What are the best online jobs for 12 year olds? The good news is that there are many out there. From regular, hourly work to creative freelance gigs, there is something for every child.
When I was 12 years old, I picked up many of these jobs. These gigs helped me successfully earn over $2000 of my own cash, learn how to work with different generations and helped me develop hard and soft skills.
If you’re looking for online jobs for 12 year olds that:
- Pay a good wage
- Teach your kids valuable budgeting skills
- Help your child develop life skills such as cooking, cleaning and interacting with others
… then look no further.
Read on to learn about the best online jobs for 12 year olds.
Why Start a Job at 12 Years Old?
Why should your child start a job or side hustle at the young age of 12 years old? There are several reasons why it’s a good idea:
1. Earn Extra Cash for Both Needs and Wants
Earn Cash for Wants
There comes a time in one’s life when a weekly allowance no longer cuts it. There are two reasons why. Firstly, as your child gets older, they may start desiring more costly toys or experiences. A dollar-store toy and trip to the zoo no longer satisfy them – they now want a new Nintendo Switch and a season’s pass to the amusement park! Understandable. However, you don’t want to shell out the cash to fund this lifestyle. Starting a job around the age of 12 years old is an easy way for your child to fund his or her lifestyle.
1. Starting an Online Job at 12 Years Old Will Help Your Child Save for the Future
Starting a job at 12 years old is also an opportunity to invest in the future. If your child can set away even $50 or $100 a month and invest it, this is a great way to get a head start with compound interest. College tuition is expensive. In 2023, the average cost of college tuition and supplies was just over $36,000 a year. While you may be funding your child’s education, getting your child involved and partially responsible for the costs is an ideal way to teach them responsibility.
2. Learn How Much Work It Takes to Earn a Dollar
Online jobs for 12 year olds can help them learn the value of a dollar. When they spend hours of hard work tutoring a struggling student on a math problem, they’ll understand how much effort it takes to earn $20. Next time you’re at the mall, your son or daughter will think twice about dropping their entire weekly pay on candy. Instead, they’ll learn delayed gratification – the value of waiting and saving their money for a larger purchase.
3. Practice Budgeting Skills
In addition to understanding the value of a dollar, starting a job at 12 years old will force your child to budget. When your child receives their first paycheck, they’ll most likely get excited, run to the mall and get the latest and greatest toy. Suddenly, that $100 they earned is all gone.
4. Online Jobs for 12 Year Olds Help Them Interact with Different Age Ranges
At the age of 12 years old, most children have had limited interactions with those outside their age range. Besides their parents, grandparents and babysitters, your child probably mostly chats with their classmates. Taking on a job such as tutoring younger children or doing market research interviews with adults will help them come out of their shell.
5. Pick Up Hard and Soft Skills
When your child starts a job from an early age, they’ll will develop valuable skills they otherwise wouldn’t learn within the four walls of a classroom or on the playground. Online jobs such as tutoring can help your child learn and sharpen skills in a specific subject area. While your child is tutoring other students, they’ll automatically review old concepts.
In addition to hard, technical skills, online jobs will help your child learn how to:
- Operate a laptop or computer’s camera and microphone and troubleshoot technical errors
- Assert their own opinion and give feedback in a constructive way
- Hone creative and technical skills such as graphic design, photo editing and video editing
6. Online Jobs for 12 Year Olds Can Help Them Discover Their Interests
Starting a job at 12 years old will help your child learn about what types of jobs he or she may want in the future. For example, if your child starts designing their own online prints to sell but discovers that they don’t enjoy it, they may want to focus on more technical or labor-intense jobs. At the very least, online jobs will help your child discover new interests – even if they don’t know what they want to do for a job in the future.
Why Take an Offline Job Over an Offline Job?
There are tons of seasonal and year-round, in-person opportunities out there. Why take an online job over, say, raking leaves or babysitting?
Online jobs are ideal for 12 year olds who have busy schedules and do not have time to commute to and from a worksite. These gigs are also ideal for kids who are tech-savvy or are interested in using technology to work. Choosing an online job is also ideal for you. While you will need to help your child with tasks such as creating accounts and monitoring their online activities, you won’t need to drive them to and from their job. Time saved for both of you!
Online Jobs for 12 Year Olds Who Are Outgoing
Tutoring Other Students
Is your child talented in a particular subject area? Maybe he or she is ahead of the curve in music class, is a natural writer, or consistently scores above 90% on math tests. If your child is talented, patient and willing to work with other kids, online tutoring is an ideal way for them to earn some spare cash.
Help your child post ads on Facebook Marketplace. Additionally, don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Ask the local community centre for permission to put up posters at the local community centre. Check with your friends and family to see if a friend or friend of a friend’s son or daughter needs help with their homework.
In addition to earning cash, developing patience skills and reviewing old concepts through teaching them, tutoring is a fun way for your child to consider if teaching or tutoring might be a future career possibility.
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Participating in Paid Market Research Studies – An Online Job for 12 Year Olds Who Are Outgoing
What Are Paid Market Research Studies?
