Corey is a special-needs student at the Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Boston. It was a time for stickball, tag, ringalevio, for riding a bike, strapping on roller skates, or earning pocket money at a part-time job. It was a time that kids everywhere looked forward to, and somehow instinctively knew how to use to their best advantage.
Times are different now.
In those prosperous days, a family could usually get by on a single paycheck, and, as a result, an oligarchy of homemakers kept a watchful eye on their children's after-school activities. And without that built-in supervision, things are getting out of hand. Nationally, the juvenile crime rate triples between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. Children are most likely to be victims of a violent crime in the after-school period. Children and youth are most likely to engage in sexual activity between 3 and 6 p.m., often resulting in pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. Even children who spend their after-school hours in the safety of their homes are apt to spend it watching TV, playing video games, or surfing the Internet, an average of almost five hours of the average kid's day.