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This article has been reproduced from FAMILY MATTERS no.33 December 1992, pp.52-54
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Self Care for School Aged Children
Gay Ochiltree
Children alone in the home are the focus of community concern;
for parents, such a situation is often a cause of anxiety and
guilt. These children are often referred to as 'latch-key'
children, a term which has negative connotations. The term
'self-care' is preferred because, for children, the experience of
looking after themselves is not always a negative one, and may
even be a part of the experience of becoming independent.
Robinson, Rowland and Coleman (1989) state:
A home-alone child or a self care child is one who has the
responsibility of caring for himself or herself in an
unsupervised setting on a regular basis. For some children the
time spent in self care IS short and relatively stress-free. For
others it entails the care of brothers and sisters, being alone
for long hours, and having untold fears and apprehensions.
Some children enjoy self care and develop independence and
self-reliance. They are trusted to make reasonable decisions and
do perfectly fine when left home alone. Others simply cannot
handle the pressures of self care and are overwhelmed with rules
and responsibilities. (p.xi)
Although there has been an increase in recent years in the number
of places available in out-of-school-hours care in Australia,
the number of places by no means meets the need in the community.
Some working parents choose to make private arrangements (such as
employing a babysitter in their own home, or arranging for care
in the home of a caregiver); others have no option but to make
such private arrangements. Grandparents are frequently favoured
as caters. Other parents use siblings to care for younger
children, if they feel they are old enough, and/or if they have
no other option and cannot afford the cost of alternative care.
And some parents must leave their child at home alone. School
aged children are also likely to express their preferences for or
dislike of particular forms of care, and this will also affect
the choice of out-of-school-hours care.
It is difficult to estimate the number of children in self care.
In the United States, Cam and Hofferth (1989) used data from the
1984 Current Population Survey to estimate the number of school
children aged 5-13 who were left unsupervised or in the care of
another person aged 14 years or less (probably a sibling) before
or after school or at night. The results indicated that 2.4
million United States children, or about 8 per cent of those in
the 5-13 age group, cared for themselves or were in the care of
someone under 14 years at some time during the day. This was less
than previous estimates and substantially less than popularly
believed. Other estimates are as high as 15 million, and some
researchers believe that there are more American children in self
care than any other form of care other than parent care (Dowd
1991).
One of the main problems in collecting information on children in
self care is that parents may be reluctant to reveal that they
leave their children without supervision, particularly when such
an arrangement may be in breach of the law because of the young
age of the children. There is also a problem in defining self
care - the length of time involved, the frequency, the age of the
children, and the presence of siblings (Dowd 1991).
There is little information available in Australia on the extent
of self care by school aged children, although a study of the use
of out-of-school-hours care by children in 11 ethnic communities
in Melbourne found that many parents in these communities did not
know about out-of-school-hours care, even where it was available
in their area. Ethnic communities, the report stated, may
therefore be over represented among children at home alone
(VICSEG 1988).
The Institute's Children in Families Study, carried out in
1982-83, also gives some indication that of out-of-school-hours
self care or care by siblings is not uncommon in this country,
although it is more prevalent among older children who are
becoming independent.
This study found that of the 402 children who were asked about
their after-school activities, 14 per cent came home to an empty
house: however, only 8 per cent of the 95 primary children (aged
8-9 years) came home to an empty house compared with 20 per cent
of the 207 adolescents (aged 15-16 years). (Children were not
specifically asked about the use of after-school care which was
less available at the time.) just on three quarters of these
children said that someone arrived home within the hour
(three-quarters) or within two hours (20 per cent). Where
children came home to an empty house, the next person to arrive
home in 29 per cent of families was a brother or sister. Where
someone was at home when the children arrived from school, in
about a quarter of the families it was a brother or sister rather
than a parent.
