End of Days: Like Parent, Like Child
Psychology Professor George Holden talks about children and Chicago's plan to extend the school day.
By Tim Murphy
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently incurred the wrath of the city’s teachers’ union when he lengthened the elementary school day, starting next year, to seven and a half hours from less than six.
One can only imagine that when those kids finally bust free, they’ll be 90 minutes crazier than schoolkids are everywhere on weekdays come 3 p.m.-ish. And that final-bell madness can extend to parents and nannies picking them up.
“It’s a challenging time of day because everyone is tired and people want to get home, but often children have stories to tell about what happened that day,” says George W. Holden, a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and author of Parenting: A Dynamic Perspective.
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