To leave two 15year olds home alone overnight

Maybe as a one-off in an emergency, but definitely not on a regular basis.

NSPCC advises not to leave under 16s alone overnight.

Assuming there was

A.) Adequate food and the home was secure
B.) No significant SEND, health issues or history of risk behaviour that meant the 15 year olds were particularly vulnerable
C.) A trusted adult who was local and available to the DC in the event of an emergency and they knew how to contact them

Absolutely nothing.

The school leaves your 15 year old unsupervised on a trip overnight. Would that be a safeguarding risk? Yes of course it would. Why is it different?

It's different because the child on a school trip would not be in their own home and would therefore not necessarily know what to do in an emergency.

Also people who are supervising children on behalf of a parent have an additional duty of care because it's not their child and because they've carried out a rigorous risk assessment to set rules, which are based on the least capable child in the group. Parents can make decisions about their child's safety and their own risk assessments can be more flexible and based on their own child's ability to cope. For example, if teenagers on a school trip are given the freedom to explore a town, they will typically have to stay in pairs or groups the whole time, because there might be one or two kids in the class who aren't safe on their own. But your own teenager might be perfectly capable of exploring a town alone and you can therefore let them do that as a parent, when they are in your care.

They sound very sensible OP and they have each other for company. I have twins (now adults) and I wouldn't have left them overnight at 15 as one would have had all her mates round for a party. The other would have been fine, and if they had both been like her then I would have done. You know your kids best.

Will you be doing that every Saturday night when they're 17? You'll be the party pad!

I would.

I would leave them if sensible, they will be fine! They are far more at risk getting home late in the dark from their school activities

Leaving two 15 year olds for a single night doesn’t seem disproportionate compared with someone 3 years older living on their own in a strange city for 3 months at a time.

I left it till mine were 14 and 17, certainly wouldn’t have done 15 and 12, but 15 and 15? I don’t know

I would. They are happy with it, they have each other, and they've had plenty of practice.

I have 15 year old twins and know they would be absolutely fine left on the own overnight with my contact details and neighbours to call on.

I haven’t left them yet principally because of social pressure, it’s not the done thing, - which is coming out in some of these replies rather than my own knowledge and sense.

You know your kids best.

Its absolutely fine to leave them, ignore the safeguarding comments- talk about dramatic!

I wouldn't leave mine in case of fire or burglary

I started to leave DS occasionally overnight at 16 and have the same rule for DD, though she’s not 16 yet so I’ll see now I feel when she is

They'll be fine

I mean even if this was reported to ss, what would they do?

School Safeguarding Lead here. If this came to my attention during term time I would have an informal chat with the child, just to make sure they felt comfortable with the arrangement. There is a big difference between "my mum didn't come home last night, I don't know where she was, I couldn't get hold of her" and "my mum was working away for a night so she left us plenty of food, and the phone number of a relative who likes nearby/she asked a neighbour if we could knock for them if we were worried about anything". The latter wouldn't worry me, unless we had other concerns about the child or family.

The law doesn't say any such thing! The law doesn't cite an age at which you can/can't leave a child overnight, only that they mustn't be 'at risk'.

You may be confusing the law with the NSPCC guideline, which is a) not the law and b) a rough guideline for parents, not a set rule.

On their website they also state that it will vary from child to child, and how comfortable they are individually with being left alone, whether they're confident about what to do in emergency etc.

It's absolutely fine OP.

Which law says that?

I thought part of the difficulty over this sort of question is that there is no age set down in law.

I would.

And fuck all this "safeguarding" shite. Most normal kids from normal families don't need all the scare mongering

Let's look at it this way. The school leaves your 15 year old unsupervised on a trip overnight. Would that be a safeguarding risk? Yes of course it would. Why is it different? No your kids are not going to be taken into care but questions will be asked. If you are OK with that then go for it.

That's no where near the same thing at all, teachers and parents can and do make different decisions regarding the care of children, e.g. my ten year old at home walks to the shop alone. He would not be allowed to do that in school. I can make that judgement call as his parent the school can not.

And I actually think two of them being there makes it even less of an issue.

Yes I would, if they aren’t the sort to have parties or go out.

Do you have friendly neighbours that can keep an eye out and that they know they can approach with any issues? Friend of mine leaves her 15 year old overnight occasionally but next door are aware and keep a look out for any issues and the son knows he can knock at any time of day/night for help.

Pretty sure this happened fairly often when I was a kid. My mum was a single parent, although my gran lived right across the road. I wasn't a party kind of teen so no danger of that! And no boyfriends! I just watched TV and went to bed. All very boring.

This is a completely different scenario and you cannot equate them.