Four Popular Stereotypes About Children in Self-Care:

Implications for Family Life EducatorsDave Riley* and Jill Steinberg

Books of advice for parents on the perils of ‘‘latchkey’’ children were published before researchers began to investigate thetopic. We argue that the early ‘‘how to’’ books for parents created some overgeneralizations that require rethinking. Fourpopular assumptions about children in self-care are examined against current theory and research evidence and are shown tobe either incomplete or inaccurate. A restatement of each assumption is suggested, and specific implications for family lifeeducation are presented. Three workshop exercises are described to help parents, teachers, and others debunk the fourstereotypes and learn key ideas to guide preparation of children for self-care.

Widespread public awareness and concern about youngchildren who go unsupervised after school hours beganin the early 1980s, largely due to the publication of

articles in the popular media. ‘‘How-to’’ books for parents andtheir children followed shortly. More recently, social scientistshave begun to provide reliable information about the antecedentsand consequences of self-care. (For a comprehensive review ofresearch on this topic, see Belle, 1999.)

It is not surprising that the ‘‘how-to’’ books and articlespreceded the empirical knowledge upon which such popularpublications ought to be based. Social science often reacts to,and therefore lags behind, societal change. On the other hand,parents and other practitioners do not have the leisure to wait forscientifically based advice; they must act immediately.

The popular view of children in self-care after school—termed by some as ‘‘latchkey children’’—does not entirelyreflect current theory or empirical evidence. Here we examinefour common and inaccurate stereotypes or assumptions aboutchild self-care in relation to developmental and family theory,integrating recent research findings and suggesting workshopexercises that practitioners can use to broaden parents’ view ofself-care.

Assumptions About Child Self-Care

Assumption 1: Self-Care Is a Problem.

The popular view. When parents and professionals are asked(in workshops we have conducted) to elaborate on the risksassociated with self-care, they are well-versed in these and easilylist ideas first identified by Coolsen, Seligson, and Garbarino(1985): Children will be hurt, have a bad emotional response tothe situation, miss opportunities for development, or do thingsthey should not do. On the other hand, when asked to list theopportunities or benefits of self-care, seminar participants do notrespond as quickly. Less used to thinking of self-care by childrenas a good thing, our experience is that participants often needprompting before identifying opportunities for the child (e.g., tolearn self-responsibility, to practice organizing one’s own time)and opportunities for the family (e.g., to allow parents to develop

their capacities for production at the workplace, to raise thefamily income).

The theoretical view. Like other family issues, self-care maybe a problem, but it is also a solution to other problems, as wellas a goal for children in their development. Among the problemsthat self-care solves is the need for parental employment thatrequires finding child care for short periods where alternativearrangements may be expensive, unavailable, or inefficient(Steinberg, 1998). Adams (1985) made this point in its mostgeneral form, arguing that all family problems also are solutionsto family problems, citing divorce as a prototype example. Likedivorce, self-care is a solution that dialectally creates its ownnew set of problems for various family members. Self-carepresents risks and opportunities for the child, for other membersof the family, and for the family as a whole. It may be the bestsolution for overall family needs, even if it is not ideal forindividual members. Parents who elect to use self-care may bedoing so rationally, after weighing the costs and benefits to thefamily system as a whole and within a particular ecologicalcontext with its own set of risks and opportunities. Thus, viewingself-care solely as a problem is inaccurate, because it treats thechild as an isolated individual outside of the social system of thefamily.

Besides ignoring the family as a system, the view of ‘‘self-care as a problem’’ also ignores basic developmental theory.Although self-care may entail risks, it also includes opportunitiesfor the child that are seldom considered. Even Long and Long(1983), who initially sounded an alarm about latchkey children,found that some children are apparently harmed by the experi-ence, whereas others seem to thrive. This might have beenexpected based on results from Elder’s (1974) classic study ofChildren of the Great Depression. Elder found a subgroup(early adolescents from middle-class families) for whom familyfinancial loss predicted better life outcomes when compared tochildren who did not experience large financial losses. Thedevelopment of these children appears to have been spurred bythe challenge of earlier maturity demands. They found ways tohelp their families survive the depression, crystallized their owncareer plans at earlier ages, and lead more successful lives (in avariety of ways) in adulthood. The lesson of Elder’s work is thatchildren need both support and challenges to develop optimally,and the Great Depression provided such a challenge. Today, wemay find similar processes of challenge operating upon childrenforced into earlier self-responsibility by the lessened availabilityof working parents.

