Word: latchkeys
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...those same years, California has seen an influx of immigrants, a rise in the number of kids with learning and behavioral problems, more latchkey children whose parents are working and hungry kids whose parents are not. "Schools are expected to provide more social services, more counseling, more psychological and nursing services," says Dan Moirao, superintendent of the Hayward Unified School District. "But because of low funding, we have difficulty just providing the basic teacher in front of the classroom with a textbook...
...films, from The Wizard of Oz to E.T. and Home Alone, are rites of self-reliance. Children face adult obstacles (or rather, superhero torture tests) and in surmounting them become adults (or rather, Hollywood's ideal of adults, as kids with weapons). Real parents are redundant in fables for latchkey kids; all authority figures are oafish, evil or, mostly, absent. The lost child finds his own way home...
Studies of latchkey kids conducted by family sociologist Hyman Rodman of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro suggest that they are not measurably worse off than other kids, at least in terms of self-esteem and behavior in school. But Thomas Long, a Bethesda, Maryland, child psychologist who has also studied such children, believes they are emotionally vulnerable. They tend to fall into two groups, he says: those who see themselves as independent and capable, and those who see their situation as one of rejection and abandonment. Many children, he says, find that being alone is "frightening, initially, then...
...exact count of the number of services for latchkey kids, but there are about 300 chapters of PhoneFriend, according to Helen Meahl, who helped found the first such "warm line" 10 years ago in State College, Pennsylvania. For $22, Meahl and her local chapter of the American Association of University Women distribute a guide to groups that wish to create such a service...
...line volunteers are easing latchkey kids' loneliness...