Middle schoolers (esp. 6th grade) on their own after school

[Anonymous]

I am a current 5th grade parent thinking about next year. For those with middle schoolers without an adult home in the afternoons, what rules do you have? Do they stay inside the house until you are home? Are they allowed to visit neighboring friends? Walk to town/shops (if applicable)? Do you have sign them up (at least in MCPS) for activities Tues-Thurs and have them take activity bus after that? Any tips? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

come home, do your homework. no screens except for homework.

if you make plans with a friend, fine but be sure to text.

ymmv as to whether your kid is mature enough to follow that.

[Anonymous]

Yes, we had him sign up for afterschool activities Tues-Thur. Monday and Friday he had to text us when he got home. Then have a snack and start homework. Fridays we usually get home earlier so mostly it was just Mondays that he was on his own for more than an hour.

[Anonymous]

My 6th grader signs up for several after school activities, which fills about an hour of time after school each day. After that he frequently goes to the library with friends to use the computers there, or to shops for an after school snack with friends.

He has to text or call us if he wants to do anything between school activities and going home.

He has friends in the neighborhood and he is welcome to go to their houses if there is a parent present, after all homework is complete and after he contacts us for permission.

He is seldom alone at home for more than an hour or so.

[Anonymous]

I get home by 5:15. 3:30-5:15 is screen time, with some homework if we're lucky. sport starts at 6:15. Not an ideal schedule but working so far.

[Anonymous]

We're in APS, but my 6th grader comes home on his own on the bus, gets a snack, and chills (he can use his phone or watch TV) for about an hour until anyone else gets home. He is responsible and likes the alone time. No issues with getting homework done each day. It's worked out very well so far. He has one activity where he stays after school on Thursdays.

[Anonymous]

My kids sometimes did the MCPS after school activities and took the activity bus, but I didn't require it. On days when they had no activities, they would come home. They would have to call me with their plan for the rest of the evening - what they planned to do, with whom, when homework would get done, etc. I did allow them to go out into the neighborhood and hang out with other kids and go to kids' houses where parents were home. But, I didn't typically allow kids to come to our house if we weren't home.

I didn't require my kids to do their homework right after school. They spent all day inside and needed a break to be outside and goofing around. for most of the school year, it gets dark early so their only outside time is right after school.

[Anonymous]

Come home and chill, relax and decompress from all the social and academic stress of the day for about 1 hour. Sports for and hour or 2 with friends, team. Fight about homework for 20 minutes. shower, bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids sometimes did the MCPS after school activities and took the activity bus, but I didn't require it. On days when they had no activities, they would come home. They would have to call me with their plan for the rest of the evening - what they planned to do, with whom, when homework would get done, etc. I did allow them to go out into the neighborhood and hang out with other kids and go to kids' houses where parents were home. But, I didn't typically allow kids to come to our house if we weren't home.

I didn't require my kids to do their homework right after school. They spent all day inside and needed a break to be outside and goofing around. for most of the school year, it gets dark early so their only outside time is right after school.

Pretty similar for our family as well. I encouraged after school activities, and most of my kids did a few. Any day they didn't have an activity to go to, I just required a voicemail/email/text saying what they planned to do after school. As long as they kept me updated so I knew what they were up to, they could go pretty much anywhere they were normally allowed to be, including friends' houses or most places around town. As long as they'd been to the location or done the activity at least once before with our knowledge, the default was that they had permission to do whatever they planned unless I objected upon being notified. My one required deadline for homework was: If I need to buy anything for you to accomplish tonight's homework, or have cash to give you for tomorrow, notify me by 4PM. Other than that, I didn't require them to do homework at a set time as long as their homework was generally getting done and grades met our standards. If grades were slipping, they would be required to have the homework done by a certain time (or to have been working steadily since getting home) so we could check it/help with it after dinner. We only allowed friends to come over to our home when parents were not home if we approved of the friend and we had previously spoken to their parents and knew the parents were okay with there being no adult present after school.

[Anonymous]

Thank you!