address, the pets you are capable of watching, the hours you are available and the amount of money you expect as payment.
• Distribute your flyers to your schoolmates who have pets. 
• Paste your sticky posters on your school’s bulletin board.
• Ask your mum or dad to put the word out on their social media.
• Face-to-face marketing 

A Tween Should Implement These Marketing Strategies To Promote His Or Her Yard Work Services: 

• Walk up to aged residents in your neighbourhood and speak to them about the lawn care services you can render
• Create flyers and hand them to your school teachers, friends’ parents, grandparents, parents’ friends & neighbours.
• Paste a poster on the bulletin board in your school, your parent’s car, old fences, and trees in the park.
• Use Facebook or WhatsApp to promote your lawn care business.
• Face-to-face marketing 

Tweens have to be well-spoken and have excellent communication skills before they can successfully build a clientele for their creative business and earn money. Good communication can help you to build a positive relationship with potential clients, build trust for your brand, & make you understand the needs of target customers much better.

Baby Sitting And Mother’s Helper

Babysitting and mother’s helper jobs may sound similar/alike, but that’s not the case because there is a huge difference between a babysitter and a mother’s helper.

Babysitters (usually trained/certified) are solely accountable for the direction, care and control of the children that are left under their supervision. The parents of these children either often need to be at work regularly, work late night shifts, or are rarely at home.

The Responsibilities Of A Babysitter: 

• Take children to school and bring them back home after school.
• Prepare breakfast, lunch & dinner when there is a need to
• Assist children with their homework.
• Promote only good behaviour and sometimes reward them with special treats.
• Escort children to their friend’s birthday parties, sleepovers, & school activities such as graduation, visiting days, inter-house sports & summer vacation closing days.
• Make sure that children adhere to bedtime routines.
• Help children with their laundry.
• Handle housekeeping duties like meal prepping, dishwashing, vacuum cleaning, sweeping, moping, cleaning electrical components, & changing sheets.

Mother’s helpers (usually pre-teenagers and above) are considered on-the-job training babysitters who supervise toddlers while their parent is cleaning, resting, cooking or busy with anything else at home. 

A mother’s helper is too young to handle the responsibilities of core babysitting and old enough to responsibly care for children under the supervision of their parents. 

The Responsibilities Of A Mother’s Helper:

• Help parents with shopping responsibilities
• Manage small tasks around the house and go on errands 
• Help with meal preparations
• Wash dishes 
• Play and keep the child company when his or her parent is busy.

Can A 12-Year-Old Take Babysitting Courses?

A 12-year-old, although young, can still be mature enough to handle the responsibilities of babysitting. If you are a tween with a high IQ and retentive learning abilities, you can acquire childcare training and a babysitting certificate. 

There are babysitting training programs/courses dedicated to pre-teenagers & teenagers aged 11 – 15 years old. 

You can acquire certifications by taking babysitting courses from the American red cross, Seattle Children, Virginia cooperative extension, Teens Health, Care.com, Babysitting certification institute, Kidproof babysitter training program, SOS 4 Kids, & YMCA babysitting class. 

Obtaining certification and taking babysitting courses is of utmost importance as you may need it for the following reasons:

• A certificate will help your babysitting business to achieve success 
• To win the trust of your potential clients. They will consider you eligible to babysit their child.
• To learn about good behaviours to promote and bad behaviours to rebuff
• You will learn about basic first aid ) / emergency Medicare procedures
• You will be taught how to manage critical situations
• Basic communication and child-sitting skills
• You will undergo training on how to maintain discipline, basic feeding skills, & safety precautions regarding children.
• To learn how to change a diaper

Some factors like location, school work and rare availability can affect a tween who needs to take a babysitting course in a class to obtain a certificate. If you cannot successfully join a physical babysitting class to learn in -based on reasons that limit you -then you can take up the course online. 

When a tween completes his or her babysitting course, an official childcare certification will be received as proof of his or her professionalism. A certificate leaves no room for doubt as to whether a tween is eligible to handle a babysitting job.

Tips On How To Advertise Your Babysitting And Mother’s Helper Services

Upon starting a business early, you may ask yourself questions like “How can I advertise myself as a babysitter/mother’s helper?” “How can I possibly promote my new business”? 

