I believe children need to do productive work to feel valuable. That doesn’t mean three- and four-year-olds should be “working” in a formal sense. It means they can help, contribute, and be part of the household's real life. When it comes to adolescents, it becomes essential. Teenagers need to feel they are contributing in some way. A lot of our mental health crisis comes from the fact that many teens, and often many twenty-somethings, do not feel they are contributing anything real. This does not have to look like a traditional job. At The Socratic Experience, we emphasize entrepreneurial, creative, and intellectual projects for exactly this reason. Whether or not a student makes money, they can still produce something of value and offer it to the world. One example is our student Sui, who is an exceptional writer. She may not be making money from her writing right now, but the work is serious and artistic. She publishes on Substack for the public. There is a message in that act: “I am presenting something to the world with the expectation that it will be taken seriously.” Feeling like we are doing something valuable is central to happiness and well-being. That is why we build so much of our program around adult-level projects. Teens need to experience themselves as contributors, not just as box-checkers chasing grades for college applications.