"Latchkey"

Abstract

Two to five million children, 6 through 13 years old, are unsupervised at home after school. This practice, called "latchkey," involves issues of children without adult supervision for periods of time and questions of safety and social isolation. There are no published age guidelines for "latchkey" or data on actual practice. To investigate age guideline opinions and the factors that influence them, a survey of pediatricians (the professional voice), military police (the legal voice), and parents (the popular voice) was undertaken. Solicited opinions concerned ages at which children can be left alone for brief or extended periods and can be allowed to babysit younger chidren. The three "voices" expressed similar mean ages and distributions for each of the "latchkey" questions. For less than 15 minutes without supervision, the means approximated 9 years; for periods of 1 hour or longer, 12 years; and for babysitting, 14 years. The data presented do not address actual or appropriate practice, but instead provide a basis to begin investigation.