As an entrepreneur, promoting your business helps to achieve massive clientele growth and build your brand. One can achieve financial independence & success just by understanding a great deal of business promotion and advertisement methods.

Below are some effective babysitting business promotion tips that may be of great help to you:

1. Advertise your business through word of mouth. Walk up to parents in your neighbourhood / residential area and fluently communicate with them about the childcare services you have the ability to render.

2. Advertise your business by distributing flyers and posters to local parents in your neighbourhood

3. Create digital ads and share them on various social media platforms to inform more people about your business.

4. Ask parents who have hired you to spread the word to their families and loved ones.

5. Share your fliers with the parents of your friends 

6. Visit the nearest park, paste your childcare service posters on trees, and share your fliers with any parent you meet.

7. Create a Facebook profile and join Facebook communities and groups to advertise your Babysitting or mother’s helper business

8. You can pay money for your Babysitting ad to be a part of the content in your local newspaper. 

9. Find a daycare close to you and partner with them as a caregiver.

10. Share your fliers with your classmates and school teachers

Tips On How To Build Trust With Parents 

As a mother’s helper or babysitter, you should understand that you will be working for parents who naturally worry for their kids. Establishing a trustworthy relationship with the parents who will eventually recruit you is essential.

Here are some valuable tips on how a mother’s helper or babysitter can establish trust with parents: 

1. Acknowledge their worries and fears

2. Assure them continuously that you have everything under control

3. Admit your wrongs and be honest

4. Communicate concisely and always be honest

5. Be compassionate, empathetic and patient with children

6. Teach moral values to children under your care. They will always communicate with their parents about what they learn from you.

7. Behave ethically around the children you are supervising, and lead by example always.

8. Show that you are a responsible and mature tween

9. Present your babysitting and childcare certification.

10. Be truthful about your personal information/details.

Significance Of Safety Precautions When Babysitting 

Lastly, taking safety and responsibility as a priority when handling the responsibilities of child caregiving is of great importance. This is because the ability to keep a child safe and take proper responsibility for him or her is a babysitter’s determining factor as to whether he or she is eligible to handle the job position.

Safety precautions for babysitters to adhere to include the following: 

• Know the number of the family paediatrician
• Know the home address and phone number of the heart
• Know the phone number of the child’s parent(s) and have the neighbour’s contact details in your possession
• Always be prepared for emergencies
• Never allow strangers into the house
• Children are not to be left alone and unguided.
• All doors, both front and back, should be permanently locked when alone with a child
• No medication should be administered without a proper prescription
• Ensure that you always prepare an easy emergency exit in case of a crisis.

Arts And Crafts Sales

Handmade and personalised crafts will be in great demand in 2023, which is why it is a suitable creative business for a 12-year-old to earn money. Many personalised craft business owners have achieved huge success by building a massive clientele and selling their goods through their own physical or online stores.

Why Are Personalised And Handmade Crafts Popular?

Personalised and handmade crafts are very popular in the world today due to various specific reasons. 

Here are a few reasons behind the popularity and preference of handmade art and crafts, which are in contrast to factory & industry-made art & craftworks.

1. Personalised and handmade craftworks are produced of high quality because craftsmen usually take their time – to avoid mistakes – when producing craft pieces. 

They are usually more expensive than industry-made craft and artworks, but as the sayings go, “cheap is expensive” and “the less you pay, the less you get”. Handmade craftworks are produced to last a lifetime, so the masses highly appreciate them.

2. You can barely see handmade craftworks in the hands of so many consumers, unlike factory-made crafts and artworks that are vastly produced and sold to people. Personalised and handmade craftworks are produced to have a certain degree of uniqueness.

3. The materials used to produce handmade craftworks are locally sorted and of very high quality. One would rarely see handmade and personalised craftwork produced with recyclable materials. 

Handmade craftworks are too unique for recyclable materials to be used for production; unlike craftworks which are produced in massive numbers, there is a 100% possibility for materials that easily wear out to be used in production.

4. Handmade craftwork can be customised by someone who purchases them; one can proudly write his or her name to mark ownership of a particular unique handmade craft. However, massively produced factory-made crafts cannot be personalised because there will be a lot of individuals using the same product.

