Summer is here, school is out, and already you’ve got Bart Simpson on your couch from noon until 2:00 a.m. playing round after round of Grand Theft Auto and eating up every salted crunchy thing in the house.

Not acceptable.

Trouble is, summer jobs are scarce as $2 gasoline right now, and it doesn’t look like things are going to change anytime soon. Bob Herbert laments this very fact on a much more serious level in his New York Times column today.

Even so, it’s also true that some jobs never have enough applicants, and others, while not the kind of thing your son or daughter might consider off the top of his or her head, are great for building future resumes and scholarship applications even if they pay little or no money.

So, without minimizing the seriousness the current economic slowdown, here are some ideas for summer work for teenagers that are relatively recession proof:

Landscaping, Yard Work, and Garden Maintenance

An old saying promises, “Learn to dig a hole, and you’ll always have a job.”

It’s true. I worked in the garden design/landscape industry for about seven years, and the fact was and is that between May and September there is always much more work than there are workers. The resilience of this industry is counter-intuitive: You’d think it would be one of the first places people would cut back, but the truth is, even if homeowners can’t install any new plant material, for at least four months the maintenance work alone is overwhelming. Landscaping installation and maintenance is one of the most recession-resistant occupations around.

Send your sixteen-year-old son or daughter around to all the local growers and garden centers with references and fliers volunteering their services for maintenance or clean up help. After putting in their applications for formal employment, they can ask to post the fliers advertising their services. Most places will allow them to do this. They should also ask about landscape firms in the area that might be hiring.

It’s hard work, in the sun. When I worked on site, I watched grown man after grown man quit after the first day. They just didn’t want to do the work. They thought they did, but after a couple of hours they decided they didn’t. I don’t mean I was standing around in my straw hat and sunscreen painting my nails pink and lamenting the dearth of ‘good help’ either–No, I was digging holes and sweating like a hog right alongside all of these buff braggarts who time after time skidaddled after we’d barely gotten started.

Put this as a challenge to your son, and perhaps he will pick up the gauntlet.

Girls can often find work repotting plants, or later in the summer, planting roses at growers. If your daughter knows a weed from a perennial flowering plant, she will have more work than she can handle all summer long, just weeding perennial beds for rich people. I’ve done it myself. Not glamorous, won’t kill her.

You do need to exercise caution: Your teen should not be handling pesticides or any maintenance equipment more complex than a shovel. For guidelines on how to keep your teen safe at a landscaping job, check out the OSHA website dealing with outside summer employment.

Volunteer Work

Teenagers like money, and with college costs skyrocketing and financial aid diminishing, a paid summer job is almost a necessity. But if jobs just aren’t there, volunteer work can pay off big down the line in a number of ways.

More and more top colleges are reaching out to middle and lower class students who normally would not be able to afford tuition, and underwriting their education because 1) it’s the right thing to do and they can afford it, and 2) it rounds out their student body and gives them the diversity and breadth of experience that makes their school attractive to people who can afford to pay. They aren’t just looking for good grades and SAT or ACT scores, they are looking for kids who have been involved in their communities in active and creative ways.

A summer spent as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity or a local nursing home or hospital can translate into thousands of dollars in scholarship money down the line. At minimum, it will result in business community contacts that make future employment more assured and look fantastic on a resume.

Encourage Entrepreneurship

Necessity is the mother of invention, and when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. And when life hands you a teenager with too much time on his or her hands due to a shaky economy, Inc magazine recommends that you talk to your teenager about lemonade stands and Horatio Algier and so on an so forth. Don’t rent “Risky Business,” but do point to other teens who have successfully started their own lucrative enterprises.

The Small Business Administration actually has a web page with descriptions of successful teens and their businesses and where those creative enterprises took them in adulthood. Your teen can also check out their video on how to get started and lots of other good ideas. Nineteen-year-old Boston University student Ben Cathers started his first internet business when he was 12 years old, and is currently launching his own software company while earning his business and marketing degree. Read a recent interview with Cathers and learn his tips for teens interested in business at the online version of Entrepreneur magazine.

The truth is, the jobs of the future will probably not be the jobs we grew up with, and they certainly won’t be the jobs our parents had. It’s tempting to fall into a funk because the opportunities for teenagers to earn wages bagging groceries or working at fast food places are being snapped up by adults this summer, but steering your teen towards experience in ecology and green industry, online marketing and research, or volunteer health or public service work is much more likely to inspire her to continue on professionally in one of those fields, and may well earn him a place at a prestigious college when that time rolls around.

A high school diploma, or even a college degree, is no longer a guarantee of a comfortable life. The colleges and employers of today are looking for young people who have gone beyond basic certification and taken the initiative to do interesting and creative things in the world of work. This summer may well be your teen’s opportunity to do just that.