Being A Latchkey Kid

[Jazzy1]

Looking back, maybe the latchkey method of parenting wasn't actually so bad and may have had some benefits to it.

For starters, kids learned how to clean up after themselves, make their own food, and were all in all getting some basic life skills training and learning how to be independent and not always reliant on their parents all the time.

I know many of us here were latchkey kids. How did the experience affect your personality, your character, your way of dealing with life?

 

[Aunt Bea]

My older sister and I were on our own in the morning to get ready for school and spent after school hours with our grandmother for a couple of hours after school when I was 9-10 years old.

When my mother remarried we were on our own all through middle school and high school.

I don’t really think that it had much, if any, impact on me.

We all do what we have to do.

I get a kick out of seeing young kids and how they put on their ‘game face’ when they are in school surrounded by their peers compared to how they act and often manipulate their parents when they are at home.