Ready or Not...

Making the latchkey leap

By Jennifer Morita

Rachel Minnick spends her day helping working parents find child care for their kids. In between meetings and counseling clients as a senior public affairs officer for Child Action, Inc., Minnick’s daytime hours are peppered by phone calls and text messages from her own children letting her know they’ve gotten home safely.

There’s also the occasional sweet request.

“Mom, can I eat ice cream?” a recent text read.

Every day after school, some 15 million children nationwide go home to an empty house, according to a 2009 Afterschool Alliance study. In California, nearly a quarter of kindergarten through 12^th-grade students—about 1.7 million children—are latchkey kids.

Child care experts are bracing for a surge in those numbers as after-school programs fall victim to budget cuts.

“Like everything else in this economy, [after-school care programs] are getting hit hard,” says D.C.-based Afterschool Alliance Executive Director Jodi Grant. “It’s harder for parents to afford services, and it’s harder to raise money to run programs. Most programs are resilient and trying to do as much as they can with less.”

While a few programs have closed altogether, Grant says others have reduced their hours or limited the number of children they can take in.

It’s still too soon for any hard data, but Grant says the result of such cutbacks is an increase in the number of kids staying home after school unsupervised.

“Just as the recession was starting to hit, we started seeing an increase not only in latchkey kids, but in the number of older children watching their younger siblings. It was really noticeable,” says Grant. “It’s troubling, and it’s most troubling for middle schoolers, because that’s when parents are leaving them home … Hopefully they’re going home alone, but some are also getting into trouble.”

Karin Green of North Highlands understands how fraught the decision is for parents. “This year our 12-year-old son starts junior high at a local charter school, and my husband and I don't want him to be without supervision yet,” she says. While Green considers herself a stay-at-home mom, she also works part-time.

Green feels most grade-school kids—and many middle-school students, too—are too young to shoulder the responsibility of being home alone unsupervised. “If something happened, I don't want my 12-year-old feeling he was at fault,” she explains. “His safety is our concern, not his.”

your thoughts

When are most kids ready to become latchkey kids?

20% responded: 4^th or 5^th grade
80% of readers responding to our online poll said: 5^th or 6^th grade

Source: SacramentoParent.com

Parents’ call
In California, parents decide when it’s okay to let their children stay home alone. Like most states, there is no legal minimum age for leaving minors unsupervised.

“Developmentally, children can be so different,” explains Minnick. “Having a legal age would be too limiting, so we take it as a case-by-case situation.”

Recently, when budget talks threatened to cut funding for subsidized after-school programs in California, Minnick’s office was flooded with calls from concerned parents looking for alternative child care. Many parents also asked about leaving their kids home alone after school.

“Our goal is to support the parents’ choice and just to talk to them about what will work best for their family,” she says. “We don’t try to promote one way or the other. We certainly support high-quality child care, but we also know the financial realities for families may make that choice very difficult.”

While California ranks among the top states in the nation for publicly-funded after-school care, with 4,500 sites, only about half of the schools in the state have such programs, says Afterschool Network Coordinator Bruno Marchesi with the California Afterschool Network.

In addition to providing child care, the California Afterschool Network offers valuable enrichment opportunities, including homework assistance, arts and crafts activities, and sports.

“We know from research that the hours between 3 and 6 p.m. are when children are the most vulnerable to becoming either victims of crime or committing crimes themselves,” says Marchesi.

Although budget cuts have left many working parents jobless, Marchesi and Minnick say that, with some parents working two jobs or non-traditional hours to make ends meet, demand for after-school child care is at an all-time high.

Waiting lists for such programs have grown longer, and coordinators have had to implement stricter attendance policies.

“In Sacramento, we’re seeing less and less programs available for youths,” says Marchesi. “Community centers have closed or reduced their hours, and city pools have closed.”

Afterschool Alliance and Child Care, Inc. offer after-school program information on their websites—AfterschoolAlliance.org and ChildAction.org—where parents can search for program sites close to home.

“We also have information on what to look for in a program,” says Grant. “We want kids to be engaged, motivated and have a place to get their homework done with tutors who can help them if they’re struggling in a subject.”

Testing the waters
For parents who are debating whether to let their children stay home alone, Child Action, Inc. offers some helpful tips for making the call, plus ways to keep kids safe. (For more information, call 916-369-0191 or visit ChildAction.org.)

“I’m the parent of a 13-year-old,” says Minnick. “I know how it feels to wonder where your kids are going when they’re not in school.”

Parents have to consider how mature their own child is, taking into account how they would respond to a variety of everyday situations, such as someone coming to the door, as well as how they’d react in an emergency, says Minnick.

A trial run can also be helpful.

“We usually talk to parents about trying some test time alone, say going to the grocery store for an hour and just talking with the child about what it will be like,” Minnick says. “Just give it a test run,” she advises, “and see what happens and how the child feels about it. Some children really like the independence, and some children are really afraid to be by themselves.”

Parents who decide to let their children stay home alone should establish plans for certain situations, such as emergencies, and post a list of important phone numbers. It’s also critical to establish rules for everyday occurrences such as cooking and answering the door.

Technology can also help ease parents’ minds.

“Cell phones can be very useful,” says Minnick. “Text messaging is really nice to have when you’re out and about, because you can send quick messages asking how they’re doing.”

While you’re touching base, you might remind them to save you some ice cream.

Jennifer is a mom, freelance writer and former newspaper reporter with over 10 years' experience covering local news for local families.