After School for Cindy Commentary by Mary Larner
Mary Larner is an applied researcher and policy analyst concerned with children’s issues. As an editor of the Packard Foundation’s journal, The Future of Children, she crafted a 1999 issue called When School Is Out (the full text is available at www.futureofchildren.org). She is currently living and working in Sweden.
Note: this commentary was originally published in 2005 by Harvard Family Research Project.
Cindy is a lucky girl, though things are not easy for her. She is full of life and energy, she grasps the positive elements in her experience, she has a loving relationship with her mother, and she goes to a school with an engaged and supportive staff. Even so, Cindy is not doing well in school, and she spends much of her free time unsupervised, bored, or both. Her problems are of a sort that good after school activities naturally address, but her mother is unlikely to send her to such a program, despite suggestions from the school. Why not?
This case study is not really about Cindy but about the adults who surround her. Cindy’s mother Marla is single and struggling to stay off welfare, so she juggles jobs, schedules, and paid help to keep an eye on Cindy after school lets out. The teacher Nikki is attuned to Cindy’s problems and thinks a formal after school program could help. Though she has a good relationship with Marla, her understanding of the family is limited. The school principal and guidance counselor see the value of linking students to community-based after school activities, although the school does not operate or house a program of its own. Finally, while after school resources exist in the community, they are uncoordinated, and public transportation is minimal.
All the adults described here are thinking of Cindy’s needs and interests when they wonder about after school activities for her. But after school time is a sort of “no man’s land” in which solutions are scarce and frustration is common. Cindy’s mother and the staff at the school look at after school alternatives for Cindy from sharply differing perspectives. They have different goals, they see different options, and they are aware of different constraints. Such differences can only be overcome in the context of a broad problem-solving discussion of interests, options, constraints, and responsibilities. What issues might then come up?
1. Time together — The case tells us that Marla’s top priority after school hours is her desire to spend time with Cindy herself. As a single mother with no working car and struggling to manage work, household chores, and childrearing, Marla has little time to enjoy being with Cindy. It is most fun to be together outside the house, not cooped up indoors, although Marla does not organize excursions herself. In any case, an after school arrangement that kept Cindy away for even longer each day would frustrate Marla’s interest in having time together.
The school staff, however, do not place a high value on the time Cindy spends with her mother, and are instead concerned that Marla does not know how to provide appropriate experiences to foster Cindy’s development. Attitudes like these do not foster a good working relationship.
2. Safety and supervision — Like any concerned parent, Marla is trying to find an after school arrangement that will keep Cindy secure. Several options she has considered or tried (unbeknownst to the school) have not met her safety criteria, including a family child care home, and the idea that Cindy would walk home alone.
Cindy’s teacher Nikki, however, worries about other safety issues when she sees Cindy playing around parked cars or hears of the videos she watches. Clearly, both Marla and Nikki are right — both sets of risks deserve attention when the pros and cons of different after school options are weighed.
3. Structure and enrichment — The educators in Cindy’s life think of after school activities as a chance for children to master the social and academic skills that will help them succeed during the regular school day. Cindy’s teacher Nikki would like to see her attend a formal program emphasizing social skills and self-esteem. She does not see much developmental value for Cindy in unstructured time spent with her mother.
The school’s focus on educational enrichment during out-of-school time is natural, but narrow. Equally natural is a parent’s focus on protecting time for the parent–child relationship. Their perspectives need not conflict, but could be balanced if Cindy attended structured activities just a few days a week.
4. Cost and logistics — When parents arrange after school care, the mundane details of cost and transportation often play a determining role, especially in low-income or single-parent families. Marla has tight finances, no working car, and no partner with whom to share responsibility, so cost and transportation top the list of criteria for a workable after school arrangement. She knows how little she can afford to pay, how rigid her work hours are, and how inefficient the community bus system is. Therefore, she invests her own energy on finding a job that will let her be home with Cindy after school.
By contrast, the school staff pay little heed to the pragmatic details of after school program cost and location. Their listings of community programs do not highlight cost, location, and transportation, so Marla does not view these as viable options. Experience has shown that while many community after school programs are underutilized, those that are free or low-cost tend to have long waiting lists.
5. Responsibility — Who should arrange after school activities for Cindy and her classmates? This task has long been the purview of parents, who have often responded like Marla by finding a relative or family child care provider to look after their children. Until recently, schools also paid little attention to this issue, beyond perhaps renting space to a program, or passing out information about community offerings. Now, awareness of after school is growing among school leaders, but resources have not grown apace. Frustration escalates, as does finger-pointing; parents, schools, and community organizations look to each other to solve the problem.
The truth is that all have a role to play in finding (or creating) constructive, workable after school experiences for today’s children. To succeed at that important task, however, parents, school staff, and community leaders must think and reach beyond their own interests to communicate with one another. Only then will the after school opportunities they create truly meet the needs of children, parents, educators, and the community at large.
