Scenario – Karen Miller: What Would You Do?
Karen Miller worked hard to get her undergrad degree while working full time and being a single mother to her two children, Tracy, age 12 and Rory, age 10. Now, while working as a human resources manager for the federal government, Karen has decided to pursue her HR certification through the Society For Human Resource Management (SHRM), a well-respected industry association. Since the certification program can be done online, Karen figures it will be less expensive to do it this way.
Although Karen’s employer is very supportive of ongoing education and development, the agency does not allow employees to do the course work during working hours. They will, however, let Karen uses her office computer and high-speed network connection for her course work. That means that Karen will have to do her course work after her normal workday ends at 4:45 p.m. Karen figures that even if she does one hour of course work a day for three times a week, her children, who get out of school at 3:30 p.m., will be alone close to four hours weekly.
There are after school programs at Tracy’s and Rory’s school, but they don’t always want to stay at school. Tracy believes she is old enough to stay home alone and to watch Rory. Rory, however, thinks that Tracy "bosses him around," and he doesn’t listen to her. Although she raised them to be good kids, Karen worries about the influence of their friends, television and the internet.
You are Karen. What should you do?
Workshop DescriptionWith more and more parents working full time outside the home, more single-parent households and our busy lives, the number of children who go home alone after school is growing. "Latch key children," as they are known, are exposed to many hours of unsupervised time and the freedom to make their own decisions, often highly influenced by friends, television and the internet. How do we provide a safe environment for our children while dealing with the guilt or mixed emotions that often accompany this present-day challenge?
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
This 2-hour Lunch ‘n Learn Workshop will teach you:
- how other families cope with this challenge
- how to know when your children are ready for increased levels of responsibility
- what safeguards you can put in place if you are part of a latch key family
