Kids Feel Less Connected

What does this mean? Connectedness refers to a child’s feelings of being loved and feeling connected to a network of support.

As children move toward the end of the first decade of life, they begin spending more unsupervised time with friends and peers then they had before. Time with peers increases, especially the amount of time spent with peers after school. Parental monitoring – or the knowledge of and involvement in their child’s friendships, activities, and time use – is considered to be one of the most important parenting practices during the late childhood and the early adolescent years. Research finds that adequate parental monitoring fosters autonomy while simultaneously protecting early adolescents.

As children progress from Grade 4 to Grade 7, parents generally know less about how/where they are spending their time. Our research also demonstrates that parents of boys are less likely to know how their children spend their time than parents of girls.

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

Children’s social and emotional health indicators are higher on every measure with higher levels of parental connectedness.

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Study Findings

The study's findings are of particular interest to 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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