How old was your child when you left them alone?

[blue23blue]

I like to run early in the morning but my husband works shifts. This means that sometimes I can run every morning and other weeks only at the weekend. My son has just turned 10 so probably too young but how old do you think is ok to leave him alone. He’s in bed and I usually run a 5k in about half an hour and I run locally.

If you have a phone and he has a phone and you are only doing a route close to home I think it's fine at 10.

I think that's fine. I started leaving mine in the day for 15-30mins from 8yo. Would your son be awake? I think as long as you tell him you're going it's ok?

We've just started with my 10 yr old leaving her alone, currently just for 1/2 hr a time its only really when i drop then later pick up younger sibling from gymnastics. My eldest is 19 and I think he was around 10 when we started leaving him x

The biggest thing if you’re running is if you get hurt no one will know he’s at home - so can you put a laminated card in your pocket that has your address and a note saying 10 year old Ben is at this address and expecting me home.

This all sounds fine. Your DS is 10; he can cope for a while, especially if you do a good old fashioned risk assessment and give him a framework:

• what and how to cook it - cereal only or toast in the toaster
• don't open the door to anyone. (If you have a delivery coming, manage it)
• if you have a landline, let the answerphone take a message
• what to do in emergency (my neighbours are brill but maybe yours aren't)

Mainly he'll be sleeping and on a screen with cereal so v. ok.

I was wondering this earlier. I really want to do c25k but as a single parent I can't just pop out for 30 minutes. Or can I? I'm not sure. My dc are 8 and 10

Depends on the child but age 11 and moving to secondary school was the turning point for my household. Wrap around care stops in year 7 and if you’re at work they have to be okay with letting themselves in and being alone for a couple of hours. So start building up during year 6. Make sure they know what to do in an emergency (e.g. if something happened at home or if you didn’t come back for some reason). How to use a mobile, who to call, which neighbour’s door they could knock on for help.

Thank you for all your replies. He doesn’t have a phone and he’s fast asleep. I run at 6am and he has to be dragged out of bed each morning 😂

My DD is 10 and I would do this, especially if you take a phone and he has a way to contact you

Do you have a landline he could call you (or somebody) on if there’s an emergency?

We don’t have a landline but the neighbours are lovely and he could definitely knock there if he needed to. I’m trying not to buy him a phone till I really have to.

Can't they do it with you?

You could also take them to the play ground and run laps around the playground that's what my friend did during Covid

Possibly they could. I'm not sure they'd want to, and there's a high chance of moaning/picking about and I'd like to enjoy it 😂

Can I ask, did you leave him him alone and how did it go?

Yeah I’ve been doing it about once a week for the last few months. It’s been fine, I leave a note incase he wakes up but he never has. I just run very locally and I’m home in about half an hour.

We also did it when dd was a little over 9.5. I'd be reluctant without there being a very immediate way of him contacting you from inside the home though.

I have an 11yr old and I too don’t want her to have a smartphone, so I got her a very basic phone. I can call her if I leave her at home for 10 mins and I need to speak to her. She will need it in September when she starts high school!

10 is a reasonable age for a sensible child

eldest was around 10 when I would nip to Tesco etc for short times. I don’t think I would have felt comfortable leaving whilst she was asleep.
she’s almost 13 now and would love it if I left her all day 🤣

10 - I left them to pick up the other one from an activity for maybe 20 mins.

I leave DS 9 alone to pop to the shop at the bottom of the street or pick DH up from the train station (10 mins max). He can call me using Alexa if he needs me, but he's only done that once when the cat did an especially smelly poo...