MLL: Many elementary school students spend their summer vacation alone at home
Summer|Guided activities are available to small schoolchildren, but the differences between municipalities are large.
Mannerheim Parental support services from the League for Child Welfare (MLL) always include, as summer holidays approach, parents’ concerns about the care of small primary school children.
Not all parents have a holiday at all, and even the usual annual leave is only a few of the children’s summer holidays.
If family support networks are weak and, for example, grandparents may not be with children during their parents’ working days, the children are easily left alone or with siblings, says MLL’s responsible expert and digital services Anna Weckström.
« If there are no other adults in the family with whom you could share your holiday organization responsibility, the situation is even more difficult. »
Primary school Being alone at home for children has probably increased further during the holidays and also throughout the year after school days, says Executive Director of the Central Child Welfare Federation Ulla Siimes.
According to Siimes, irregular working hours have become more common, one parent has more families, and recent social security cuts may have driven some of the parents to work more.
There is no definition in Finnish legislation on which age a child can be left alone at home and for how long.
« If school -age children were spending time on their own, child welfare would be sensitively tackled, but I think the primary school children are too small to spend repeatedly full days at home, » Siimes says.
« However, age is not the only criterion for what age a child can do alone, but there are big, individual differences in the children. »
Many Municipalities, parishes and third sector actors organize a guided activity for children during the summer holidays. According to Siimes, for example, there are different day camps, night camps, clubs and park dining in the summer, but there are large differences in municipalities.
« Some of the municipalities have a lot of such, others are not at all. And since July is the most common holiday month in Finland, many municipalities will only focus on June and early August, although many parents are also at work in July. »
Siimes points out that there are also local differences in prices. Some of the guided activities can be very inexpensive and thus possible for almost all families, but some will be unattainable for many families due to their more expensive price.
Siimes points out that, for example, more than one third of financing is cut from social and health organizations, and the first effects of the cuts are likely to be seen this summer. Thus, children’s daytime activities can be even less available.
Anna Weckström says that for example, Sweden has been organizing morning and afternoon activities for primary school children for decades throughout the year- even during holidays.
There are also afternoon club activities in Finland, usually for children in grades 1-2, but there are also municipal differences.
« In Finnish culture, the ideal of coping alone is still strong, and children may be unconsciously subjected to the same expectations of independence that may have been targeted at a child – and children are sensitively trying to live up to these expectations, even if they may not be ready for their development level. »
MLL Children’s and young people’s phone will have a lot of contacts throughout the year from primary school children at home, says Weckström.
« Some children only play their longing for an adult, so they want to share even happy news and moods of the day with a safe adult while the parent is still at work. Some children call help for everyday puzzles, such as homework or microwave. But there are also a lot of emergency calls that clearly follow and consider different fears. »
According to Weckström, a child may be frightened, for example, with some strange sound. The child only has a limited ability to distinguish internal fears about external reality, which is why he or she may very quickly fall into fear.
Thus, the child may not be able to combine a strange sound, for example, to the wind knocking on the window into the window.
« If being alone causes a strong feeling of in -house insecurity, it will negatively affect the child’s development in the longer term. If the child is afraid of being alone, he or she is not ready for it and should not be left alone. »
Before the child is left alone, it would be good to practice alone. The first moments alone at home can be very short. Reviewing the schedules of the day and clear instructions on what you can or cannot do alone will strengthen the child’s sense of safety.
« It is terribly child -specific how a child may work, for example, when he is distressing. For this reason, it is necessary to go closely and repeat what is an emergency number and what can be called if the parent may not work on the phone.
