BY REQUEST...
 JANUARY 1999

Alone at Home:
The Myth of Self-Care

Is time spent home alone an educational experience for children? In a 1985 review of the research, Dunbar reported that lack of adult supervision after school did not have significant negative effects on school-age children (Dunbar, 1985). However, in the same review she also found that after-school programs for school-age children were proven to be advantageous to children; and parent education was found to produce positive changes within both the parent and the child.

Some studies have concluded that under the right conditions, properly prepared youngsters who are left at home without supervision mature sooner, develop a strong sense of self-esteem, and feel more in control of their worlds. At the same time, there is also an increasing body of evidence to the contrary (Seppanen, 1993).

Today, the once common notion that self-care leads to greater maturity has been overshadowed by the knowledge that many of the children left home alone after school may experience loneliness, fear, and worry. They are also at greater risk of injury, victimization, poor nutrition, and excessive television viewing. Adolescents who care for younger siblings may experience great stress and must forgo constructive after-school activities. Those who "hang out" with similarly aimless friends may join gangs or engage in premature sexual activity, drug and alcohol use, and other antisocial behavior" (Schwartz, 1996).

"Too often the ambiguous findings of these studies obscure yet another important question about self-care: namely, what developmental opportunities are being lost?" (Seppanen, 1993). After-school time has the great potential to offer students opportunities to continue their academic and social development. Instead, many of these opportunities are lost to hours of potentially dangerous self-care, premature responsibility for siblings, or watching low-quality television programming.

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