I was doing gardening work for neighbors when I was 12 In the US, it’s common for children of business owners (such as family-run restaurants) to help around.
I firmly believe that by starting a regular job at 12 (delivering papers in the damn cold at 6am), it formed postive opinions about various work options for me while I still had the options to decide.
Besides that, my after/before school and holiday jobs included:
Fruit & Vege Merchant Assistant
School Floor Polisher
Car Panelbeater/Painter Assistant
Furniture Restorer’s Assistant
Bakery Labourer
Builder’s Labourer
Kids Camp Counsellor
Chef’s Assistant
Homeless people visitation
All of those jobs I learned various manual skills, which I continue to use from time to time, but more importantly, the work/social interaction with ‘real’ people at that stage of my life was really something quite valuable, looking back on it.
When I was in Thailand they had 12 year old girls that would…oh…err…nevermind.