How old would your children be before you left them for a day?

[yesiknowithasbeendonetodeath]

Mine are really young now so obviously not on the cards for a while.

I don’t want to wish their childhoods away or anything but I am wondering when I’ll be able to have a day out shopping or go to a museum or a day with friends without it costing so much in childcare as to make it pointless.

I am kind of thinking maybe 10/11?

Surely going to museums with young children, or children of any age, is a lovely experience? I would never have wanted to go to a museum without my daughter when she was young, and I always took her with me if I was going shopping for the day - I enjoyed her company.

Take a day annual leave and go to the museum etc. while they are at school.

I leave my 10yo for up to an hour. If I had to, I would leave her longer, but with frequent check-ins. (She doesn't currently have a phone though). Early secondary school is really tricky as there are few clubs but kids often aren't really ready to be left all day.

I don’t know any secondary aged children who use them.

I would spend days on my own from 11. At secondary my holidays were longer than my Mums so would often have a couple of weeks when i was alone all day til she broke up.

16?!

I think maybe 12/13ish?

By 16 I would expect they’d be able to be left overnight for several nights. I left home at 17!

The whole day? I wouldn’t expect to before they are 13 or 14 tbh.
My eldest is 13 now and I would leave him for a full morning day 8 - 2 tops if I needed to work and he was ill for example.
My middle one is 11 and I have comfortably left him for an hour or two absolute max with his phone if he needs me.

This.

Even my autistic/ADHD/PDA 8 year old can be trusted to go to the fields across the lane from us for 20 minutes. And I can leave him in the car for 10 minutes if he doesn’t want to come into Sainsbury’s.

Surely a neurotypical 10 year old is fine on their own for a few hours?

How far would you be going?

I've left my DD at home for the working day at 11, but my work is very close and also her dad works from home five mins away

I still wouldn't get a train to London or something for the day if her dad was out now she is 15

around 13 I think for a full day

I think this is perhaps a bit idealistic! I can and have gone with them but definitely for their benefit rather than mine. They don’t have long attention spans so you can’t spend long looking at things or reading about them and also have to keep an eye out to make sure they aren’t vanishing off in different directions!

I don’t know really. It’s at least eight years in the future as my youngest is only three and I can’t see my doing it before secondary age.

I guess it’s just that flexibility isn’t it - the ‘well I could do this’? Wondering when I’ll get that back

museum visits were always a real highlight when my daughter was young. We used to go to our local museum at least once a week from when she was a toddler and she loved it, and so did I. She ended up doing voluntary work at the same museum when she was 16. But we also went to all the London museums regularly from when she was around five or six and it was always a lovely day out for both of us. There was never an issue with her attention span and although we were interested in different exhibits, she understood thst we had to take turns in looking at the things we both wanted to see.

I assumed OP is asking at what age children can be left at home ALONE, not until she can go shopping all day etc whilst the kids are at home with their dad or another adult.

What a silly post. Clearly OP does not have access to the abundant childcare options / support that you do. And as for them being at school, most parents need to save all their annual leave to cover the school holidays and can’t justify taking additional days off for ‘frivolities’.

To answer the OP’s question, I think 10/11 is far too young for a whole day. I’d say rather 14+.

13/14 depending on the child.

You can take your children to museums but also want to go by yourself. It’s just a different experience. I used a day off to go to an exhibition I wanted to go to with a friend without our kids and it was lovely. It’s okay to want to do things without your children.

Have only recently started letting my 9 y/o stay home alone for 15-20 mins max. I wouldn't want to leave her for longer just yet simply because we don't have a landline for emergencies and giving her a mobile phone obviously comes with its own set of potential problems. I'd say maybe 14 to be left home alone all day, but it definitely depends on the child, the neighbours, etc.

Mine didn't go to holiday clubs once in secondary school so were home alone from 11/12 if we were both in the office. It wasn't regularly as we would try to work from home, work shorter days or have one of our parents pop over for an afternoon but occassionally they were left alone from year 7.

The police attended when my neighbours called them to say I’d left a 11&14yo home alone together (single parent, lockdown, supermarket trip). They took no action once they had confirmed their birthdays.

Probably the youngest i have left my dc was at about 14/15.

My youngest dc is 12 and I couldn't leave her by herself all day.

I think if I wanted to do this, I'd take a day of AL in the school holidays but put them in holiday club for that day. The ones I use have longer hours than school hours, so you could have a decent day out in the time available, and it would be significantly cheaper than paying a babysitter. So that would mean you only had to wait a couple of years, OP.

I think it depends on many things - a 13 yo is probably going to be OK, but if there was a younger sibling, I wouldn't leave them together until the younger one was 13, and only then if they got on well together.
I think it also depends on expectations - your 13yo might be OK, but what if they want friends round? Are you happy with that, or would you prefer them to be on their own the whole time? Would you be happy with your 13yo going out and about while you are not around? Would you be happy with them cooking lunch, making a hot drink etc?

Are you sure that they could deal with an emergency - fire, burst pipe, power cut etc?

My dd is 13, a sensible mature 13, and I’d probably feel fine-ish leaving her for a day, although I would be checking in constantly. And would only do it if I knew there was someone close by to get to her if she needed help. I reckon at 14-15 I’d relax more about leaving her at home all day.

Age 10 - an hour or two

Once at high school aged 11/12 I left them for half a day or an evening

Age 14 - happy leaving my DD for a whole day

Age 17 left my eldest overnight