The After-School Lives of Children: Alone and with Others While Parents Work. - Review - book review

Adolescence, Summer, 2000

BELLE, Deborah. The After-School Lives of Children: Alone and with Others While Parents Work. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999. 197pp. $45.00 (h).

Millions of school-age children in the United States get out of school each day before their parents get home from work. Some participate in after-school programs and some are supervised by older teenagers or other adults, but many are on their own, either at home or somewhere else. Are these latchkey kids at risk for behavioral, emotional, or educational problems? Or do they benefit from the challenge of structuring their own time and taking care of themselves? In this volume, psychologist Deborah Belle discusses the societal, familial, and individual factors involved and reports on a four-year study that examined the after school lives of a wide variety of children. Her research--described in both scientific and human terms--illuminates the complexity of the problem and encourages us to consider the broad array of answers that defy simple classification into positive and negative outcomes. Chapters include: do school-age children need adult supervision?; a different approach to the question; dilemmas; chang es in after-school arrangements over time; stressful challenges in the after-school hours; social relationships and social support; after-school arrangements and children's well-being; and implications.