When I was a kid, the after school hours worked a bit differently than they do now.\u00c2\u00a0 My mom didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work outside the home (except for a part-time gig for a few years teaching at a preschool), so most afternoons she was home when I got off the bus.\u00c2\u00a0 We had a big back yard bordering on woodlands, so I could go outside after grabbing a snack and run around and play with the neighborhood kids (or by myself) while Mom did her thing inside.\u00c2\u00a0 On the days that Mom wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t home when I got off the bus, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d sit on the front steps and wait for her.<\/p>\n
Things are a bit different now, obviously.\u00c2\u00a0 A lot more moms work full-time and can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be home to greet the school bus when it arrives.\u00c2\u00a0 And every day there are scary stories about kids being abducted from their driveways or streets or yards – those woodlands of my childhood home would look a lot more sinister to a parent today than they did to my mom, and sitting alone on the front steps just wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be safe anymore.<\/p>\n
Because times have changed, there are kids who can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go home after school, and end up spending their afternoons in the local library waiting for their parents to finish work.\u00c2\u00a0 These are great kids; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve gotten to know a lot of them in the town where I work, and they are smart and interesting and creative.\u00c2\u00a0 But they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re also kids, who have been sitting in school all day and who are itching to do something beside SIT and be QUIET all afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame these kids one bit – when I was a kid, I needed to run and be active after a long day of education.\u00c2\u00a0 And I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame their parents, either – Jim and I keep delaying parenthood because we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine how we could afford it, even with both of us working full time.\u00c2\u00a0 But the fact is that the library needs to be a quiet place for the people who go there to study and research.\u00c2\u00a0 So what to do?<\/p>\n
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been running a Thursday afternoon game hour, run by teen volunteers, that has become pretty popular.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good outlet to be kind of loud and have fun playing games in a safe atmosphere.\u00c2\u00a0 So there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an hour on Thursday taken care of.\u00c2\u00a0 On most Tuesdays I run book groups, but those are grade specific (the fifth grade group meets only once a month, and so on), and let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face it, book groups are still a bit like school.\u00c2\u00a0 But at least they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re fairly popular.\u00c2\u00a0 So there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tuesday afternoons taken care of, as best I can.<\/p>\n
But what of Wednesday and Friday afternoons?\u00c2\u00a0 The library closes at five on both days, so any activity I add would have to be finished up by 4:30 or 4:45.\u00c2\u00a0 Mondays I have a bit more leeway, since we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re open until nine.\u00c2\u00a0 And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also the issue of staffing, since I really do have other tasks that I need to be accomplishing besides running programs: I need to order books, I need to assist patrons who need help finding books, I need to plan storytimes and coordinate volunteers, and any number of other tasks.\u00c2\u00a0 Mary tells me that we have been gifted a soccer ball, which we could \u00e2\u20ac\u0153check out\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for kids to use on the front lawn; maybe we need to invest in a few other basic pieces of sports equipment, like a frisbee and a football, that could also be loaned out.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really sure what the solution is, but would like to spend less of my time \u00e2\u20ac\u0153speaking to\u00e2\u20ac\u009d kids who are really good people, just in need of some structuring of their free time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was a kid, the after school hours worked a bit differently than they do now.\u00c2\u00a0 My mom didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work outside the home (except for a part-time gig for a few years teaching at a preschool), so most afternoons she was home when I got off the bus.\u00c2\u00a0 We had a big back yard … Continue reading What to do?<\/span>