Aside from tutoring students, market research studies are another fun way to earn some spare cash. Companies all around the world are constantly looking to improve their products and launch the best products they can. Organizations are often happy to invest tens of thousands of dollars to ‘get it right the first time.’
Businesses sign up on market research study platforms and post study opportunities. They interview people just like you who are within their demographic to help them:
- Determine whether or not you’d buy a product or service they’re looking to launch or re-launch
- Get feedback on a product or website prototype
- Ask about any missing features or services they should add before launching the product or service
How to Apply for Paid Market Research Studies
While most market research studies target adults, many studies require children’s participation. You’ll need to sign up for an account and apply to studies on your child’s behalf.
Get started by signing up for an account on market research websites. The top platforms to sign up on are:
- User Interviews
- Respondent
- dScout
- Mindswarms
Why? Personally, I’ve received the most study invitations on User Interviews and Respondent. Additionally, these platforms generally offer the most diverse range of study opportunities. This means that there are more studies for 12-year-olds to participate in.
How to Apply for and Receive Study Invitations
After signing up, verifying your email address and filling in demographic details, start applying to surveys! These are screeners that require you to answer specific questions. The screener gets sent to a researcher who will review the application.
If you’re a good fit, you’ll receive an invitation to sign up for an interview slot. This is typically a 30-minute to 1-hour video interview. During the interview, the research asks you questions and may ask you to demo a prototype they’re working on. If you receive a study invite, be sure to sign up as soon as possible, as slots fill up first-come, first-serve!
Are Market Research Studies a Reliable Income Source For My 12-Year-Old?
While this side hustle isn’t a steady source of income and requires a lot of your involvement, if you’re willing to apply to studies daily on behalf of your child, it’s a good way to generate an extra $50-$200 a month.
Online Jobs for 12 Year Olds Who Are Creative
Starting a YouTube Channel
Constantly catching your child recording videos and on TikTok? They can channel their creative spirit by starting a YouTube channel. Starting a YouTube vlog is simple – all your child needs is access to a phone, laptop and a YouTube account. Your child can create content on anything they’re interested in, from cooking, homework, hobbies and more.
Once your child’s channel acquires 1,000 subscribers or more and has 4,000 hours of public watch time within 12 months or 10 million public YouTube Shorts views within a 90-day period, he or she can monetize their channel. This means that they’ll place ads before, during and at the end of each video. When a viewer clicks on that ad, they’ll receive commission. Additionally, your child can promote affiliate products through sponsored videos. During the video, a sponsor will either pay them to promote a product or give them a commission off every sale they receive by promoting a product. Viewers click your child’s unique affiliate link in the YouTube video’s description and the sale will be edcredit to your child.
Just like market research studies, you’ll need to be heavily involved in starting and running a YouTube channel. YouTube is not available for kids under the age of 13, so you’ll need to sign up for and run their account. Alternatively, your child can use YouTube Kids until they turn 13. Additionally, you’ll need to manage the channel’s income, expenses and legalities for each affiliate and sponsor.
Creating and Selling a Course
Similarly to tutoring, creating and selling a course is a fun way for your child to apply their teaching talents. If your son or daughter is talented in cooking, music theory, baking or something else, they can film a series of training videos and sell them on a platform such as Teachable.
Creating and selling courses is a fun way to develop video editing skills and potentially generate a large amount of passive income.
Selling Digital Prints
Children with an artistic flair should strongly consider selling digital prints on Etsy, Redbubble or another platform. Digital products allow your child to get creative, hone their graphic design skills and generate passive income. They can create eye-catching designs on Canva, download them to their computer and upload them to a merchant platform.
Set up your child for success by optimizing merchandise posts for SEO. This means writing product descriptions that focus on Google keywords that are high-volume and low competition. Use a tool such as Keysearch to find keywords that have a competition of under 40 and a monthly search volume of 1,000 or more. For example, the keyword ‘virtual baby shower invitations’ is too competitive, so it’s not really worth your time trying to create digital invitations and spend time and money marketing them.
However, a keyword such as ‘printed envelopes online’ is a high-volume, lower-competition keyword. This means that it’s a lot easier to rank in search engines for this product which means there’s a higher chance someone will find your online store and make a purchase.
A Final Word About Online Jobs for 12 Year Olds
There are many different online jobs for 12 year olds out there. From conventional, hourly work to creative freelancing gigs, help your child find an opportunity that’s right for them. Be sure that they’re learning and enjoying themselves. Earning money is great, but 12-year-olds should be focused on developing skills for the future and making sure they’re still completing schoolwork on time and well.
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Janita is a frugal living expert and owner of Frugal Fun Finance. With over five years of personal experience finding and trying out the best ways to make and save more money, she's eager to share her knowledge. Janita's strategies have helped her save thousands of dollars for funding investments and traveling to over 20 countries.
Janita completed training in personal finance at The University of Western Ontario and McGill University, two prestigious Canadian universities. Her expertise has been shared on GoBankingRates, Yahoo Finance, and NASDAQ.com.
