Children home alone unsupervised: Modeling parental decisions and associated factors in Botswana, Mexico, and Vietnam
Children home alone unsupervised: Modeling parental decisions and associated factors in Botswana, Mexico, and Vietnam
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DOI：
10.1016/j.chiabu.2008.09.010
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发表时间：
2009-05-01
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
Heymann, Jody
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ruiz-Casares, Monica;Heymann, Jody
目的：研究处于重大社会经济转型国家的工薪家庭使用的不同育儿方式，重点是模拟父母将孩子单独留在家中的决定。方法：这项研究访问了博茨瓦纳、墨西哥和越南政府卫生诊所的537名在职护理员。分析涉及描述性统计、内容分析和人种学决策模型。结果：在博茨瓦纳一半的家庭、墨西哥超过三分之一的家庭和越南五分之一的家庭中，孩子经常或偶尔被单独留在家里。此外，52%的家庭将孩子单独留在家中，依靠其他孩子帮助照看孩子。父母的缺勤和恶劣的工作条件、有限的支持网络、无力支付儿童保育费用、社区安全和孩子的年龄是父母决定把孩子留在家里的关键因素。当非正式的托儿机构不提供照料时，儿童也可能独自呆在家里或没有质量监督。父母很少选择这种安排，他们确定了这种安排的风险(例如，增加无意伤害、孤独以及不良的行为和发育后果)和好处(例如，加强孩子的独立性和兄弟姐妹关系)。结论：贫困、社会融合、当地规范和儿童发展构成了父母的照料决策。对工薪家庭的社会支持不足往往导致不安全的托儿安排，以及父母对儿童教育和保健的参与有限。目前需要关于这一现象的全面数据，以便为正在经历重大社会经济转型的国家的社会服务和政策提供信息。实践影响：现有对儿童家庭的关注主要集中在相关的风险、伤害和糟糕的结果上：因此，这种照顾儿童的安排经常被评估为父母忽视。然而，了解为什么儿童被单独留在家里或在另一名儿童的监督下，对于制定适当的干预措施至关重要。这项对博茨瓦纳、墨西哥和越南父母决策的研究结果突出表明，有必要了解每个病例的病因，以评估父母是否在不成立的选择中寻找最佳选择，或者确实是父母、照顾者或社会忽视的情况。(C)2009爱思唯尔有限公司。保留所有权利。
Objective: This paper examines different child care arrangements utilized by working families in countries undergoing major socio-economic transitions, with a focus on modeling parental decisions to leave children home alone.Method: The study interviewed 537 working caregivers attending government health clinics in Botswana, Mexico, and Vietnam. Analyses involve descriptive statistics, content analysis, and ethnographic decision modeling.Results: In one-half of the families in Botswana, over one-third of the families in Mexico, and one-fifth of the families in Vietnam, children are left home alone on a regular or occasional basis. Moreover, 52% of families leaving children home alone relied on other children to help with child care. Parental unavailability and poor working conditions, limited support networks, inability to afford child care, neighborhood safety, and children's age are critical factors in parents' decisions to leave children home alone. Children also may remain home alone or without quality supervision when informal child care providers fail to provide care. Seldom their preferred choice, parents identified risks (e.g., increasing unintentional injuries, loneliness, and poor behavioral and developmental consequences) and benefits (e.g., strengthening child independence and sibling relations) of this arrangement.Conclusions: Poverty, social integration, local norms, and child development frame parents' decisions of care. Insufficient societal support to working families frequently resulted in unsafe child care arrangements and limited parental involvement in child education and health care. Current, comprehensive data on this phenomenon are needed to inform social services and policies in countries undergoing major socio-economic transitions.Practice implications: Existing attention to children home alone has mostly focused on the associated risks, injuries, and poor outcomes: consequently, this child care arrangement is often assessed as parental neglect. However, understanding why children are left home alone or under the supervision of another child is crucial to the development of suitable interventions. Findings from this study of parental decision-making in Botswana, Mexico, and Vietnam highlight the need to understand the etiology of each case to assess whether parents are seeking the best option among untenable choices, or if it is, indeed, a case of parental, caregiver, or societal neglect. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.