Self-care may not only spur development but also may be aresult of development—that is, children with greater capacity forself-regulation may be selected into self-care more frequently.

*Address correspondence to Dr. Dave Riley, Human Development and FamilyStudies, 1430 Linden Drive, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706(dariley@wisc.edu).

Key Words: family life education, latchkey, parenting, school-age, self-care.

(Family Relations, 2004, 53, 95–101)

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Thus, it is not surprising that some research (Vandell & Corasa-niti, 1988) has found a tendency for children with lower compe-tence to be in more highly supervised after-school environments.Indeed, Steinberg and Riley (1991) found that one reason parentsgave for placing their children in self-care was that childrenlobbied for it. Child preference appears to mirror the moregeneral ‘‘developmental push’’ for autonomy and challenge inmiddle childhood (Bryant, 1989), a pressure that parents mayacknowledge.

In a summary of the research, Belle (1999) made clear thatthe effects of self-care on children are complex and not alwaysnegative.

Most discussions of children’s lives after school begin withthe assumption that lack of supervision is problematic forchildren. Yet the empirical research has produced unex-pected findings. Some studies report problems for unsuper-vised children, others find no differences betweensupervised and unsupervised children, and credible studieshave reported poorer outcomes for children who spend after-school time with older siblings, babysitters, after-schoolteachers, and their own mothers, than for children whospend after-school time on their own. (p. 35)

Of course, the impact of self-care can appear better or worsedepending upon the quality of parent or school-age care to whichone compares. The child’s location (home alone, with parent, orin a group program) may matter less than the qualities of thatsetting. The community context in which self-care occurs alsoappears to moderate its impact on the child, an idea first pro-posed by Galambos and Garbarino (1985). They noted thatchildren in self-care were no different than adult-supervisedchildren in their social and academic adjustment and fears, butonly in studies conducted in relatively crime-free rural or sub-urban areas. On the other hand, in higher-risk neighborhoods,self-care predicts worse outcomes for children, whether the out-comes are behavior problems or low academic performance(Pettit, Laird, Bates, & Dodge, 1997; Marshall et al., 1997;Posner & Vandell, 1999). As such, the popular assumption thatself-care is a problem appears to be true in high-risk neighbor-hoods.

In summary, self-care is a family adaptation and not simplya characteristic of the child. It can be a problem for the child buta solution for the family. In some families (particularly thosefrom low-risk neighborhoods), it may solve more problems thanit creates, but it inevitably creates new problems as well. Thus, toview self-care only in a negative light is inaccurate, because formany children it presents opportunities for growth and reflects ahealthy developmental push towards autonomy and self-regula-tion. In fact, the independence of self-care is ultimately a goal ofhuman development. A better-phrased assumption might be,‘‘Sometimes self-care is a problem,’’ leading to useful follow-up questions like ‘‘Under what circumstances?’’ and ‘‘How canwe minimize the risks and maximize the opportunity for devel-opment?’’

Assumption 2: Self-Care Is Solitary.

The popular view. Media images of ‘‘latchkey children’’often portray after-school self-care as a lonely experience, withchildren spending many hours in their homes by themselves andplagued by fears of real or imagined threats. Long and Long(1983) fueled this image when vividly describing children spend-

ing afternoons alone hidden in a closet or locking themselves inbathrooms at the sound of noises outside. Self-care trainingcurricula focus heavily on the skills and adaptations needed tobe comfortable and safe while alone in a dwelling (e.g., firesafety, how to deal with fears and boredom, answering thephone or door safely, or fixing a snack) with little attention tothe possibility that children will not be alone (e.g., Dana, 1988).

