 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
              
|
Millions must decide if their children can take care of themselves after school Education 2000: Reforming schools for a new century Wednesday, August 30, 2000 By Sally Kalson, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
It's September, and your after-school sitter has just informed you she can no longer cover Tuesdays. Do you let your children, ages 10 and 12, come home to an empty house for three hours once a week?
Part One: The high stakes of assessment testing
Part Three: Technology closes distance between teacher and student
It's October, and your school district's teachers have just gone on strike. Can you leave your 11-year-old home while you go to work?
Sooner or later, all kids need to learn some independence. But the prospect of weaning a child from constant supervision can be daunting, especially as the school year begins.
Ideally, the process will be dictated by the readiness of the child rather than the need of the parent. But that's not always how it happens.
An estimated 4 million to 6 million pre-teens, plus millions of teens, are unsupervised after school, according to Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a national organization that advocates increased child care and after-school programming.
Statistically, those children will be three times more likely to encounter trouble -- in accidents or as crime victims or perpetrators -- than children in the care of adults, according to the National Crime Prevention Council.
It's essential to discuss safety before leaving your children home alone after school, says Dayna Jornsay-Hester, coordinator of community education for Children's Hospital. In her parenting classes at Children's, she suggests using "what-if" drills with children, with a contingency plan for each scenario.
For example, what if:
They come home to find the door already open? They lose their key? The smoke alarm goes off? There's a power failure? Someone knocks on the door asking to use the phone? Someone who calls wants to know if mom or dad is home? A friend shows them a gun, or offers them something they're not supposed to have, like alchohol or drugs?
In addition, rules should be understood and agreed to in advance.
So it's not surprising that many parents are looking for help in deciding whether and when their children can be safe when no adults are around.
"We get a lot of calls from parents looking for guidance on this subject," said Dayna Jornsay-Hester, coordinator of community education for Children's Hospital. So many, in fact, that last year the hospital began offering "Alone at Home" classes for parents and children. They are single sessions, 90 minutes long, with the next one scheduled for October. Call 412-692-7105 for information.
"We encourage parents to follow a developmental process," Jornsay-Hester said, "beginning with 'OK, I'm going to the store for a half-hour, this is what you do until I get back.' Maybe you call after 15 minutes to check in. And you see how well they do."
The one thing you do not do, she said, is decide one day that a child who's never been home alone is ready to spend the whole day solo.
There are no laws or regulations in Pennsylvania stating at what age children may be left without adult supervision. When workers from the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families check into reported cases -- about 20 a month, with roughly a third of those substantiated -- their main concern is the degree of risk to the children.
How long they're left alone, whether they're able to care for themselves and handle emergencies, if they have support nearby -- all these factors play into the CYF assessment. If the children are determined to be in peril, intervention could range from assisting the family to removing the children.
"As a rule of thumb, no child under the age of 12 should be left home alone under any circumstances," said Marcia Sturdivant, deputy director of CYF. But, she conceded, the world we live in doesn't always work that way.
"Any time a child is alone, there is room for error," she said. "A 12-year-old may be mature under some circumstances, but what happens when things so wrong?"
The Children's Hospital program recommends 10 as the rock-bottom age for kids to spend time alone, "but one 10-year-old may be ready where another is not," said Jornsay-Hester.
Parents should consider the safety of the environment before they think about leaving even the most mature child unsupervised, she said. Are there break-ins, hold-ups or violent outbursts in the neighborhood, for example, or does the home have potential dangers from peeling paint, gas leaks or exposed wiring?
It's essential to discuss safety beforehand, Jornsay-Hester said. It's also essential that children be able to reach an adult at all times, whether it's a neighbor, relative or parent. Cell phones, pagers and beepers are increasingly popular for this purpose.
"We've found a big increase in parents being more comfortable in the early home-alone stages if they have some kind of electronic communication to help them keep in touch," Jornsay-Hester said.
Some families use a prearranged code when parents can't always be at a phone. For example, a page that reads all 5s could mean "I'm home." A page that begins with 911 followed by the home number means "There's an emergency, get to a phone right away."
In addition to keeping children safe and easing the minds of parents, Jornsay-Hester said, working within a firm plan has more benefits later on. "If you set the rules when children are 11 or 12, it's easier to continue them when they're 15 or 16."
Tomorrow: Do cash rewards for teachers improve education?
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Do they do their homework when they get home?