Context and Methodology

Context

Before now, no data were available in Canada documenting the experiences both in and out of school of children during the middle childhood years. This report attempts to provide those data.

• In British Columbia, there are nearly 400,000 school-age children in grades Kindergarten to 7

• Evidence suggests middle childhood development is a more powerful predictor of adolescent adjustment and success than is early childhood development.

• It is during middle childhood that many problems arise, that left unchecked, will become exacerbated as children move into adolescence.

Research Methodology

A total of 1,266 children from 4th to 7th grades (9 – 12 year- olds) drawn from seven school districts were surveyed and kept a daily diary in which they documented their activities the previous day from after school to dinner, and then in the evening.

The study also included over 700 (711) parents who completed a one-page questionnaire in which they were asked to report their general levels of satisfaction with their child’s after school time use as well as the barriers they perceived to accessing opportunities for their child’s after school time.

Key Findings

Key Finding 1:

Children benefit significantly from participating in structured activities during the after school hours.

Key Finding 2:

Overall, children during the middle childhood years are happy and well-adjusted, however, children who engage in excessive use of technology during the after school hours report being less happy and competent than their peers.

Key Finding 3:

Parents matter, even in middle childhood. Children’s connections to their parents is central. Children entering adolescence still function best when they experience high parent “connectedness”.

Key Finding 4:

Relationships with peers and adults in school and in the community are central in fostering children’s social and emotional competence.

Children

• The average child in their middle years has approximately 67 hours of discretionary time each week.

• This research shows clearly that, although children’s social and emotional health is relatively strong, there is a downward trend from Grade 4 to Grade 7. We can also clearly see that boys are generally doing less well than girls.

• The research asked children whether they were “happy with their life”. By Grade 7, less than 50% of both boys and girls say they “agree a lot” with the statement, and for boys, the percentage drops below 40%. This finding is consistent with research that shows that girls are generally more optimistic than boys.

• Research results show that a significant proportion of children have negative body image and have been teased about their bodies.

• Although, almost 60% of children perceived their bodies to be about right, the chart shows that fully 20% of boys and girls believe themselves to be overweight to some degree.

• The research draws a clear correlation between children’s perceptions of their bodies and self reports of anxiety and depression. Specifically, those children who reported themselves as being either slightly or very overweight also reported higher levels of depression and anxiety in contrast to those children who reported that they were either underweight or of average weight.

• A significant proportion of children say that they do not plan to graduate from high school: in fact almost the same figure as is represented by current school drop out figures. The research makes clear that boys are more likely to consider dropping out than girls. In Grade 7 close to 20% of boys say they do not plan to graduate from high school.

• The research points to some connections between school drop out and a decreasing attachment to school by children in their middle years. This downward trend is particularly true for boys where the percentage of boys who say they get good grades drops from 39% to 23% from Grade 4 to Grade 7.

What children are doing

• Five of 10 children surveyed are engaged in structured after-school activities, the other half are home or in other care arrangements engaged more often in sedentary activities.

• About 50% of all school-age children in the study reported that they participated in enrichment activities, including sports, lessons, clubs or after-school programs.

• A significant proportion of children reported being engaged in a wide range of technology-related activities, such as on-line computer games, and instant messaging (MSN).
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• Of the children surveyed:

7% attend an after-school daycare program
71% do their homework
6% volunteer or help at school
35% participate in organized sports
63% play sports for fun
71% do homework, average time, ½ hour to one hour (29% 1 to 2 hours or more)

• Children who engaged in excessive technology use during the after school hours, mainly in the form of on-line computer games and TV viewing, had more negative social and emotional adjustment and well-being than children who did not engage in such excessive technology use.

• Children who engaged in excessive technology use were rated by teachers as having more problem behaviors in the classroom and lower levels of social adjustment than their peers.

• The research found that children who engaged in at least one supervised activities during the after-school hours (between 3:00pm to 6:00pm), such as team sports, academic lessons, drama, etc. scored higher across almost all dimensions of psychological and social well-being in contrast to those students who did not or were unable to participate.

• As children get older they see friendship differently. For girls, the quality of their friendships remains fairly stable. Boys report a steady decline in the quality of their friendships from Grade 4 to 7.

• As children are being asked to perform at a higher level at school, they are beginning to feel less of a sense of belonging to their schools. Again, this trend is more marked for boys than girls.

• A surprising number of children, around 40%, do not know of organizations in their community that provide programs for them.

What children want to be doing

• Very few children (only 8.5%) of children in the research study said that they wanted to be spending more time on the computer NO child reported wanting to watch more TV.

• The vast majority of children told us that they want to be engaged in activities that build their competence, their physical health, and their connectedness.

Parents

• As children progress from Grade 4 to Grade 7, parents of generally know less about how they are spending their time.

• Parents of boys are less likely to know how their children spend their time than parents of girls.

• Children who experience higher levels of monitoring tend to have higher levels of reported well-being.

Many of the parents who responded to the survey report multiple barriers to their child’s involvement.

• 37% of parents report a single barrier to participation
• 65% report two barriers
• 86% report 3 barriers

With respect to level of satisfaction about how their child spends their after-school time parents indicated:

• 30% were "Very Satisfied,"
• 40% were "Somewhat Satisfied."
• 15% were neutral
• 15% were either "Very Dissatisfied" or "Somewhat Dissatisfied"

Fully 20% of parents surveyed indicated that programs/services for their children during the out of school hours are not available in their community. 21% indicated that there was a lack of information about the services offered for children in their community.

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