More recent information on the topic is being obtained in the
Institute's Australian Living Standards Study. The results for
the first area of the study to be analysed, Berwick, a fringe
municipality in the south-cast of Melbourne, show that 10 per
cent of the 357 primary school children included in the
survey
either look after themselves or are looked after by an older
sibling while their parents are at work. However, the time for
which this situation applies is very short, averaging only three
hours per week.
The table below shows the percentage of primary school
children in Berwick who looked after themselves or were looked
after by a sibling while their parents were at work in 1991.
| Age of child |
% |
| 5 |
2.5 |
| 6 |
5.7 |
| 7 |
6.3 |
| 8 |
6.3 |
| 9 |
10.4 |
| 10 |
11.4 |
| 11 |
21.1 |
| 12 |
30.4 |
| Total |
10.1 |
Although self care is often portrayed negatively and as harmful
to children, this is not necessarily so. Self care may be quite
adequate in meeting the needs of some children (Cain and Hofferth
1989):
Concern about children in self care, 'latchkey' children, has
been motivated by the belief that there is a large and increasing
number of children in self care and that there are deleterious
consequences for these children. The picture that is often
presented is one of large numbers of children spending long hours
in dangerous situations and experiencing high levels of fear.
While this is certainly true in some cases, the prognosis for
children in self care is not uniformly negative. Parents may
choose to use self care for their children when they perceive
their children as being more responsible and independent and/or
the parents are better able to control a self care situation
either through pre-planning or providing supervision by
telephone. Nor is there agreement either that the number of
latch-key children is high or that the time they spend in such
care is long (p.65).
Studies have found that the stereotype of latch-key children
coming from poor or single-parent families is inaccurate; self
care was used more often by middle or upper-income white mothers
living in suburban or rural areas, and more often by two-parent
families (Cain and Hofferth 1989. Dowd 1991). The most important
factor associated with self care was the age of the child, with
older children being more likely than younger children to be in
self care. Children in larger families were more likely to be in
self care (which includes care by a sibling under 14). The data
also showed that most children were in self care (including the
care of someone under 14) for less than two hours per day (Cain
and Hofferth 1989).
Another study of latch-key children in the United States found
that the element of supervision is important in assessing whether
self care has the potential to be harmful or benign in its
effects on children. Cain and Hofferth (1989) cite Steinberg
(1986):
In many cases, the children who returned home to an empty house
were supervised via telephone and were expected to check in with
their parents promptly upon their return, while others stopped
at
friends' houses where there were no adults present or were simply
'hanging out' in shopping malls. Steinberg found that the further
removed the adolescents were from adult supervision, the more
susceptible they were to peer pressure to engage in antisocial
behaviour. (p.66)
Nevertheless, Cain and Hofferth (1989) found that although most
children were older and caring for themselves for only a short
time each day there were some children who were at risk. A group
of 5 - 7- year-olds (231, 222) were in self care after school and
a proportion of these (32, 191) were in self or sibling care for
more than three hours. It has also been found in risky inner city
areas in the United States that many children do not remain in
the out-of-school-hours care programs that are available (Halpern
1992).
However, the consequences of self care are inadequately
researched at present and not enough is known about what these
children are actually doing while at home. There is some research
that indicates some children are unhappy and/or frightened in
self care, and other contrasting research indicating that
children are unaffected; other studies have found that children
in self care are better adjusted and more independent than their
constantly supervised age mates. There is a suggestion that
community differences may account for differences in outcomes in
studies of children in self care (Dowd 1991).
In the United States, children in self care pose a problem in
many public libraries. As Dowd (1991) points out:
Library latch-key children are a prominent and significant group
of children needing public library services. In fact, this
clientele was the most frequently identified special population
of children in the 1980s - in terms of atypical circumstances -
mentioned by librarians in a recent survey.
These children may spend their time after school in the library
although they are not particularly interested in using the
library materials and may distract other library users. They are
often sent there by parents who consider libraries to be safe and
convenient places for children to wait. These children sometimes
present space and control problems for librarians.