The theoretical and empirical view. Research definitions ofself-care have varied considerably and often have included chil-dren who are not alone. Early definitions of self-care werecontradictory in oft-cited research. For example, a 10-year-oldin the care of a 12-year-old was considered ‘‘supervised’’ in boththe Steinberg (1986) and Cole and Rodman (1987) studies, butdefined as ‘‘latchkey’’ by Cain and Hofferth (1989). Childrenspending time in the community while outside the direct super-vision of a parent—such as those hanging out at a shopping mall,public library, or friend’s house—were overlooked in these defi-nitions.

When we examine patterns of after-school care more closely,being alone for 10 or more hours a week is a surprisinglyrare pattern, with other variants of self-care being more common.In a study of over 6,000 third- and fourth graders across 65Wisconsin school districts, Riley and Steinberg (1993) foundthat sibling caregiving in the after-school hours was more com-mon than was solo self-care. Specifically, whereas 18.8% ofchildren in these grades experienced some solo self-care eachweek, 28.6% experienced sibling care (Steinberg & Riley, 1991).With younger children, the contrast was more dramatic, such thatsibling care was four times more common than solo self-care forchildren in the early elementary grades (Steinberg, 1998).

Of those children reported to spend at least some time homealone after school, only 1 in 7 families reported this as the onlyarrangement in a typical week; in most families, self-care wascombined with a variety of other after-school arrangements thatbrought social contact, such as going to a friend’s house, a sportspractice or music lesson, or a relative’s home. Indeed, childrenwho experienced self-care were more likely than children inchild care to be able to access other after-school arrangementsthat expanded the child’s network of social supports (Steinberg& Riley, 1991). During the middle elementary grades, parentsalso may add self-care gradually to a mix of after-schoolarrangements, as suggested by Belle (1999).

Evan’s parents have begun allowing him to come home 1day a week in order to develop such skills, and to prepare forspending more unstructured and unsupervised time on hisown in the future. Yvonne Hayes’ mother similarly initiatessome unsupervised time for Yvonne in the final year of thestudy as ‘‘practice’’ for the following year, when Yvonnewill be unsupervised all afternoon. (p. 63)

Far from being absent in self-care, contact with other peo-ple, especially siblings, may be ample to the point of beingintrusive. Sibling care is the ubiquitous and largely unnoticedwork of early adolescence in the United States, as it is in manycultures throughout the world (Weisner, 1987). A study of amidwestern U.S. sample found that roughly 5 out of every 6children aged 10 to 14 who had a younger sibling were calledupon to provide care at least occasionally (Steinberg, 1998).

Although parental employment tends to open up opportu-nities for children to exercise autonomy, it may leave childrenfeeling less social support from others in times of need. Bryant(1989) suggested that children who experience greater autonomy

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because of parental employment stand to benefit from commu-nity connections with other adults at this critical time in theirdevelopment. For these children, adult-supervised activity, suchas clubs and sports, may be particularly beneficial.

Belle (1999) described the challenge of attempting to clas-sify after-school arrangements as either adult-supervised orunsupervised, citing the example of children spending after-school time at the local library with a librarian present but withno formal arrangement for supervision in place. Contractualarrangements, such as enrollment in childcare programs, arecertainly not the only vehicle for adult support (Bryant, 1989)and may not be the most effective for the school-aged child(Todd, Albrecht, & Coleman, 1990). Many school-age childcareprograms ignore the potential of linking children to othercommunity programs (e.g., piano lessons, sports teams, 4-Hclubs).

In sum, we believe the issue is not one of social isolation butof a possible lack of effective social support. Much self-care issibling care; even solo self-care usually involves linkages withother people who are capable of providing support. A betterphrased assumption is: Most children who are not formallysupervised by adults after school have contact with other peopleduring most of these hours, most often with siblings. This newphrasing raises questions such as: What kind of social contact isthe child experiencing in self-care? How can we provide childrenin self-care with opportunities for both autonomy and socialsupport? If a child is in the care of older siblings, how muchresponsibility and authority do these siblings have? Does thissibling caregiving take place within earshot of adults (distalsupervision) as in most other cultures? What is the developmen-tal potential of sibling caregiving, for both the younger and theolder child?

