Problems increase when adolescents are left home alone.

Academic and behavioral problems, including substance abuse, increase when adolescents are left home alone without adequate after-school supervision, recent research indicates. Researchers surveyed nearly 4,000 ninth-grade students, and determined that young people who were unsurpervised after school were more likely to smoke cigarettes or marijuana, drink alcohol, exhibit symptoms of depressed mood, and see themselves as risXk-takers. The adolescents at greater risk for these problems were those who merely "hunt out" and were not staying at their home or anywhere else in particular after school. Also in jeopardy were students whose parents were unaware of their after-school …