Parents who ve been at home find this a good time to go back to work. And longtime working parents, after years of juggling schedules and panicking over lastminute sore throats, sigh in relief as they post a list of emergency numbers on the refrigerator and hand over the house keys. The problem is that, as many teachers attest, kids are lonely. There's no one there. What this parental absence means is that peer influence moves in to fill the void.
Educators report that cliques are taking firm hold earlier than ever.
Unlike ordinary friendships, cliques are often harsh and powerful mechanisms for making kids conform to codes of dress and behavior that have been absorbed from the media. And, adds Adler, popularity increases in direct proportion to a child's detachment from adults. To make matters worse, parents are often reluctant to take a stand against these trends. Unsure about what other kids are up to or what is really going on at school, many parents end up accepting their children's judgment. Others are unwilling to squander what little time they have with their kids on battles about clothing or movies.