Kirstie Allsopp reported to Social Services

[Eastie77Returns]

I know she’s worshipped on MN so will don by hard hat now😅 I think reporting her was absolutely ridiculous but I do question the wisdom of letting her 15 year old son travel across Europe on his own (well with friends). She mentioned lots of kids do this after their GCSEs. I think it’s usually after A Levels?

Her son isnt mature enough

She knows her son better than randoms on the Internet. I don't know if it's an MN thing, but teenagers are often so infantilised on here.

Anyone who has been baffled by the threads about teenagers turning up to job and university interviews with their mum in tow and wondered how on earth it could happen....this is how it happens!

Any advice for me? I’m planning to take my daughter and 3 of her friends to Spain after their GCSEs as a reward for their hard work. We’re going all inclusive to limit how much spending money they’ll need to take. Two will be 16 and two will be 15. I plan to sleep in the room with the two 15yr olds (one is my daughter, but I’d be in a separate living area on the sofa bed) and the two 16 yr olds would share a separate room. I’d request rooms to be close together, though no guarantee as it is pretty cheap and cheerful (interconnecting rooms might bump the price up).
My question is - I assume the girls will need their own travel insurance? I could book a group one but I have annual travel insurance which will cover my daughter and me so not keen to pay more money for the others (their parents will be funding their places). Also, will I need a letter from their parents authorising me taking the girls away? Might the authorities question why I am travelling with 3 girls with different surnames? I would have thought it would be obvious it is 4 friends having 5 days away with one of their mother’s tagging along, but I’d rather cover all eventualities if possible!

There is a massive world of difference between teenagers turning up to interviews with their mum, and a 15 year old travelling around various countries by train without an adult. Navigating exploring, sleeping and eating in those countries without an adult. I am surprised he was even able to book accommodation.

Pure envy 😂 Sad people living sad little lives.

No envy here. I just judge people the same whether rich or poor. And this is woefully inadequate parenting.

Sleeping and eating in different countries without an adult? Navigating a train? God forbid. He didn't go to Timbuktu.

No, it's not.

If you keep infantilising your kids and telling them the world is dangerous and scary, they'll never become properly functioning adults.

Both my parents had full time jobs at 15!!!

There is now six pages of comments so presumably they do.

Agree.

Once again, I'm reminded why I stopped teaching. Uni students with no life experience or resilience.

This. I’m no fan of KA but there are children growing up subject to abuse, exposed to drug taking and all sorts. Who gives a shit

I National Expressed it to the Isle of Wight after GCSEs! Flew to Italy after Year 12 and Year 13 and got around by train, with same age friends every time. How is that not normal?!

A bunch of spiteful net-curtain twitchers, apparently.

Exactly, it's completely normal.

Being able to get around confidently by public transport is an essential life skill all teenagers should learn.

Kirsty’s acceptance of this is pure laziness.

CBA to have a family holiday and expend the great amount of effort it takes to keep up with children and teens. Nevermind, the mother with the same amount of go as a cream puff will just send the child off on its own. 🙄

"I know she’s worshipped on MN '
She is?
What dreadful judgement, she is a blithering very entitled idiot.

Absolutely, and you have to start training them young so they can cope when the time comes!

I can’t think of any of my friends having to plead with their parents to come away on our trips, it was just what everyone else at school was doing.

The main aim of parenting is surely to raise capable and independent young people who can manage alone, and if they are never taught these skills how will they ever learn?!!!

Do people not understand that back in the 70/80s people left school after O levels/GCSEs and went to work, some left home! OMG how did they cope/what horrible parents they must have had! They didn't have mobile phones and google and maps, they had to work it out for themselves.

All this you're not an adult until you're 18 is rubbish. No wonder young people are called snowflakes. Young people need to be given freedom to grow and explore not be wrapped in cotton wool. I would expect any parent who lets their child do this would do it having discussed and prepared them for it.

The people who need to be reported to social services are those taking their children to the riots or whose children are carrying knives etc.

I'm completely baffled. There's multiple threads on here on a daily basis saying that people shouldn't be allowing their teen to walk to a shop, stay home alone overnight, catch a train or a bus or other completely normal activities for a competent minor.

Only a few weeks ago, someone was backed up for not allowing a 12 yo to walk down a hotel corridor to empty a bin. A mother was furious that 2 13 year olds had been allowed to walk 10 minutes to the beach to watch a sunset in the early hours.

But you're all OK with her letting 2 children go on a 9 stop journey around multiple different countries with multiple different languages and no adult supervision. No oversight over when they were up, where they were walking, whether they stayed together, who they spoke to. Is it because they were boys that people think that's in any way safe?

The fact she's throwing her toys out of the pram and thinks that it's "malicious" that people are rightly concerned about that and she can just demand to have the file deleted shows her character.

In the past, before so many youngsters were molly coddled, people used to start working at 14 or 15.

I find her laughable, am enjoying her outrage at being treated like a commoner.

And loads of GCSE kids are at festivals over the summer without parents. I can assure you that they are not all tucked up in a sleeping bag with a mug of hot chocolate at 10pm.

I was working part time at 15, and full time at 16. Classed as an adult.🙄

No one molly-coddled me.

Her character?

This 'infantilising children' gets on my nerves. Why is it so hard for some to grasp that some children are mature. I was, I went travelling abroad young. Going to Reading festival after GCSE's is not uncommon. If you don't want your child to, then fine. But don't claim that it's a crime, neglect, negligence. Because I can't see that it is.

Yes, my grandparents started working at that age, they went out every morning to work and returned home to their parents, and contributed their wage to the household income and went to bed at 9pm until they met each other and got married and moved out, and continued to live in the same town around people they had known their whole life. They did not go off across multiple different countries with no adult oversight. Having a job and going interrailing are two completely different levels of risk.