All had at least one child in elementary school and parents employed or in school full-time. The analysis pays particular attention to the low-income families in the study. The annual visits and interviews with both children and parents provided rich, contextual data. Although Belle administered standardized assessment scales to mothers and children at regular intervals, these data are not reported in the book. She emphasizes that parents are caught between difficult choices and have varied personal goals and circumstances to juggle.
Girls seem to do better overall than boys.
She is critical of the amount and quality of much of society s support. The findings do not suggest any easy magic bullet solutions, however, because change and highly varied family goals and needs are the rule regarding after-school supervision. Many would favor a living wage for all families, more social investment in our schools of all kinds, better community resources for children, and so forth just making life easier for frazzled working parents. However, the specific research findings of this study cannot be tied easily to specific policy changes. The sample and design and especially the absence of positive or negative school, family, or child outcome measures linked to patterns of after-school supervision make such specific links hard to establish.