Libraries in the United States, where the formal provision of
child care services is less adequate than in Australia, have
developed a number of successful programs and strategies for
children in self care. These include both informal drop-in
programs as well as formally advertised activities at specific
times such as films, puppet shows, craft activities, games, and
the use of audio-visual materials. Many libraries have cooperated
with other community agencies such as YMCA, YWCA, youth bureaus
and recreation services to cope with the situation. For more
information on these activities see Latch-key Children in the
Library and Community: Issues, Strategies and Programs (Dowd 1991).
Choosing Self Care:
The Working Parent's Guide
Even where children have been in supervised 'out-of-school-hours
care, the time comes, as they get older, when they do not want to
be cared for either formally or informally while their parents
are at work. Such rejection of care is often nothing to do with
the quality of care available or dislike of the caregiver.
Rather, it is related to the children's age and growing
independence, and their feeling of having outgrown the activities
available in their after-school program and the company of
younger children.
Parents are then faced with leaving their child at home alone.
Those who are working in a flexible work situation or part-time
may change their working hours so that they can be at home after
school, but for other parents this may be impossible and they
must judge not only whether their child is old enough, but also
whether s/he is sufficiently trustworthy, sensible and competent
to be left alone.
This transition between supervised care to self care is
frequently a difficult time for parents. The child insists that
s/he is able to cope alone and will be quite safe and sensible,
while the parents worry about the child's safety, maturity, and
ability to cope with unexpected events. Parents may also fear
criticism from others for not being with their children. The
situation is made even more troubled if there are younger
siblings involved whom the parents feel still need care.
Working parents with a child at home alone often feel
particularly anxious around the time that school finishes until
they are able to check that their child is safely at home. There
is evidence that this anxiety may affect work performance and
lead to an increase in mistakes (Dowd 1991).
A useful book for working parents in this situation is Home-Alone
Kids., The Working Parent's Complete Guide to Providing the Best
Care for Your Child (Robinson, Rowland and Coleman 1989). This
book helps working parents in their decision about whether or not
their child is mature enough, and their house safe enough, to
leave them at home alone. It contains checklists to help parents
judge the maturity of their children and their suitability for
self care.
The book covers the following topics: Should you leave your child
home alone? What should you do before deciding on home-alone care
for your child? How can you plan the best home-alone care? How
are your kids adjusting to homealone care? How can you balance
your work and home-alone care? What can you do when home-alone
care is not working? How can you bolster your child's home-alone
care? A knapsack of resources.
When assessing whether it is safe to leave their child alone, the
authors advise parents to take into account the following
indicators of their child's maturity. Is the child's behaviour
usually responsible, is the child argumentative, does the child
usually follow rules, does the child usually keep promises or do
they have trouble, does the child get scared by him/herself
especially as it gets dark, is the child content to entertain
him/ herself, does the child follow directions well, does the
child respect other people's property, does the child get very
upset if something unexpected happens and is the child clumsy and
poorly coordinated?
The authors say that if parents decide that the child is
sufficiently mature and trustworthy to be left alone they should
then check out the safety of their home, accidents being more
common among unsupervised children. For example, electrical and
mechanical equipment should be locked away, locks secured on
doors and windows, medicines labelled and separated from food,
directions for appliances written clearly, numbers of local
emergency services listed clearly and prominently, a smoke alarm
fitted, and a list of dos and don'ts provided. Furthermore, rules
should be clear, agreed to and listed, a check-in system should
also be established, procedures for answering the telephone and
door, and a schedule of after-school activities agreed to, listed
and followed.
Cain and Hofferth (1989) indicate that the following
characteristics are associated with quality self care
arrangements: the age and maturity of the child, the quality of
the care setting - that is, a 'good' neighbourhood with few risks
and a house in which the child is exposed to few potentially
dangerous items. The father or mother's job flexibility and
ability to contact the child (and the child's ability to contact
his or her parents) are other aspects of quality
arrangements.
