Flying as an unaccompanied minor at age 7

I went abroad for a week with a family member to visit another family member when I was 9. I missed my parents and my siblings so much, I hated it. The thought of not being able to go home until the flight back made it so much worse. Once home, I suffered with homesickness for quite some time afterwards and remember a really upsetting night having a sleepover at a friends house who lived around the corner.

My mum advised me not to go, but I was with a close family member and I insisted. I’m in my 40’s and it still pops into my mind every now and then.

It's not just the flight part though , if relatives were waiting the other end to have her for a week that would be completely different. It's then sending her off to a holiday camp where she'll know nobody!

Summer camps are popular in my country and they take children from age 7 (some from 6) so the idea of a week at camp age 7 doesn't seem so strange to me. I considered sending DS this year but decided he wasn't ready for it but his older sister would have been at that age. Not a rich people thing either, many camps are subsidised or have subsidised spaces for low income or children that are disadvantaged in other ways (immigrants, health conditions, single parent families, parents with mental health conditions etc.)

But with the flight being abroad, what plans does your sister have for if something goes wrong? Can she fly on short notice if her DD gets too homesick? Or is injured and needs to return home?

If they are happy to do it they’ll be fine. They are accompanied throughout the airports and monitored on the flights. As long as the child has the confidence to do it I would say go for it. My DD flew with Swiss accompanied at 11 and was absolutely fine. The big change was when she was 14 she was considered an adult so left entirely alone to navigate the airports and flights and nobody to check on her or know she was a child. She managed it absolutely fine. Kids are more capable than we think and SwissAir/ Swiss have always been very good with kids and young fliers. For reference I flew myself alone with SwissAir at 5 though that was in 1980s

This has got to be a wind up!

Fir me, it's not the unaccompanied minor on a flight thing that I'd be mostly concerned about (even though he'll would freeze over before I'd put a 7 year old of mine in that position).

It's that the child would be collected by a randomer from a holiday camp. My safeguarding bells would be ringing here.

How does your sister know it's a genuine holiday camp? Just because they have a website, that could be completely fake.

How does your sister know that all staff have had the appropriate safeguarding checks and training (even though even they're not full proof).

Does the child even speak the language?

Just because the child says they want to go, at 7, they won't necessarily have the capacity to understand all that it really entails a d could quite easily change their.mind once they're there.

If this isn't a wind up then, imo, you both have a very skewed view of what is normal and okay when raising a child.

And you never met any of these people that you just handed your children over to in Zurich in your life 🤷🏻‍♀️..
I’m glad your children had really good experiences and not bad , but don’t you see most of us just wouldn’t take that risk with our children in a million years when they are so young .
Primary aged children should never be left over seas to camp ..
They have plenty time in secondary school to live these experiences ..

Just because something exists doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. You can buy cot bumpers for example but all major safety organisation say not to use as they can cause death. Sometimes some discernment is useful!

What does the 7 year old think? I'm more interested in that. Are they used to summer camps and being at them for a week? Are they used to travelling by plane? Are they quite confident or are they timid?
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It seems quite an unusual solution to childcare but these schemes exist for a reason and I don't doubt she'll be taken care of. Logistically I actually think this is fine - IF the child is happy to do it. But any chance of homesickness or uncertainty then no.

I think there's probably a cultural element here if the father is Belgian. It's not unusual for Belgian schools to take much younger children (4/5 years old) on week long trips.

That is horrendous, that poor girl.

I toyed with the idea of putting my 10 year old on a flight to France to be met by her grandma but in the end I decided it wasn't worth the risk of her if she found it distressing or if something went wrong in the air, even though she flies frequently. So I just got another ticket and accompanied her, stayed a night and flew back. Then repeated all that again two weeks later. Not ideal but I just couldn't do it. No way on earth I'd have done it for a summer camp.