Assumption 3: As Children Grow Older, the Risks ofSelf-Care Decrease

The popular view. Parents and policy makers tend to worrymost about younger children in self-care and have sometimestaken a ‘‘magic age’’ approach to self-care (Farel, 1984), whichis the belief that these concerns should abate after a certain age.Concern over unsupervised children also has led to the develop-ment of self-care skill training courses, often aimed at 7- to 10-year-olds. These courses typically devote extensive coverage tolow-probability, high-anxiety issues, such as fire safety and howto avoid being victimized by strangers (e.g., Peterson, 1989).Some attention also has been given to more expectable concerns,such as coping with fear, boredom, and loneliness (Steinberg,1998).

Theoretical framework. Attracting widespread media atten-tion when they occur, house fires, stranger abductions, andserious injuries are not common occurrences for children inself-care (Belle, 1999), even though such events may be mostfeared by parents. Boredom, sibling conflict, and resistance totemptation are more likely problems given the context in whichmost children care for themselves and /or siblings.

The issue of risk appears different from a developmental–contextual perspective. Some risks may decrease with age (e.g.,the risk of setting the kitchen on fire or of being terrified in anelectrical storm). Steinberg and Riley (1991) found that theproportion of parents reporting that their children would beunhappy or afraid in self-care declined sharply between firstand fifth grades. However, new risks may emerge with age, as

children widen their neighborhood range, broadening their expo-sure to peers, the Internet, and other potential sources of danger.For example, susceptibility to antisocial peer pressure peaks inabout the ninth grade (Berndt, 1979; Brown, 1990). For earlyadolescents, more self-care is associated with greater likelihoodof smoking, substance abuse, and depression (Richardson et al.,1989; Mott, Crowe, Richardson, & Flay, 1999), but these are notrisks typically addressed by self-care training curricula (e.g.,Coolsen, Seligson, & Garbarino, 1985; Dana, 1988), becausesuch curricula are aimed at younger children.

In sum, not all risks of self-care decrease with age. In fact,some increase with age. An assumption more consistent with ourknowledge would be: As children grow older, the risks asso-ciated with self-care change. Instead of asking: At what age arechildren ready for self-care? more useful questions include:What are the risks (and developmental opportunities) of self-care at each age level? What are the child competencies andsituational supports that reduce risks at each developmental age?How do parenting skills, such as monitoring or controlling achild’s activities, change as the child moves from early to middlechildhood into early and middle adolescence?

Assumption 4: Children Need the Direct Supervisionof Adults

The popular view. Parents and caregivers must supervisechildren carefully to prevent unwanted outcomes such as acci-dental injury, delinquent behavior, and substance use.

Theoretical framework. Parental monitoring clearly isimportant to child development. A large body of researchdemonstrates that parents who carefully monitor the activitiesof their children raise children who show less socially proble-matic or externalizing behaviors. (See Dishion & McMahon,1998 for an extensive review of research on this topic.) Childrenwho are monitored also exhibit fewer problematic psychologicalsymptoms (Jacobson & Crockett, 2000). Thus, monitoring is acommon denominator across many studies of adolescent devel-opment and across diverse developmental theories that focus onparenting practices (Dishion & McMahon).

When we examine precisely what optimal monitoringentails, an important shift is observed from infancy to adoles-cence. Optimal monitoring in infancy primarily involves struc-turing the environment to prevent injury, promote exploration,and facilitate both parental responsiveness and ease of trackingthe child’s activities (Dishion & McMahon, 1998). In earlychildhood, the introduction of verbal mediators, rules, and stan-dard-setting is folded into the concept of monitoring (e.g., whena parent says ‘‘We look both ways before crossing the street’’).

