Critical middle years: Young kids have few after-school options, but they're keen for something meaningful
Toronto Star
23 Apr 07

Excerpt from article
By: Andrea Gordon
Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, associate professor at the University of British Columbia

It's 4 o'clock. Do you know where your children are?

Good question. Especially if you've got school-aged kids. Because for those in the so-called "middle years" – ages 6 to 12 – the hours between the school bell and dinner can be everything from active and fulfilling to lonely and treacherous. And a time when unsupervised kids can slip through the cracks….

Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who has spent the past 18 months studying this age group, calls these "the critical hours."

They can be an opportunity for kids in quality after-school care or recreation programs to develop fitness, friendship and role models. Or, for kids left to their own devices, prime time for roaming the Internet, mainlining video games and junk food or, in later grade school, experimenting with sex, drugs and delinquency.

"Eighty per cent of moms these days work outside the home, and parents just want to keep their children safe," Schonert-Reichl says. "But there are not a lot of options." Especially affordable options that older kids actually want to attend.

Sandwiched between the formative early years and the national child-care debate on one side, and crisis headlines about out-of-control teens on the other, the middle years are often painted as a gauzy time of innocence and free play.

But they are also a critical developmental stage. Kids spend more time in school than with their families. Peers become a major influence; with that come issues like bullying and peer pressure. Problems with learning and mental health may emerge.

Schonert-Reichl's research, which will be presented to the conference, backs that up. She surveyed 1,266 Vancouver-area children in Grades 4 through 7 about after-school activities and how they felt about themselves, their families and communities.

Three things surprised her: The kids, especially the boys, exhibited a declining sense of optimism and well-being as they got older; kids who had relationships with two or more adults they trusted outside their family were more successful; there was a huge disconnect between what kids were doing and what they wanted to be doing.

"The vast majority of children told us that they want to be engaged in activities that build their competence, their connectedness and their physical health," she says. "Not one of the 1,266 said they wanted to watch more TV after school."