Latchkey Children’s Call Is Answered

A 10-year-old boy called to report that he had won a burping contest at school.

A girl, age 12, asked how she could help a suicidal friend.

A hungry 10-year-old girl wanted help choosing an afternoon snack.

And a 6-year-old boy asked how babies are born.

All four children were home unsupervised after school. And all dialed (714) 756-WARM when they needed to talk.

The 7,000 children who call Irvine Kid-Phone each year quickly learn that, whether their need is trivial or traumatic, there will be a warm, caring listener at the other end of the line.

One 7-year-old girl left this message for volunteers on the Kid-Phone machine during off hours: “You guys are great friends. You really mean a lot to me.”

And they will become even more important to her when summer comes, if she’s one of those for whom the end of the school year means more hours at home alone.

Those children will be able to maintain their Kid-Phone connection over the summer, when the phone line will continue to operate from 2 to 6 p.m. on weekdays.

Since Kid-Phone began operating in January, 1988, a number of Irvine children have come to depend on the city-sponsored program for the afternoon companionship their working parents are unable to provide, says Linda Zuba, coordinator of the “warm line.”

Nancy Noble, Irvine’s child-care coordinator, says Kid-Phone was created to provide immediate help for latchkey children while the city seeks solutions to the underlying problem--the lack of affordable day care for school-age children.

“We provide a support system for young people who may not have one available. Without that, there’s a tendency for them to get into trouble,” she says.

No one knows how many children need this kind of support. Estimates on the number of children without constant parental supervision nationwide range from 2.5 million to 15 million, according to Michelle Seligson, director of the School-Age Child Care Project at Wellesley College’s Center for Research on Women.

A recent U.S. Census Bureau survey reports that 5% of children ages 5 to 14 nationwide are on their own after school and that the proportion rises to 13.2% in the summer.

Attention has been focused on the problem in Orange County by such tragedies as the deaths of Patrick Andrew Mason, a 5-year-old boy shot in 1983 by a Stanton police officer who entered the apartment the boy shared with his working mom and mistook the child’s toy gun for a real one, and Omar Jimenez, an 8-year-old Santa Ana boy who last year was crushed by a window through which he was trying to crawl, apparently because he had forgotten his house key. Both children had been left alone while their parents were at work.

Seligson, who has been studying the latchkey problem for the past 10 years, says parents who feel they have no alternative may be unrealistic in assessing their children’s self-care skills.

Noble shares that concern. “Children in third grade and under are just not capable of making appropriate decisions,” she says.

Zuba stresses that Irvine’s Kid-Phone line is not a crisis intervention program, though volunteers will help children get emergency assistance if necessary. Most of the calls received by what is believed to be the only such phone line in the county come from children ages 8 to 12 who are simply lonely or bored and need someone to keep them company, if only for a few minutes, Zuba says.

Or, she adds, “maybe they’re excited about something that happened, and there isn’t someone there right then to listen to them.”

Among the “regulars,” Zuba notes, is boy who asks volunteers to read him stories and help him with math problems and another who likes to read stories to the volunteers.

Some call because they want a safe place to talk about a problem they’re having with a parent, friend or sibling.

“We give them a place to vent their feelings and talk about their concerns,” Zuba says. “Even if they’re home with someone else in the family, they may still have a need to talk to someone. It may not be a big, critical issue, but talking to someone makes them feel better.”

The number of calls from children who are scared tends to increase at the start of summer because they are adjusting to being home alone for a longer period, Zuba notes. Volunteers may stay on the line as long as 20 minutes with a child who is upset.

But most callers are satisfied with a five-minute chat during which volunteers may tell some jokes, read a story or suggest an activity such as an art project or game.

The volunteers, most of whom are UC Irvine child development and psychology students, are given about 10 hours of formal training before they start working the phones in the tiny Kid-Phone office at Irvine City Hall.

After about five months working 10 hours a week, Matt Wesner answers the phone with confidence and a natural exuberance that seems sure to have a cheering effect on lonely callers.

“Kinda bored?” he asked a 10-year-old girl who called one recent afternoon. “What would you like to talk about?”

When she was unable to suggest a topic, he started asking questions--”How was school today? What are you going to do this summer?”--and kept the conversation going until she was ready to hang up.

Sometimes they call several times and hang up before they get the courage to say anything.

“They’re lonely. They just want to hear a voice,” says Wesner, a 23-year-old UCI social ecology major. “We make their day easier.”

Suann Hsu, a 20-year-old UCI psychology major who has been working the phone line for about five weeks, says she remembers being home alone as a child while her parents were at work.

“I had to do everything by myself, so I can understand a lot of things they’re going through. There were no neighborhood kids around, so I was pretty alone. I can see why they get bored.”

She recently took a call from a 10-year-old girl who had just finished her homework and had nothing to do. Hsu could hear a radio playing loudly in the background. “Would you like an activity?” Hsu asked. “Do you like art?” She then gave her caller detailed directions on how to make a picture by pressing leaves on a piece of paper after dipping them in food coloring.

Jeanne Preble, an Irvine marriage and family counselor, is impressed that the phone line helps latchkey children fill their time with creative activities.

“Being alone is not good or bad in and of itself,” she says. “It depends on how it’s handled. Kids should be safe--there should always be some resource for a child in need. And they should have access to adults to share with. But they also should learn innovative things that they can do alone. We have initiated our kids into so much passive entertainment with TV that they have lost the ability to be creative.

“We’re moving into a new era when most parents are going to work. We have to deal with the question of how to keep our kids active.”

Noble says older school-age children need a better selection of supervised recreational activities. “We have some programs in place, but not enough.”

That need is what has kept the Placentia-Yorba Linda Assistance Line going, though a shortage of funds has prevented the group from continuing its afternoon Phone Friend service for latchkey children.

Connie Underhill, a Placentia resident who founded the line that operated from 1986 to 1988, said the connection Phone Friend established with the 1,500 children who called each year helped supporters identify areas where after-school programs are most needed. They are now working on a limited budget to develop programs for those north county neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, Underhill says, there’s a need for more phone lines for latchkey children, and she feels that they should be funded well enough to stay open during evening hours “when children might truly be scared.”

Seligson says phone lines may be an important link for latchkey children, “but they’re not the ultimate answer.”

The School-Age Child Care Project at Wellesley College is helping communities across the country assess their day-care needs and start quality after-school programs. Seligson says she is particularly concerned about the long-neglected needs of middle school children.

“We haven’t acknowledged the care needs of older children as much as we should,” she says. “One of the needs kids have as they develop is to learn how to make decisions for themselves and to function independently.

“The question is: How do we prepare children to do that? I think the way to prepare children for being more independent is by allowing them to be more dependent. The function of after-school care is to provide safe, enriched environments where someone is there to help you and allow you to be dependent and independent until you no longer need them.”