DIY Arts And Crafts To Produce And Sell

It can prove a little bit tricky to figure out how to monetise your creative abilities. You may be consistently asking yourself questions like “What do I produce”? “How can I make something unique and special”? “What is the most popular DIY art and craft in demand”? 

Below are some different craft ideas you can monetise in 2023: 

1. Jewellery

A tween or full teenager can monetise his or her artistic skills by selling handmade and personalised craftwork online or in a physical store. 

A beautiful handmade collection of handmade craftworks can offer you a great deal of financial independence if you successfully attract your target market. 

Below is a step-by-step procedure to gradually build a successful handmade craftworks collection:

• Draw out a blueprint (Plan) for your business
• Build a clientele by using advertising and promotion strategies 
• Buy all materials you need to produce quality craftwork
• Plan your cost price
• Post your craftwork on social media or Etsy
• Start monetising your handmade craftworks brand

2. Paintings

Artworks are also in great demand today and serve to beautify homes, offices, hospitals and other residential facilities. Painting is definitely a lucrative business industry to get into.

Figure out something unique, affordable, marketable, beautiful & currently unavailable in the artwork market today that only you have the ability to create. 

3. Greeting Cards

Handmade greeting cards are actually a huge deal in the art and craftwork market today, and they are even sold in big malls and supermarkets. Greeting cards are inexpensive to produce, and yet they are in massive demand; it is a very lucrative business for creative tweens.

Textiles and coloured papers/cards are extremely affordable, plus one needs no certification to be considered proficient for craft and artwork production. 

Use beautiful dried flowers, calligraphy pens, coloured stamps, glitter pens and poster colours to create very beautiful greeting cards and sell them to consumers.

4. Homemade Soaps

Unlike industry-produced soaps, homemade soaps are considered to be more authentic, organic and trustworthy by consumers. A tween who understands the chemistry of soap-making organic products can incorporate authentic, organic and natural cleaning products into the lives of individuals who love skin care.

Monetise your natural soap-making ability by creating and promoting homemade cleaning products like bath and hand wash.

You can purchase organic cleaning product materials and start creating unique cleaning soaps to sell to your target market. The best part is that this particular craftwork requires very little start-up capital.

5. Scented Candles

Scented candles are among the most popular handmade and personalised craftwork that can be sold consistently from month to month. Beautiful & quality scented candles are great for individuals who love scents and make great birthday gifts too. 

They make quality gifts because, with fancy holidays, anniversaries and birthdays all year round, your candles will be purchased consistently.

A tween interested in candle making can purchase wax and scented oil in bulk, which will be cheaper, and he or she can also create a variety of scented candle sizes, combinations and shapes. A scented candle business operation can be launched with at least $90 – $100. 

Read More: Does Orientation Mean You Got The Job? | Find Out

Tips On Setting Up An Online Craft Store

• Download any social media platform of your choice, fill in and register your details to create an account.
• Personalise your account by providing a business username, pictures of what you sell, your availability, your price list, a business link and your contact details.
• Identify and follow your target market.
• Ensure that you are only followed by your target market.
• Obey the policies and guidelines of the social media platform in order to avoid a suspension of your account.

The Significance Of Offering Quality Work And Customer Satisfaction In Babysitting 

Babysitting and being a mother’s helper are two very sensitive job responsibilities. Potential employers are always in search of the best caregivers in the babysitting job market.

If you want to be of high ranking in the babysitting industry, you have to be capable of offering customer satisfaction and quality caregiving service.

Here are some reasons why offering quality service and customer satisfaction in babysitting is important: 

• Your individual and business reputation will be positively improved
• You will earn unpaid customer referrals hence more money-making opportunities
• You will effortlessly win the loyalty of clients
• You will win the trust of your clientele

Online Jobs And Freelancing

Freelancing is one of the major and most popular methods to earn money online in 2023. 12-year-olds who have technical skills can take it up as a money-making opportunity and earn from it.

Freelancers are in very great demand today. The need for these individuals rise every year worldwide, and tweens can take up freelancing remote job anywhere in the world.

Some job responsibilities that freelancing encompasses include the following:

1. Graphic Designing 

Pre-teenagers who have freelance graphic designing and technical expertise can monetise it by selling themselves online. Search for potential customers by advertising on social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Bing, Twitter, TikTok or WhatsApp.  