Monitoring in middle childhood relies heavily on the use ofrules and standards (Collins, Harris, & Susman, 1995) as chil-dren develop increasing self-control. Indeed, both standard-set-ting by parents and parental explanations of the reasons forhousehold rules are essential components of the authoritativeparenting style, a style that research has found to best predictthe development of competence in children (Baumrind, 1991). Inthe middle childhood years, rule-based monitoring is combinedwith continued tracking and surveillance of activity from ‘‘justaround the corner’’ through activities such as phone calls andagreed-upon schedules, a process termed distal supervision(Steinberg, 1986). Here, social support remains readily available,but increasing privacy and some degree of autonomy are encour-aged. The objective is no longer to intervene directly between

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the child and every hazard, but to help the child gradually learnto self-regulate. Maccoby (1984) suggested that middle child-hood is precisely the time for parents to encourage children topractice ‘‘moment-to-moment self-regulation’’ (p. 191) whileparents retain ultimate control from afar. The prevalence ofactive distal supervision in the middle years of childhood hasconsiderable cross-cultural consistency, with even the near-uni-versal practice of sibling caregiving normally occurring withinearshot of adults in non-Western cultures (Weisner, 1987).

As children continue to develop into early adolescents,optimal monitoring changes. Kerr and Stattin (2000) describeda paradoxical finding in regard to direct parental control andpsychological health. Direct parental control, which is essentialin infancy, becomes counterproductive in adolescence, as higherlevels of direct control are associated with higher levels ofadolescent rebellion. These authors found that among eighthgraders in Sweden, parent-initiated efforts at tracking and sur-veillance of children were less influential in predicting bothexternalizing and internalizing problems than was the child’swilling disclosure of information about activities. Further, theysuggested that ‘‘controlling adolescents’ freedom to come and goas they please is a questionable strategy for keeping abreast ofwhat they are doing and promoting good adjustment’’ (p. 377).Instead, a climate that encourages disclosure is more likely toresult in effective monitoring. Although Kerr and Stattinacknowledged that child temperament may influence how com-municative adolescents are, they also suggested that adolescents’emotional attachment to the family and the habitual patterns ofdisclosure that have been in place throughout childhood areprobably better predictors of family communication. Consistentwith this longitudinal family-process perspective, Pettit, Laird,Dodge, Bates, and Criss (2001) found that high monitoringof adolescents was preceded by a proactive parenting style inchildhood, whereas high levels of psychological control ofadolescents was predicted by earlier harsh disciplinary tech-niques.

Effective monitoring has its roots in early parent–childsynchronicity and a proactive parenting style that evolves intoeffective communication in adolescence. Table 1 summarizesthis shifting pattern of communication. Dishion and McMahon(1998) described effective monitoring of adolescents in a mannerthat mirrors parent–infant synchrony: ‘‘Parents are aware of theemotional atmosphere of the family and the child, and modulatebehavior, activities, and communication accordingly’’ (p. 68).Here, parental monitoring is verbally mediated (as opposed tothe physical control of infants) through the use of discussion ofthe child’s whereabouts, activities, and peers, but in a mannerthat reflects greater reciprocity between parent and child.

On the surface, self-care appears to represent the least-mon-itored end of the continuum of care options. However, it alsoprovides a potentially fruitful venue for the gradual release ofmoment-by-moment control to the child and for development ofeffective parental monitoring practices that extend into adoles-cence. Self-care allows parents to begin encouraging open com-munication and disclosure within a climate that also allows foreasy verification of information about the child (e.g., arrangingfor a neighbor to drop in unannounced, searching computerfootprints for sites visited).