Programs for Home-Alone Children
Telecom Australia provides 'Call Control', a service which is
useful for parents whose children are at home alone. This service
provides a means of restricting
outgoing calls to particular numbers so that children cannot use
the telephone for endless calls to friends thus preventing
parents from calling to check on them (as well as running up
large telephone bills). Important numbers such as the doctor,
police and emergency services, parent's work numbers and the
number of a neighbour or relative, can be programmed in - the
choice is up to the family. All incoming calls are received but
children can only ring out on the programmed numbers. More
information about this service is available through local Telecom
branches.
'Kids Help Line' is also a service available to children in many
States of Australia. However, although it may be used by children
at home alone, its focus is broader: it provides a listening car
and confidential help for children with problems of any sort, via
a free 008 number. For further information phone Trevor Carlyon
(07) 369 1588.
In the United States there are a number of schemes to assist
children who
are in self care without adult supervision, whether they are at
home alone because there is no other option, or because they have
reached the stage where they refuse other forms of out-of-school
hours care. The following is a selection of such schemes.
'Kidline', run by the Tucson Association for Child Care In
Arizona, is funded by the city, a charity fund and private
foundations. It aims 'to provide an interested listener who will,
if appropriate , teach children home safety and use of emergency
service numbers, provide guidance for homework problems,
accidents, illness, an make referrals to other community
resources' (Wolcott 1989:17).
In Michigan, the 'LatchMatch' program has been instituted to link
senior citizens with children who are at home alone after school.
Each day the senior
citizen, chosen from the geriatric service attached to the
University of Michigan Medical Center, rings the child after
school to chat, offer help with homework and to check any
concerns of the child. This service has proved helpful to the
elderly, by connecting them with outside world, and to the
children, who have developed a heightened sensitivity to the
needs of older citizens (Work and Family 1992).
Another service, the 'Intergenerational LatchKey Program', is
sponsored by a company which operates retirement facilities and
nursing homes in several states and local schools. This after
school child care program is for low income single-parent
families; the schools select students who, along with a school
coordinator and the nursing and retirement homes, provide
personnel, materials and refreshments for activities. Students
and the elderly become acquainted through an orientation program
to sensitise the children to the limitations of the elderly. They
engage in a variety of activities including art and craft,
storytelling, games, help with homework, and sometimes community
service programs such as preparing food for the homeless (Wolcott
1989).
Further information on the many different types of schemes
operating in the United States is available in 'Local and
national responses to latch-key children' in Latch-key Children
in the Library and Community (Dowd 1991).
Australia is meeting the needs of school aged children whose
parents are not available to care for them by providing out of
school hours care programs. Some workplaces are also
acknowledging the difficulties faced by these parents and provide
services such as vacation care. But this is only a beginning: not
only are more such services required, but also a greater variety
of programs are needed to accommodate the changing needs of
growing children and the particular situations of their working
parents.
References
Cain, V.S. and Hofferth, S.L. (1989), 'Parental choice of self
care for school aged children', Journal of Marriage and the
Family, Vol. 51, pp.65-77.
Dowd, F. S. (1991), Lackkey Children
in the Library and
Community. Issues, Strategies, and Programs, Oryx Press, Phoenix
Arizona.
Halpern, R. (1992), 'The role of after-school
programs
in the lives of inner-city children: a study of the Urban Youth
Network', Child Welfare, VoLLXXI No.3, pp.215-230.
Robinson, B.,
Rowland B. H. and Coleman, M. (1989),
Home-Alone Kids, Lexington Books, Lexington Ma.
VICSEG (1989),
The Latch-key, Children: Their Name is
'Ethnic', Victorian Cooperative on Children's Services for Ethnic
Groups, Melbourne.
Wolcott, l (1989), 'Not just for the young:
family
support programs in the United States', Family Matters, No. 25,
p. 55.
Wolcott, 1. (1989), 'Kidline: a telephone support',
Family Matters, No. 23, p. 17.
Work and Family (1992), National Report on Work and Family,
Vol.5, No. 12.
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