How do you manage young teens and full time work in the school holidays?

[Henryonthebeach]

I have DS 13 (yr 8) and DD 14 (year 10).
I work full time and am out of the house 7.30-4.30, a 25 minute drive away with limited access to my phone during the day.

Until now I've had reliable childcare but this isn't the case anymore, on top of this ive been let down for tomorrow and Friday. Nightmare. Ive taken 3 days this week, the last of my annual leave.

DD is super independent and I can leave her alone but DS isnt as good at being left (he has ADHD if relevant). I'm pretty confident they will be fine if left together and I don't have annual leave or carers leave left to take. I'm a lone parent so noone else to ask.

What do you do during the school hols when paid childcare is no longer a thing? I'm panicking a bit about the thought of leaving them.

I teach, but often have different half term/ Easter and even xmas at times. I tend to go by my own childhood, so high school= leave them to it. It's pretty normal round here. Dh and I usually home by 6, so they'd be having a good few hours during term time alone too.

Dc now heading towards leaving school and they've always be fine. Eldest dc never leaves the room and younger dc has a network of walking distance mates so all I've ever had to do is deposit money if she wanted to do something.

The main thing i worried about was boredom, but they quite like having the house to themselves. As I did at their age.

Help him set up reminders on his phone (or Alexa?) for eating and drinking. It may not be perfect but with that and his sister, and you getting home at 4.30, you have a bit of wiggle room.

Perfect description of my 13 yr old DD!

I wouldn't (and didn't) leave a young ADHD teen without adult supervision, tbh, and it isn't fair on your DD to make him her responsibility.

In our area there are activity camps that take teens up to 16/18. Might be worth looking to see if there are any near you.

It depends on your kids. I have DD14 and DS12, both who have ADHD. DS will watch TV and game with his friends. DD will chat on the phone, go out with her friends and make TikToks. Neither would realise I was gone until they wanted food 🤣

I’m having to leave my 13 yr old (yr 9) alone from school 10am until his dad gets home at 8pm in a couple of weeks as I have an important hospital appointment a couple of hours away. He also has ADHD but he is quite independent, he got the train to his Dad a couple of hours away, including changes when he was 11, i know you say he’s not as emotionally mature as others his age, but I think giving him this independence will be really good for him. And his sister will be there so he won’t be scared about being alone.

I understand the worry, but I definitely think they do a lot better when we’re not around. Certainly in the self sufficiency aspects.

I like pps suggestion of reminders on his phone to eat.

Would he really forget to eat? Have you left him over a meal time before?

I just have never encountered a teenage boy who would forget to eat!

I think you might be pleasantly surprised by what he can do when he has to

Also - what is the worst that would happen if he forgot to eat? If he is that hungry he won't forget

Envious of those with young teens who sleep all day, mine are up, dressed and have had breakfast already!

Have to say I still think it's based on maturity. Our daughter is 13 and we wouldn't leave her home alone for the whole day...she's rather forgetful and doesn't have any other siblings

You just let them get on with it don’t you? I was home alone all day, everyday in the holidays from 12 - I had a key and just did whatever I wanted.

I haven’t even read one reply but I’d bet my house that every poster is saying that they don’t need childcare at all and can be left at home all day long. I think the glaring issue is with this that many teens will be on screens, in particular phones all day long and in light of what we all know now this is a really bad thing .
I have a 14 (we have other pre teen dcs too) year old and thankfully one of us can wfh , they are really outgoing, cycle to meet friends, play loads of sports , can walk to cinema , swimming ; if left at home all day they’d still spend way too long on their phones . Our neighbours teens are at home all day long , literally on their screens for 9/10 hours a day , that is the reality. Their parents have to work though but their teens are introverted and it’s in their nature to spend all day inside . I don’t get when people say to leave them totally alone for 9 etc hours there’s not more concern and I am not talking about helicopter parents or not letting kids be independent, it isn’t like before , the phone usage is off the scale now . It’s nothing to do with them cooking , managing their own time , meeting with friends etc, that’s all healthy but anyone with half a brain know that teens left alone for hours will be online now .

Yeah, I absolutely wouldn’t be comfortable with my young teens spending the whole day on screens, for possibly weeks at a time. We know the damage that causes to young brains.
Luckily mine both play a sport to quite a high level so I book them into sports camps for large part of the holidays, or they arrange to go swimming/bike ride etc with friends. They’d be bored stiff at home all day watching TV/playing games.

Mine absolutely does and it can make him unwell. It's written into his EHCP.

Some people can't safely leave their 13 year old just like you couldn't safely leave your 4 year old home alone, and we are forced to find other solutions. Happily I think OP is not in this position and she can find a way forward.

Exactly and it’s like the elephant in the room!! there’s a lot of eye rolling about not letting teens be on their own , it has nothing to do with that. Meeting up with friends , cooking , arranging activities, transport ; all really healthy and should be encouraged.
In your room all day long on
a phone is really unhealthy and there’s so much online now that is so damaging and grim. I saw a random video on instagram recently in connect to the stuff that’s coming out now in the E files and it was so disturbing. I’m a fully grown adult and it was absolutely terrifying, of course of teens are going to end up seeing stuff and all we can do is try and put limitations on their usage as even with parental controls and blocks this stuff come through.
If they are at home all day of course they’ll spend hours a day and we could be taking 8 hours online. Everyone knows this!!! But I also know how difficult it is to work and manage kids , some
people have no choice . It’s naive to think everyone should be ok about a teen at home for 8+ hours a day alone.

