What age to stop using aftercare?

[Anonymous]

What age are kids when they typically stop using aftercare and just come home to an empty house?

[Anonymous]

Middle school, in my experience. Even then, some of the kids stay after each day if the school offers activities. The school I teach at has coverage until 6:00 each day, and about 20-30 kids utilize it every day.

[Anonymous]

12/13

[Anonymous]

Then what do they do in the summers? Still stay alone, or go to camp?

[Anonymous]

I would really like to stop at 4th grade (next year). But our house is only 1 block from the school, and DH gets home at 5pm.

[Anonymous]

Our school is 4 blocks from home and DH works from home. We still use aftercare for our 11 year old (5th grade). At home, he'd want to be watching TV or playing with his tablet. At aftercare, he's super active and has friends to play with. If it were a financial hardship, we would skip it, of course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would really like to stop at 4th grade (next year). But our house is only 1 block from the school, and DH gets home at 5pm.

If your child is trustworthy, responsible, and knows how/where/what to do if he/she needs help, then why not? My child is the same age and can handle being home alone for an hour or so.

[Anonymous]

For me, it depends on each child. They are very comfortable navigating the neighborhood and we've done well in building good rapport with the gentlemen who stand on the corners selling loosies (single cigarettes, for 50 cents each) and whatever else. Still, we frequently see fights among middle schoolers out in the street. They cross traffic and seriously beat each other. The police come around quite regularly to respond to this sort of thing. So, I'm not sure about how I'll feel when the time comes. My children are still young enough that I don't have to think about it too much. We're only, at most, three blocks from the school. I'll probably start out with short solo trips to the local CVS to see how they each handle it. I'm much less worried about my DD than my DS, who might get caught up or targeted. I think the whole block would freak out if anyone approached my DD. She gets a lot of positive attention when out in public.

I'll test the waters and see how they do when the time comes. I'll probably hold back my elder DC until they can walk home together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Then what do they do in the summers? Still stay alone, or go to camp?

A mix of camp (day and sleep away), relaxing with the xbox and family vacation.

10 weeks alone with no stimulus is not a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
For me, it depends on each child. They are very comfortable navigating the neighborhood and we've done well in building good rapport with the gentlemen who stand on the corners selling loosies (single cigarettes, for 50 cents each) and whatever else. Still, we frequently see fights among middle schoolers out in the street. They cross traffic and seriously beat each other. The police come around quite regularly to respond to this sort of thing. So, I'm not sure about how I'll feel when the time comes. My children are still young enough that I don't have to think about it too much. We're only, at most, three blocks from the school. I'll probably start out with short solo trips to the local CVS to see how they each handle it. I'm much less worried about my DD than my DS, who might get caught up or targeted. I think the whole block would freak out if anyone approached my DD. She gets a lot of positive attention when out in public.

I'll test the waters and see how they do when the time comes. I'll probably hold back my elder DC until they can walk home together.

Seems like it depends more on your neighborhood, PP, than on your kids!

If you are living in a neighborhood where there are middle schoolers beating each other up when crossing the street, you probably don't want your kids walking alone there at all.

Where we live it is unheard of for kids to get attacked in our neighborhood, certainly not just walking home from the school bus.

[Anonymous]

OP, my daughter is in 4th grade and we've been letting her come home on the bus about once a week. SHe's home by 3 and I am home by 4, but I call her from work and if she seems happy, I might run an errand and get home closer to 4:30 or 5. This doesn't feel like too long for her to be home alone and she prefers it to aftercare.

Our aftercare isn't great, though. If she had a great, fun aftercare with friends I'd prefer her to do that. As it is one hour alone each afternoon seems OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
For me, it depends on each child. They are very comfortable navigating the neighborhood and we've done well in building good rapport with the gentlemen who stand on the corners selling loosies (single cigarettes, for 50 cents each) and whatever else. Still, we frequently see fights among middle schoolers out in the street. They cross traffic and seriously beat each other. The police come around quite regularly to respond to this sort of thing. So, I'm not sure about how I'll feel when the time comes. My children are still young enough that I don't have to think about it too much. We're only, at most, three blocks from the school. I'll probably start out with short solo trips to the local CVS to see how they each handle it. I'm much less worried about my DD than my DS, who might get caught up or targeted. I think the whole block would freak out if anyone approached my DD. She gets a lot of positive attention when out in public.

I'll test the waters and see how they do when the time comes. I'll probably hold back my elder DC until they can walk home together.

Seems like it depends more on your neighborhood, PP, than on your kids!

If you are living in a neighborhood where there are middle schoolers beating each other up when crossing the street, you probably don't want your kids walking alone there at all.

Where we live it is unheard of for kids to get attacked in our neighborhood, certainly not just walking home from the school bus.

I'm the PP.

I grew up in the same neighborhood when it was much, much worse. I was a latch key kid once I started 7th grade. Navigating violent neighborhoods is a pretty common challenge for far too many young people. I'm not raising hot-house flowers, but children equipped to handle the everyday challenges they may face based on the realities of our situation.

It is, as they say, what it is.

[Anonymous]

Isn't there any middle ground between highly scheduled after care and latch-key kid? I don't want my kid to never have any freedom, but I also think it's a recipe for bad stuff to happen if you have a 13-14 year old unsupervised for hours every day after school. I don't foresee ever being able to get home much earlier than 6pm in my career.

[Anonymous]

The in-between is after care, pp. In my experience it is not "highly scheduled," the way an after school activity would be. It is pretty laid back free play/hw time, with a couple of adults supervising the crew. Maybe aftercare half the week and home alone the other half will be a format you prefer? I'm with the pp who said that my kids prefer after care and hanging with friends to coming home just the two of them.

[Anonymous]

We went to part-time in 4th grade and stopped altogether in 5th. I worked from home about half the time.