Home Alone After School May Lead to Crime
Is America’s after-school choice really a toss-up between homework and crime? As it happens, the hours from 2 to 6 pm on school days are the "prime time for juvenile crime," according to law-enforcement leaders. More than seven school-age children in every ten are in households where both parents or the only parent are in the workforce. On a regular basis, 14 million children and teens are left unsupervised by adults after the school day ends. Studies show that after school is the peak time for teens to commit crime,be a victim of crime, be in or cause a car crash and smoke, drink, or use drugs. Quality, constructive, and highly supervised programs can cut crime immediately and convert after-school hours into safe learning time. One high-quality program found that boys left out of the program averaged six times more crimes than teens in the program. A study of Boys & Girls clubs showed that housing projects without the clubs had 50% more vandalism and 37% worse drug activity than projects with the clubs. Teens in one California after-school program were half as likely to be rearrested than teens not in the program.
Heavier Kids Don’t Go to School As Much
The more overweight a child, the more likely he or she is to be absent from school, a new report suggests. Researchers studied 1,069 fourth- to sixth-grade students in nine schools in Philadelphia. They recorded height, weight, sex, race, and days absent for each. The scientists classified each child in one of four weight categories by body mass index: underweight, normal, overweight, and obese. On average, underweight children were absent 7.5 days, normal weight children 10.1 days, overweight children 10.9 days, and the obese 12.2 days. Even after adjusting for race, ethnicity, age, sex, and school attended, being overweight remained a significant predictor of absences.
Andrew B. Geier, the lead author, doubts that sickness among overweight children causes absences. “Even in fourth grade,” he said, “I believe that psychosocial factors, not physical ones, are keeping overweight kids from going to school.”
Nikki Jordan 10/12/07
I don’t let my 12 year old go to social networking sites, like those mentioned in the article. But I do allow my 16 year old to have her Facebook page because we’ve talked about online privacy and she’s old enough. Just like you wouldn’t give your 12 year old the same curfew as your older child, so you should also keep her away from these sites until she has a few more years under her belt.
Read more comments