To leave my 7 yr old home alone for 30mins ?

You can leave the 7 year old home alone as long they are mature and sensible enough.
Alternatively, take them with you to the graduation but be very careful.

Why does it have to be a woman watching the child?
What's wrong with a man doing it?

The people who are saying year 6 graduation is draft.
It's obviously a thing in other parts of the UK😆

Scare tactics like this are not helpful at all. As long as the child is fed before she goes, she calls them while walking to the school, calls every 15 min while in the graduation, calls and talks while walking home, kid should be fine. My LO when 5 was able to manage alone for 30 mintues during COVID (I did the above) and he is still alive.

It is totally fine to leave a 7YO alone as long as they can access you via mobile. And check in every 20 min or so.

during the COVID lockdown's, my LO was 5. I am a solo parent (no support, no family, no other parent as he disappeared) and I need to feed my child. I bought him a phone so we could talk while I was running errands and going grocery shopping.. We talked while I walked there. Talked while I was waiting in line to go into the store (freaking ridiculous), and called after I paid for the groceries.

He is still alive and well many years later.

@RoRoRo456 it's been and gone 😂

If half your daughter's class is out, could you maybe ask one of the other parents of a child with chickenpox if they might be willing to watch your daughter for an hour so you could go to your son's graduation?

Obviously, it's a bit of a big ask, but given the circumstances, if I was one of the other parents I'd be happy to help.

It's up to you to decide if going to something that's not really a thing is more important than your child's safety and that if anything happened whilst you were gone if you would be able to live with yourself afterwards.....

HAHAHA to the comments on here, my 8 year old walked him and his 7 year old brother home from school, let them in with his own key and BEHAVED until I got home from work.

No wonder every other kid today has issues...can't be left on their own for 5 mins...

How times have changed! 45 years ago I, aged 7, caught chickenpox. Mum, single parent, had just started a new job as a primary school teacher, she couldn't take time off so I was left home alone all week while she looked after 30 5 year olds. She popped home at lunchtime to feed me. I was royally pee'd off when a couple of weeks later my 5yr old brother got chicken pox and he got packed off to grandma's for a week!

Graduation ftom Y6? Graduation?
Not a thing.
I was regularly left home alone at age 7. Sometimes overnight. Parents had no option as my younger brother was desperately ill in hospital & we got urgent calls from hospital relayed to us by a neighbour- we had no phone.
A well behaved child should be perfectly fine for a few minutes.
But there's no guarantee nothing will go wrong.
Your own conscience tells you what is the right call here.

I had never been left by myself until I reached the age of 11, and then I too had to navigate an hour+ journey, on two buses, to school, and the same back again. And I managed just fine. There's no correlation between being left alone and being able to navigate a journey...

Definitely not at 7. Far too young. As a neighbour if they can sit with her for an hour or so

you cant leave a 7yr old on their own. if you cant get someone to watch them, then sorry but graduation will have to be missed.

Even today secondary school children usually get themselves home from school. So you're working up to your child being sensible enough for a buss jounrey ar a walk of maybe 30 mins at age 11.

Many 12 year olds would be getting themselves to and from school and being home alone two hours after school everyday. I didn't leave any of mine until they were 8, but if this situation had come up it would be one in which I'd have considered it.

Maybe you have very sensible 7 year olds. Lucky you. Mine are impulsive and boisterous.

We did a lot of active outside time at that age, bikes, playgrounds, woods. They were certainly boisterous then. It meant that inside they were happy to be calm and quiet.

A twelve-year-old, yes. Not a seven-year-old.

Maybe you have very sensible 7 year olds. Lucky you. Mine are impulsive and boisterous.

Burn the house down might be hyperbole, but things my kids have done (with me home); opened a chest of drawers and it fell forward on top of them, kicked a football into the window and smashed the glass, climbed onto the kitchen counter to reach something and fallen off, climbed on a bench to reach something and fallen off, fallen down the stairs. Active young children hurt themselves all the time. I’d trust my 11 year old to be home without any of these things happening but my 7 year olds? Not a chance.

You said she didn’t want to be alone so why even entertain it!!

Not as big a deal as leaving a seven year old alone at home, sick or not, and being reported to Social Services for neglect/lack of safeguarding by possibly one of your yr 6 DC's teachers, who happens to ask how 7 year old is.

Well obviously 😂

My comment was to those who don't see the point etc in it

An unwell child would be better off in front of a television programme at home for half an hour than being taken out. It would not cause unnecessary suffering to a child happy to be left, in a safe environment, and able to stay where they are.

UK law does not specify an age when a child may be left alone. However:
Parents can be prosecuted if they leave a child unsupervised ‘in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health’.
Which about covers a child left alone whilst ill.

Which law?