The increasing labor force participation of mothers, the rise in single parent households, and the scarcity and costliness of child care have increased the number of """"""""latchkey"""""""" children, those who spend part of each day alone (in """"""""self-care"""""""") or supervised by underage siblings (in """"""""sibling care""""""""). While some observers claim that children without adult supervision make gains in self-esteem and toughness, others argue that lack of adult supervision can lead to loneliness, boredom, fear, academic difficulties, and sexual victimization. This study will examine the role of social support resources, such as assistance in problem solving and reassurance of worth, in promoting emotional well-being among elementary school latchkey children and their adult supervised peers. The study will determine (1) how social support provision varies with the after-school arrangements children experience, (2) how different types of social support resources from different individuals are related to the emotional well-being of children, and (3) how the impact of the latchkey experience varies depending on the nature of social support resources provided to latchkey children. In addition, specific aspects of the latchkey experience, such as isolation from peers and confinement to home, will be examined to determine if such aspects are also related to the emotional well-being of latchkey children. Sixty children will participate in the study, including twenty adult supervised children, twenty children in self-care, and twenty children cared for by underage siblings. Families will be recruited for the study from Cambridge, Massachusetts, through community channels. Each target child and his/her mother will be interviewed, and in each sibling care family the child caretaker as well as the mother and the target child will be interviewed. Interviews will incorporate both standardized questionnaires and open-ended questions. Interviews will be conducted in the homes of research families unless respondents prefer to come to Boston University to be interviewed. Several weeks after the face-to-face interviews are conducted, every target child will receive brief telephone interviews on five consecutive school day evenings to determine the child's day-to-day experience of utilizing social support resources to cope with small, day-to-day stress situations. Implications for social policies concerning children's out-of-school care, as well as implications for a developmental study of children's stress and coping will be drawn from this study.