Adult regulation and direction of children’s activity is aconstruct that is sometimes confused with supervision and mon-itoring. Although adult structuring (e.g., verbally presentingopportunities, rules and guidelines; modeling, directing, andsteering) is beneficial in promoting explorative play of toddlersand younger children (Rogoff, 1998; Vlietstra, 1980), its impactbecomes more complex in middle childhood. Huston, Carpenter,Atwater, and Johnson (1986) found that in adult-structuredenvironments, children tend to direct their bids for recognitiontoward adults and to engage in lower rates of peer interaction.Moreover, children tend to engage in more social interaction andexhibit more leadership behavior when in less structured envir-onments during middle childhood. Adult-structured activities,such as youth sports programs and after-school lessons, typicallyinclude high levels of adult control. If children’s settings areoverstructured by adults, it may inhibit development of childrenwho lack opportunity for self-structuring. This potential for over-structuring is of greatest concern for older children and those inlow-risk environments with ready access to a parent after school,for whom greater autonomy has been found to predict betterdevelopment (Bryant, 1989). On the other hand, for youngerchildren and those in low-income households, better child out-comes typically have been associated with greater adult contactafter school rather than autonomy (Vandell & Shumow, 1999).Of course, every child needs a balance of adult structure andautonomy, and the optimum balance depends upon the risk in thechild’s environment and the child’s developing capacity for self-regulation.

In sum, optimal parental monitoring is a complex processthat changes as children develop and is not always accomplishedthrough direct means. A better-phrased version of the fourthassumption is: As children mature, they need adult supervisionthat is increasingly indirect, distal, and eventually based on aparent–child relationship of open communication. This rephras-ing raises questions such as: How do parents create the tools andprocesses necessary for effective distal supervision? What arethe childhood antecedents of effective parent–teen communica-tion?

Table 1The Developmental Progression of Effective Parental Monitoring of Children

In Infancy———> In Middle Childhood———> In Adolescence

Direct control of the child. Rules for behavior, distal supervision, increasing self-regulation and co-regulation with parents.

Voluntary disclosure by child to parents.

Adult structuring of environment. Parent increasingly monitors through discussion.Child exercises self-regulation with adult support.

Parent-infant behavioral synchrony. Parent communication of reasons for rules leads to childinternalization of parental values.

Adolescents assume increasing moment-to-momentcontrol of their lives.

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Implications for Practice

We have alluded to several implications for practitioners.We address four theoretical implications and three specific exer-cises that practitioners can use with parents and communitygroups to help them better understand the developmental andfamily context of self-care. Foremost is the notion that a child inself-care should not be treated in isolation from his or her family;self-care is a family adaptation rather than a characteristic of theindividual child. Parents may be making rational choices whenthey place their children in self-care, such as tolerating increasedrisk to the child for the good of the family (e.g., the need forgreater family income) or for the overall developmental benefitof the child (e.g., as a response to the child’s increasing push forautonomy). Providing self-care training for parents may be moreeffective than training children, because parent–child relation-ships and parent monitoring of children are key determinants ofthe consequences of self-care (Steinberg, 1986). By slowlyincreasing the increments of self-care responsibility for thechild, parents become the principal teachers of self-care skills,although many do not perform this role as consciously or sys-tematically as they might. Thus, we advise practitioners to bemindful that the child is embedded in a family system and thatsystem, not the child, may be the most strategic target for familylife educators. For example, when schools teach children self-care skills, we suggest they include exercises that are taken homefor completion by parents and children working together. Enga-ging the parent–child dyad is likely more effective than teachingthe child alone. We have done this in producing a series of 13fact sheets on self-care skills, each of which includes a parent–child activity (Steinberg, Riley, Stapleton, & Keim, 1997).

Second, practitioners are prone to view the individual fromthe point of view of socialization pressures like parental gui-dance, peer pressure, and interventions. This view needs to bebalanced by including pressures exerted from within the devel-oping child, such as his or her own initiative in seeking theautonomy of self-care. Even at a young age, humans are activecontributors to their own developmental processes, selecting theenvironments that will influence them (Scarr & McCartney,1983). If the staff of supervised programs for school-age childrenwant to maintain children’s excitement about continued partici-pation, they should consider the unmet developmental needs thatunderscore the departure of children from programs. This mightimply the need for a transition from adult-controlled to child-directed activities and a shift from direct to distal supervisionwithin school-age care programs. Some family childcare pro-grams have accomplished this by allowing school-age childrento ‘‘check in,’’ then play throughout the neighborhood as theymight if they had come home to a parent. Parental writtenagreement is required for the specifics of such a plan (In whosehouses may the child play? How often must the child check inwith the child care provider?). Some center-based programs haveexperimented with allowing school-age children increasingautonomy to self-organize their activities, always within earshotof adults but without immediate direction by staff. Attentionmust be given to both regulatory and liability concerns as child-care programs experiment with such arrangements.