Unless there is going to be a massive drip feed, this seems to be a collection of things the child has never done before. All in one go. At 7. Having also just started a new school. And seemingly arranged in a hurry because mum can’t think of any other way to look after her own daughter for a week.

Are you Swiss? Kids in the UK have waaaay less independence than in Switzerland or some other EU countries. For example most primary schools in the UK will not allow children to walk home alone until they are 10 or 11 years old. So opinion on here won’t be in line with what others in your country would think.

Goes to show you that money can buy everything except sense.

Your sister is a horrible parent even considering doing this to her child and honestly you are no better if you think it is ok. That poor kid :(

Nope.

https://www.bluewin.ch/en/news/switzerland/man-sexually-assaults-girl-on-swiss-flight-parent-sat-just-one-row-in-front-2839215.html

Of course this post is real...children that young flying as unaccompanied minors isn't that unusual but 7 is very young. Ive met children that looked forward to it.
But first unaccompanied flight, not having family at the other end and then another week with strangers..I think the itinerary is way too much for a little girl that young.
If money isn't an issue couldn't a family member or at least someone your neice knows well accompany her on the flight and make sure she gets to the camp safely?
Has the little girl been to camp before (or flown unaccompanied) because if not, this arrangement is really dropping her in at the deep end and even if shes very confident and says she wants to go..it wouldn't be unusual at all if she changes her mind as soon as she gets there. Its too much.

My brother and I would routinely fly as unaccompanied minors from aged 8 to see my grandparents in France. It was totally fine, and (whisper it) actually quite fun and exciting.

Thats being said, I wouldn’t send my children on a camp for a week though. And actually I wouldn’t send my child on a flight on their own either, but that’s because of my own neurosis and not because it would be awful for the child.

14 is old enough to fly without an adult on BA so your DC wasn't an 'unaccompanied minor' as per the regulations, he was just a young passenger. The unaccompanied minor service is something you pay for and includes an adult staying with them at all times up to boarding and from boarding to handover.

A) not at 7 and B) not without a group of school classmates and teachers who they already know.

Probably only people who already send their tiny children to boarding school. I'm horrified at the thought!

No way. She’s 7

mini blondes is 8 and flies yearly but with me

can’t imagine sending her abroad to a camp knowing no one , let alone being sat on a plane alone

thus obv is a huge cost

cant they hire a temp nanny for the daytime

At 7?

Dismissing people's concerns about safeguarding and the wellbeing of small children as them being 'silly' hasn't ever ended well.

My dc have done loads of residential stuff, I went to boarding school myself. We are not all objecting to the insanity of this proposal because we're poor gauche country mice. It's because she is only just 7.

All these people pushing so hard to normalise this, and laugh off any concerns - dp yup spend your time laughing at schools who ask for children to be collected and signed in and out of schools until year 5/6? Or thinking leisure centres are ridiculous for not allowing to parents to leave under 8s on the premises during a swimming lesson? Or at Ofsted for having ratio requirements for this age group?

Why do you think anyone bothers with any measures at all?

The majority of uk families don’t do boarding schools or camps. So to us as the audience of this question, rightly or wrongly, it seems like a pretty crazy idea. I couldn’t have my child spend a week with adults who I’d never met. And because it’s not something I’ve ever done, or ever known anyone else to do, the thought of my daughter in an airport without a family member would send me in to a blind panic.

“ Pearl clutchers “ , no just good parents ..
Of course you will find these camps sell out every year , lots of shit parents out there..
Sending their 7 year alone over seas to a foreign country for a week , not even have had their communion yet . It should actually be against the law , the child is 7 !!!!!!
OP has said how much her niece would like to go , just shows how use she is of her mother shipping her off here & there ..

The flight wouldn’t be the concern for me, I flew as an unaccompanied minor to visit family from about 5 and always had a great time.
The camp abroad at age 7 -absolutely not.
i have also seen plenty of day camp at private schools for that week. I’m struggling with the following week but certainly won’t be sending my child abroad as a solution!