AIBU to be 'judgy' over my friend leaving her 8 & 6 year old home alone for 10 mins?

[nevermore]

Popped round to see a friend the other night and her two boys answered the door saying both parents had popped out. Was rather shocked since they are 8 & 6. OK it was a short time and only a few streets away but they went by car (therefore risk of being involved in crash) and it was late evening. I told her I was shocked and thought that if police had called they could have been in trouble. More worrying though to me is fire etc. Am I being a smug suburban mother (am certainly not perfect) but I find this quite shocking & suspect we may fall out a bit over it.

We will just have to agree to differ. Some of us don't have small DCs to supervise any more. Mine all survived ,despite me not sticking to them like glue -in case.......

Lazy parenting is not teaching your children any independence at all.
It feels great, blameless and oh so attentive. It creates the students who turn up at uni not understanding how to cook themselves supper.

The fact they opened the door to you tells me YANBU and that they are probably not responsible to be left.

Exactly Pag-since DS is at university I know full well they turn up in droves without a clue of how to cook, operate the washing machine etc. Some of them have their first taste of independence at that stage. That is the really frightening thing. Much better to let them start little and early.(I expect their parents were 'devoted' and classed themselves as 'good' by being over protective).

Whether you leave them at 8yrs depends entirely on the DC-it isn't black and white.

I would not class parents who choose to pop out having made a judgement that their children are capable of coping for that period of time without them as lazy.I don't think thats a factor.

Neither is laziness a factor in my kids being a little less independent than others of their ages.

I agree countess. You have assessed your dc in terms of how they cope with situations, what they want to do and how they feel about things and made a judgement that suits you and them.
Perfect.
It is the judgement some make about others choices that is wrong

Personally I would not leave my 9 year old alone, she's sensible but panics if things go wrong.

Aksherly because, you'll find that I'm slim and do lots of activities with dc...no. no laziness in this hardworking family

I'm with exotic and pag. Such a disservice to expect dc to become responsible and capable if making sound decisions overnight. With no prior training or preparation.

A responsible 8 yr old is perfectly able to be in the house alone for 10/15mins and to take on some responsibilities that come with being part of a family/household. No wonder so many are on here complaining about feckless dh's.

lisa depends on the child I say, and not worth rushing it until dc is ready

Well, I'm fat- but I don't think it's because I leave my children home alone. if only it were that simple!

< wondering whether properly attentive parents have some sort of alarm set up to wake them if their children get up to go to the loo in the night- it would be so easy for them to slip and bash their heads on the edge of the bath.......>

I remember reading a newspaper article quite some time ago about a mother in New York(I think) who allowed her 9 year old son to do trips alone on the metro.It was a conscious decision to encourage independence in him and go against the tide of parents becoming too over protective.It was a really interesting article and in no way could you say that she hadn't fully considered her position.Couldn't really fault her argument.I admired her.

I think it is an individual choice as to how much independence you allow your children.I am on the side of being over protective at present.But when I judge mine are able to develop their independence I will do just that.Its weighing up their need to grow and develop and have freedoms with the need to protect them.I don't want my children to grow up any faster than they need to.But I don't want to hold them back on account of my own fears.

Blimey, at 9 I started taking the bus (or rather 2 busses) to get to my school in a different city, 45 minutes (including change-over waiting time) away. I would have laughed at the idea not to be allowed to stay at home alone whilst my mother went out to get groceries. So would have my mother.

Fat, lazy parents don't need to put their children in the car to go to the shops. They order takeout and tell the delivery driver he'll get a bigger tip if he stops at the corner shop for Lambrini and fags on his way, akersherly [wunk]

I think it's OK, but as others have said they should nt have opened the door, and if they were my kids I would think twice about leaving them after this, until the older one has it drummed into her.
I used leave my 5 year old on the ride on outside the loo in the supermarket when I nipped in there for a quick wee.
I stopped doing it after this conversation:

Me "So, you know when you are on the Fire Engine waiting for me?"
Him "Yes"
Me "You know that you are absolutely not to move from there until I come out. If another childs wants a go, then you wait by the toilet door, but you never go with anyone."
Him "I know"
Me "Ok. So..what if a man came up and said he had some toys in the car park to show you?"
Him "What kind of toys?"
Me " It doesn't matter-what should you do?"
Him "Well.. would it be a remote controlled Lightning McQueen?"
Me "It doesn't matter! you don't go with anyone! "

I disagree with just about everyone - I think the children should not have been left alone.

It's all very well when things are going ok but when a problem comes up, it's a heck of a responsibility for an 8yo to cope with.

All the posters poo-pooing fires/road accidents/disasters - yes, it's unlikely but it can and does happen. Taking yourself to the worst case scenario is not cotton-wool parenting, it is merely facing up to real possibilities.

How would you feel if disaster struck and you had chosen not to be there for your kids? If you can live with that, fine, go for it. If you can't, don't do it.

I say this as a journalist who has covered tragedy after tragedy, the sorts of things that no one imagined would happen to them, but did.

I get what you are saying imagine, but I think that is a little like the fact that most female OB's choose to have a c-section because they have seen too many births go wrong.
You are at the scene because something has gone wrong, they are in the delivery room because something has gone wrong, hence your perspective is a bit different.
I was getting myself to school and back on my own at 6 (and i don't think that is right because I had too many near misses really) but I think it really depends on the maturity of the child.
Actually, I can see leaving a sensible 8 yr old, but probably not in charge of a younger one. Don't know why really.

Depending on the child(ren) I see nothing wrong in leaving them unsupervised for a short period at that age.

I entirely agree that children are oversupervised nowadays - for want of a better word. My son's school is a prime example of this; despite the fact we live in a fairly low crime, suburban area, no major roads, his school make it quite clear children are NOT to walk to/from school unaccompanied, and insist on all DC being collected from school, with exception being made for a few in Year 6 .

Of course those same children then have to travel by 1 or 2 buses to school as soon as they start in Yr 7!

Je suis on ze fence.

My dh is very stuff and nonsense and leaves them (10 & 7) alone for 10 mins at at a time when I'm at work and he has to pop. I feel sick as a pig the whole time they are alone - and the whole time my ds is walking home from school alone. But in my heart I know my dh is right.

Sorry about typos -

Just back from Christmas in Sweden. Plenty of independent children, but funnily enough far fewer fat people to be seen. So the fat link propounded by an earlier poster does not appear to be universal. To say the least.

There were also fewer fat people around in my youth, when DCs did get some responsibility and independence.

I wouldn't leave children of those ages alone, I think it might actually be more of a risk when there's two of them (if mine are anything to go by, much bigger age gap but far more likely to do something daft)!

It's unlikely anything would happen but things do happen. I was left alone from around the age of eight, I was a very sensible child and we lived in accommodation attached to our business so there was always someone around. Due to layout, it would probably be about the same as having a next door neighbour home and aware that there was a child alone.

However, as sensible as I was, I still managed to accidentally start a fire in our lounge when I was 10. Did I dial 999? No. Did I get out of there as fast as possible? No. In panic, I thought my mum would go spare and tried to put it out myself. Everything i'd been taught was forgotten in an instant.

I did manage to put it out but it was a bloody stupid thing to do. My mum, of course, wasn't angry and gave me a big hug saying that it didn't matter as long as I was ok. It really shook her up though.

As an adult, I can't guarantee that i'd remain calm in an emergency despite knowing exactly what to do, so I dont think i'd be trusting a child to do the sensible thing either.

Just my experience though so each to their own I guess

I am just wondering, as we have no matches in the house, how they could accidentally start a fire, or even purposefully start a fire.

LOL! I was wondering that too exotic.