Third, care is warranted in succeeding too well in providingsupervision for older children and, thus, limiting opportunitiesfor the development of self-responsibility. Effective parentalmonitoring is more than simple surveillance and certainly differsgreatly from simply placing children in adult-structured settings.

We believe that it involves a set of skills that parents can and dolearn, just as their children learn the skills required for self-care.Parental monitoring skills are likely learned through the sameprocesses as other parenting skills. Therefore, we should expectthat learning from other parents through existing social networksis a primary source of knowledge (Cochran & Niego, 1995), andthat parents also are likely to welcome expert advice in writtenform (Simpson, 1997). These are two methods that can be usedby family life educators: bringing parents together to learn fromeach other and providing written advice.

Finally, for many, the self-care phenomenon concerns youngchildren at home after school. This perspective is artificiallylimiting, because older children and other kinds of self-caresituations also are of concern (e.g., self-care during summervacation). A restrictive definition may lead parents to viewfamily life education as inappropriate for them. Some parentsmay believe that self-care training is for children from familieswho do not properly care for them. To the contrary, we believethat learning to care for oneself after school is but one instanceof a more general set of self-management skills needed by allchildren. Family life educators must convince parents to movebeyond the stigmatizing, deficit-oriented view of self-caretraining to see it as an opportunity needed by every developingchild. Naming workshops after the developmental goal ratherthan the self-care situation (‘‘Helping Children Become Self-Responsible’’ rather than ‘‘Self-Care Skills for Children’’) is afirst step.

Workshop Suggestions for Practitioners

The issue of how best to guide children from regulation byothers to competent self-regulation touches a wide range ofpractitioners: those who help create public policy, those whodesign and operate programs for children, and family life edu-cators who work to improve parental competence. We argue thatchildren’s development of self-regulation tends to be a misun-derstood phenomenon whose negative aspects are highlightedwith little regard to theoretical or empirical underpinnings.

Practitioners have an opportunity to expand the publicunderstanding of self-care as a complex solution to a familychallenge and as an opportunity for children to progress alongthe desired developmental course toward self-regulation. Inter-ested practitioners can find useful listings of available curriculathrough the New Mexico Cooperative Extension Web site: http://www.C-cyfernet.org/. In addition, we offer the followingthree workshop exercises that directly link to the theoreticalconcepts developed here and which we have found useful inexpanding parents’ understanding of self-care.

Exercise 1: Risk/Benefits Analysis

At the top of a chalkboard or easel, write the word ‘‘risks’’and invite participants to help list the risks of self-care by youngchildren. Recall that participants typically are well versed inthese and likely will generate a lengthy list. Next, the words‘‘opportunities/benefits’’ are written at the top of another board.Less used to thinking about self-care by children as a good thing,participants may require additional time to generate this list. Asneeded, prompt participants to think of opportunities and benefitsto other members of the family or to the family as a whole. Here,one can point out that self-care can be a solution to a problemthat affects the entire family system.

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Reviewing the list of ‘‘risks’’ to the child, participants areasked, ‘‘When you look at this list of risks, do you worry moreabout the 6-year-old or the 12-year-old? Why?’’ Our experienceis that parents tend to worry more about younger children. Whenasked, parents also recognize the risks that self-care holds forolder children, in particular the risks of precocious or delinquentbehaviors. These new risks are added to the list.

This exercise addresses assumptions 1 and 3 that self-care isonly a problem and that the risks will diminish over time as thechild matures.