So many posters missing the bit about adhd. Mine is 14 and I still can’t leave him for long on his own.

I guess you can’t work from home at any time?

This was before smart phones, I’m guessing?

Their dad should help! I missed this originally.

ADHD means that bodily cues are sometimes not felt. My son could also make himself unwell by not eating. You’re talking about typically developing teens.

Hi. I've recently had this issue. A 13yr old Dd(going on 21 and too cool to talk to her sister). I also have a 16 Yr old Asd Dd. I try to get home early. I keep in regular contact. One is on WhatsApp one on regular texts. I leave ASD Dd a packed lunch. ASD doesn't really like to chat. So I ask her to send me photos of dog etc. My 13 yr old is perfectly fine.

I think, with your ds you could run him through what he can have for breakfast and lunch and where it’s kept. Get him to set up an alarm for lunchtime so he won’t forget to eat. As your dd is there, she could keep an eye out for him.

My autistic teenager hyperfocuses and forgets to eat real food (he'll graze on biscuits next to his desk). Plus he's excessively hypercautious about knives and heat in the kitchen so is uncomfortable about basic food preparation. He can do things but is poorly motivated.

Fortunately I work in school with generally overlapping holidays and he can survive the odd day on his own if necessary. His younger sibling who is more adept at self-care was recently left for two days being a bit too ill for school and in need of sofa days and bland food (DH was away and if DS is ill, you can bet that my absence from work is a major issue as staff absence is high too)

Emotionally they're happy to just be, but long term it's not optimal for multiple longer days. Neither is sociable out of school and neither has friends in the neighbourhood for hanging out.
There is the concern of online content, but I regularly monitor that and don't have specific concerns, plus they're not into social media messaging which majorly reduces peer on peer issues.

When I think back to being their age, DM was a SAHM, but I'd do my own lunches. My friends weren't local for hanging out. I'd pootle around the garden and enjoyed things like weeding. Didn't do sports. I played on the SNES and my 386 PC and read/ drew a lot. Other than the internet, it's not so wildly different and that's made me feel better about my teen DCs' leisure time.

It's hard when there's little of interest that appeals to them and there's a gap in development between children's provision and self-motivated adult leisure. (Much like the gap in clothes sizing for adult heighted teenage twigs!)

It’s totally different to what it was like when we were growing up , you presumably didn’t have a smart phone and access to any amount of images and information.
The teens these days spending all that time at home are almost certainly having a huge amount screen time. We are talking almost all day so hours. You have no control over the content they are viewing if they are on their own devices alone for hours a day. Even if it isn’t all bad it’s awful for the brain to just be scrolling and in front of a screen hours all day . There is more and more worrying evidence coming out now. Also they are only young once. It just encourages lethargy and a lack of motivation. I have 3 kids and I see such a difference in behaviour if they spend hours online vs if they get out and do something physical or meet up with friends. I also used to spend hours reading and drawing but the vast majority of teens now are spending a lot of time in front of screens , that’s a fact.
I absolutely know how difficult it is/impossible it is to balance work and childcare (zero family support) but I think a lot of parents have their head in the sand about the amount of screen time their kids have and I have a teen and 2 pre teens , my kids very outgoing and sporty and there’s another challenge for us in
that they’ve always had huge amounts of energy, ip early even now and that is also very tiring to try and keep them active but they also have too much screen time even with doing their sports and social stuff , It’s an epidemic.

OP, I understand the concern.
I WFH full time and have a now 16 yo. For the years when I couldn't shunt him off to play schemes/football camps it was tricky; I felt bad that I could not be more present for him - just taking him places, doing stuff together.

Of course most young teens are quite capable of being left alone, can feed themselves etc, but for all the school holidays and living rurally it wasn't what I wanted for him. We're not talking about them keeping themselves occupied for a week or so, but week after week.

For DS and his peers they seems to be emotionally a bit behind post-covid. They'd missed year 6 and 7 where they're first given independence, learning how to meet up and make plans. So I had this 14 yo just hanging around at home, playing xbox.

I don't know what the solution is, but I'm glad it's not a worry any more.

Do yours pootle around the garden, do the weeding, read and draw a lot when left alone? I suspect that’s probably the main difference from when you were younger!
Theres a lot of cognitive dissonance on MN about screens. The general attitude seems to be that up until about aged 11 they should have absolutely minimal screen time, parental controls, limits etc, but that after that it’s a complete free for all and they can be left on their own, on their devices all day. Whereas that’s the age that they’re most likely to be accessing and absorbing harmful content. They’re also suddenly expected to regulate themselves after years of having everything regulated for them.

I think this is the biggest issue from what people are saying, maturity/commitments AND society. My neighbour is an ex police man and I wish he hadn't told me but we have a man who was arrested some time ago involving horrible things with children...this man lives round the corner from us (The society impact). I also know our child may answer the door if knocked, or would panic if knocked, or would initially be ok left alone but as an only child then freak out over any noises in the house...or spend a whole day on the laptop gaming...so would I actively leave them alone for long times here..no. But still create opportunities for independence. ADHD I understand there's a sen element but all needs are individual, do best by you x