The job responsibility of a freelance graphic designer is to design book covers, websites, blogs, business logos and fliers.

2. Content Writing

As a Pre-teenager or teenager who has writing expertise, earning real money just for writing blog articles is possible in 2023. The demand for freelance content writers/creators grows ceaselessly every day. 

Apply for a remote job via the job application websites of different blogs on Google, Opera Mini, LinkedIn or Chrome. Some blogs offer on-the-job training to new recruits to teach them how to work in compliance with their company culture and work standards.

3. Social Media Management 

Managing the social media of a brand requires the skill of being strategic. One has to have the ability to create engaging content and implement strategic procedures to grow a social media account organically, to become a social media manager.

Resources Designed For Young Freelancers 

To support the financial growth of young freelancers, there are resources and platforms specifically designed for them. Some of which are: 

• Fiverr: Designed for finding jobs and advertising your skills
• LinkedIn: Designed for finding freelancing remote and physical jobs
• Upwork: Designed for finding new clients to offer freelance services to
• Online training courses: Freelancers learn more about the skill with online courses
• Indy: Designed to help with project management.

If you decide to take up freelancing jobs as a means to earn extra money as a Pre-teenager, you must know that time management skills are of utmost importance. Having freelancing skills is not enough; consistency in meeting project deadlines is also required to be considered a competent freelancer. 

Affiliate Marketing

After freelancing, affiliate marketing is another popular industry in online businesses. The number of brands that are in dire need of skilled affiliate marketers is increasing every day.

Entrepreneurs need individuals who are skilled in marketing to advertise their products through word of mouth and help them achieve more sales. A tween who has marketing skills and a business mindset can earn money effortlessly through affiliate marketing.

Here is an accurate guide on how affiliate marketing works: 

• An affiliate marketer promotes an ad or a link that can direct customers to a specific product’s website.
• An interested customer visits the website created by the affiliate via the link or clicks the ad. 
• The customer makes a purchase if the product catches his or her interest.
• The affiliate marketer takes note of the transaction made.
• The brand that employed the affiliate marketer approves the transaction.
• According to the payment agreement made by the two parties, the affiliate marketer gets a commission payment for each product sold out.

To earn more money as a young affiliate marketer, you must consistently promote awareness and boost sales for the brand you work for.

Tips On How To Promote Your Affiliate Marketing Business 

• Design a clear and concise affiliate marketing social media account
• Use email marketing strategies or word-of-mouth strategies in your neighbourhood
• Design a business card, logos, fliers and posters
• Join the communities of every social media platform and advertise to individuals there

In affiliate marketing, one important thing is the ability to successfully build and engage an audience (target market) & market your products to them. The number of potential clients you have and your marketing skills determines your success in the affiliate marketing job market today. 

Promote Your Family’s Business (Locally And Online) 

Studies have proved that about 70% of families in the United States earn money through the entrepreneurship business sector. Regardless of this, many families are still intending/planning to grow their own businesses.

Family business managers are rarely affected by the depreciating economy, especially the ones managing very lucrative businesses. This is because they are their own bosses, and their financial growth is unlimited. 

A tween whose family owns a business can also earn real money by helping out with his or her family’s business.

Some common family businesses are:

• Restaurant
• Medical hospitals
• Supermarkets
• Spas
• Hairdressing salons
• Nail art salons
• Barbing salons
• Small shops
• Hotel
• Boutiques 

Promote your family business online by doing these:

• Implement email marketing strategies
• Post your digital ads on your social media platform

Promote your family business locally by doing these: 

• Walk up to aged residents in your neighbourhood and speak to them about the lawn care services you can render
• Create flyers and hand them to your school teachers, friends’ parents, grandparents, parents’ friends & neighbours.
• Paste posters on the bulletin board in your school, your parent’s car, old fences, and trees in the park.
• Word-to-mouth marketing 

Conclusion 

Now that you have figured out that yard work, pet care services, mother’s helper, babysitting, art and craftwork sales & freelancing are creative ways to earn money aside from traditional jobs, we wish you nothing but success on your entrepreneurial journey. 

Hopefully, some of the mentioned creative job ideas caught your interest, and you will go ahead to monetise them. 

As a young entrepreneur, it is important to achieve a work-life balance by prioritising academic work, personal development and job responsibilities equally.