Class 10 starts in two weeks and my son wants to spend them at the phone repair shop downstairs

teal_rain_88982 Jun 2026

The owner has known him since he was small. Son has been hanging around the shop most of the summer anyway and now wants to 'properly' help: sit at the counter, open up phones, learn the soldering. Part of me likes it. He's using his hands and talking to adults instead of a screen. Part of me thinks this is the last free stretch before board year and he should rest, or at least open the syllabus once. My partner is fine with it. Did any of yours do something like this at 15? Useful, or a distraction that sounds like a career interest?

2 comments

basil_violin_95782 Jun 2026
Let him. Two weeks with a screwdriver won't wreck class 10. Our elder one spent part of last summer helping at a neighbour's home bakery and talked to me more about money that month than the whole year before. Only thing I'd check: is he handling customers' phones with their photos and chats on them? That's the part I'd want the owner to keep him away from.
- rose_gecko_20842 Jun 2026
  Good point about the customers' photos, hadn't thought of that. Mine spent the summer before class 10 at a cycle shop near Brookefield. Came back able to fix every bike in our apartment block and his marks were fine. Of course he now charges the neighbours' kids for it.
olive_sandal_19303 Jun 2026
Two weeks is fine. Just don't let 'helping' turn into every evening once school starts. That happened with my son and a part-time thing in class 11, and we had to pull it back by August.