My husband and I started working when we were 14 years old.

When our oldest son told us he wanted to do the same, we were ready to help him achieve it. But it was a challenge because most companies require employees to be at least 16 years old, sometimes 18.

We knew we had to find an independent business with a manager willing to take a chance on a young teenager.

The opportunity came on a date night.

We live in a coastal town with a strong tourist economy and on a Friday night, my husband and I were at a local restaurant. We’re always thinking about how we can open doors for our kids, so when our waiter approached the table, I asked them if they were hiring.

He brought in the general manager, who had decades of restaurant experience. We explained that we had a 14-year-old son who wanted to work.

He was skeptical. He said he had hired many teenagers over the years and the pattern was almost always the same: The parents wanted them to work, but the children didn’t. He said that if our son applied online and emailed him directly, he would be willing to interview him. I needed to know if our son wanted the job or us.

Didn’t wait to apply

We got home around 10pm and told our son exactly what the manager had told us.

He went straight to his computer, created his first resume, and sent the email that night.

The next morning I had an interview scheduled.

We explain what to expect, how to dress, how to behave and the types of questions you might be asked. It was his first job interview and we wanted to set him up for success. We took him to the restaurant and waited outside.

He came out hired, with the uniform list in hand and a training date on the calendar.

Our son has always called moments like this the alley-oop. We found the opportunity and set it up, but he had to keep going to make it happen, and he did.

Seeing him at work was something else.

Our son worked at that restaurant for almost two years. A month or two after it started, my husband and I went to dinner to see it in action. Several people approached us that night and told us what a great job he was doing.

At home, he was a teenager like any other, but at that restaurant we got to see a different side of the person he was without us around, a glimpse of the adult he was becoming. Centered. Professional. Driven in a way we haven’t seen before.

The restaurant manager was a big part of that. Not only did he give our son an opportunity; invested in him. In slower shifts, I would give him small tasks, like finding certain ’90s songs, listening to them, and coming back to talk about them. Our son took every assignment seriously because it came from his boss at work.

Two years in a real job taught him a lot.

When the manager finally looked for another opportunity, our son experienced firsthand what leadership changes can affect a team. He would come home after certain shifts, frustrated, explaining how things had changed and weren’t going so well in his mind. As a teenager I was learning what most people don’t learn until their 20s.

That’s why we continue to give our children real-world experiences as early as possible. When they are still at home, they can stretch out and learn while we are there to support them. Our son earned every bit of that opportunity. We just threw the alley-oop.