Exercise 2: The Continuum of Self-Responsibility

On the far left upper corner of the board, write ‘‘Child alonefor 5 minutes while parent in bathroom.’’ On the far right of theboard, write ‘‘Child alone all weekend while parent is on a trip.’’Explain to participants that these represent two extremes of self-responsibility that might be asked of a child. Somewhere in themiddle is the level of self-care usually associated with the term‘‘latchkey child’’—the child who is alone for 1–2 hours onweekday afternoons. Write this in the middle of the board.

Then ask the participants to identify as many intermediatelevels of self-responsibility as possible. As each is offered, havethe group decide where it fits on the continuum. Productivearguments often ensue: Is it more challenging to stay homealone or with a younger sibling?

This exercise addresses assumption 2, moving us beyond thestereotype of a child in solitary self-care. This exercise alsomakes obvious that self-care skills are a subset of a largerdevelopmental progression toward self-responsibility that beginsin infancy and continues into adolescence. This realization canhelp debunk assumption 1 that self-care should be thought ofonly as a problem, rather than also having potential benefits forthe child and family.

Exercise 3: How Parents Prepare the Situation

Begin this exercise by admitting to parents, ‘‘It’s hardenough to get kids to behave well when we are with them. Butthe real trick of parenting is to get them to behave well when wearen’t there, when they are on their own. What are the things youdo to help your child to behave well when you aren’t there?’’

Next, generate a list of responses. If needed, facilitators canprovide some prompts in the following categories, if no oneoffers suggestions.

. Do you have household rules? What rules do you have?Do you think they help? How do you teach them?

. Does your child know what you expect of him or her, ingeneral terms? Your values? How have you taught this?

. Are members of your neighborhood keeping an eye onyour street? Do neighbors notice what children are doing whenthey are outside? Have you encouraged neighbors to let youknow if they see something they think is not right?

. When you get home, what do you say to learn how yourchildren have been? What do you do to encourage your child totalk with you about what went on?

Sometimes the comments by participants focus on fear ofpunishment as a means of control. To move their thinkingbeyond punishment, the facilitator might ask, ‘‘What do you doto avoid having to punish your child too often?’’ The key is toemphasize the goal of having the child want to behave well andinternalizing adult values.

This exercise responds to assumptions 2 and 4, demonstrat-ing that self-care need not be solitary and unsupported and thateffective supervision need not always be direct.

Conclusion

At what age are children ready for self-care? When thesubject is after-school care, our experience is that this is thequestion most often asked of family life educators. We believethis is the wrong question, because it makes two assumptions:that the capacity for self-responsibility is attained in a qualitative(either-or) fashion and that self-responsibility is attained predic-tably at a particular age.

Evidence from both theory and research support a differentpicture in which:

. Self-care is a part of a family adaptation to other needs oropportunities, most particularly the need for parental employ-ment and family income, but also the child’s need for increasingautonomy.

. Self-care is potentially good for the child if well-matchedto the child’s capabilities and neighborhood context, but it ispotentially harmful if too challenging.

. Self-care presents different risks for children of differentages.

. Self-care usually is experienced in the company of others,especially siblings, rather than alone.

. Self-care often (and optimally) includes distal andindirect supervision from adults, the form of which changes asthe child develops.

Perhaps the most surprising departure of the perspectivesuggested here from that of contemporary views is our conclu-sion about who needs training in self-care. Judging by the self-care titles lining bookstore shelves and the fliers advertisingworkshops for children and parents, one might assume thatself-care training is simply for latchkey children who mustsupervise themselves during out-of-school hours. In contrast,we argue that self-care training is of value to every child andevery parent. Some children are asked to assume self-responsi-bility at younger ages than others, but every child must learnthese same skills eventually. The continuous and eventual transi-tion from dependence on others toward self-regulated autonomyis one of the aims of development. Rather than viewing self-caretraining as responding to a deficit experienced by those childrenrushed into earlier self-responsibility, self-care courses can bestbe viewed as teaching lessons needed by every child.

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