How long would you leave a 12 year old at home for (alone)?

[LaurieLauren]

This will become an AIBU, but would really like to know this first...

Is there nobody at all who could come to be with him? Do you know anyone who works from home who could work from yours for a couple of days? (I've done that for people before) A sahm who could pop in?

I understand that you say his mh issues are school related, but if they are severe enough to be signed off, you really don't know how he will react to being alone for a long time.

Hmm. Depends on the 12 year old. I could leave mine alone all day and he'd be fine. Haven't though. Longest is about 3 or 4 hours. Never at night. And he's under strict instructions not to cook anything, or broadcast the fact that he's alone and he has to answer his phone when I call or text.

As a side issue- why do people have 12 year olds who can't cook?

Has he got a good friend who could come round after school to keep him company til you get home?

Can I just ask those saying 2 hours max/not a full day what you do in school hols/inset days?

Mine is only yr 6 but from what I can gather all the usual holiday childcare stuff is to age 11 only. I'm lucky I WFH a lot but on working days I'm out of the house 8 hours (and I only work part time)

I leave DS (13) alone for probably 3 hours max, although I'm in a position of not needing cover during school holidays etc as I'm a SAHM. I'd probably leave him for a full school day if I needed to. He'd only spend it sat in front of the PS4

There are several sports based clubs here that go up to age 14, my 12yo is happy to go to those. I could leave him all day in the sense that he is safe, sensible and mature, and us regularly left for a couple of hours if one of us is staying local, but I think he'd get bored and we both work quite some distance away (25 mins drive). We do have plenty of friends/neighbours close by but mostly they are at work too. Also he can't cook very well because of his dyspraxia.

My 12 year old DD has been left for a few hours on her own. She hates shopping so is happy to stay at home while I go with her little sister. All she does is play on her tablet or watch t.v. Which she would do anyway even with us in the house !
She has a phone and knows how to contact us.
She has Asperger and is fine.

It really depends on your own child and maturity, however is wouldn't personally leave a 12 year old on their own for days at a time.

I have a sensible 12 year old and if I wasn't going far about an hour or so in the daytime or early evening.

My DS was also off for mental health issues but at 15. At the beginning we wouldn't have left him, but as he received treatment and improved his doctors told us that it was important for both us and him that life started getting back to normal. So at that stage we started to leave him.

It really depends how your son is and where he is in the treatment programme. I rang my GP a lot during the initial stage to talk things through with him. Is ringing your GP an option?

It's not 5 days continuously, it's two, weekend, three.

DD3 is 12 and DD2 is 13. I would leave the 13 year old no problem and would have done at 12, (I think she'd quite happily live on her own with just the occasional human contact).

I'd leave the 12 year old for a day but anymore than that and she'd be going crazy.

Really depends on your child.

Mmm initially I would have said yes but after your update I think leaving him alone would not be ideal at this stage.

My almost 12 year old is alone for up to 5 hrs during the day in the school holidays, once per week and for an hour before and after school a couple of times a week and is absolutely fine (and very happy being alone).

I don't think you can just generalise about age.it depends how sensible and independent they are.

My brother and I were left to our own devices during school holidays from the age of 9 and 11. We had an open coal fire which we had to light, cook our own meals including a deep fat fryer for chips. Even though I raised my kids to be independent, I would not go to the lengths my parents did.

They did, look after their younger brother on their own when they were teens.

OP hasn't been specific about her child's MH issues so people are making a lot of assumptions.

If he is happy to be left, with regular phone calls and knows he can call outside the scheduled calls if he needs to (ideally you but if that's not possible another trusted adult), I think it's ok.

If you can't take time off work, and have no local family, you have little choice, so try not to feel guilty.

I replied to this way back on about page 2, but this thread has stayed with me.

With my 'safeguarding' head on, and to reply directly to the OP.... There's a lot of anecdotal advice on here, based on PPs experiences/knowledge of their kids. (including my post). And YOU know your child, so do listen to your own inner voice.

Given your updates, I suspect you think you have no choice but to leave your child, and in a sense you're looking for 'permission' to do so via this thread. If this is right, I'd say that's not a sensible thing to do in RL, and if you DO have legitimate concerns (because you HAVE to be elsewhere and you're worrying about it) then listen to your inner voice, and if you're worried (which you clearly are) don't do it.

In safeguarding terms, you should know that there's no minimum age to leave a child. However, if you do leave a child alone and something goes wrong, the consequences for the parent stack up hard and fast depending on things like the child's age and abilities. So if you have a baby and go off out to the pub for the evening and something goes wrong enough for people in authority to get involved, you should expect the consequences on you to be severe. The older and more able your child gets, the fewer the consequences and the lighter the judgement.
But, you've said your child has MH issues.

So, imagine you knowingly leave your (say) 12 year old home alone for a set time. Not so horrific. But then something goes wrong. Let's - hypothetically - say a fire. Could be caused by child doing something silly with the toaster/playing with matches/experimenting with cigarettes - whatever. Could be something totally random - a fault with the electrics which just happened to fail while child was there and you weren't. Doesn't matter how. Just means people who have to report to social services under their safeguarding policies are now swarming round your home and your child.

They would make that report knowing:
You've knowingly left this child alone.
You know this child has MH issues.
There - clearly (if things have gone wrong) isn't enough support in place.

I'm not saying this to get at you or be mean, OP. And I do stand by - you know your child.

But I would urge you to appreciate how things might come back on you if things go wrong. Please, please, please feel free to read and ignore if I'm off the mark. I am just a random off the internet. And I do - honestly - understand how hard it can be to be a single mother with responsibilities outside the home.

And to caroldecker you have a horrible username, and a horrible outlook. I pity your DC If a 12 yo NT child can't do these things you have failed as a parent. Several days is fine if they are happy with it.
I don't want you as my mummy!

I think the biggest issue here is the lack of experience in being home alone.

This is exactly the age where they should be building up to more independence and time alone, but going straight from 1.5hrs to 5 work days with no build up and some MH difficulties? Not wise.

My son is very keen to be left home alone, but when we were out for just over two hours the other week he suddenly got really nervous and started phoning multiple times asking when we would be home.

He's young, he's only just starting to practice being alone, he's having a hard time at the moment - you can't know for certain he'll be ok (or you wouldn't be asking us) so you need to do everything you can to break up his time alone. Could you pop home at lunchtime?

I would worry he would be lonely tbh. My ds is 11 and I have left him for around 1/2 an hour - but even then he had started panicking. So now I make sure I am no longer than 15 to 20 mins.

I agree with practising being home alone. You can't suddenly leave a 12yo for 6 hours or whatever if you haven't started with 10 minutes.

A story for you...

I totally trusted my DD1 sensible girl. Left her at a similar age for a couple of hours, it was a grotty winter day and got dark quickly and then there was a power cut. She found a candle and lighter, and lit the candle (being sensible and all that...) However, when walking upstairs tripped over her trackie bottoms and lit candle went flying. Luckily nothing awful happened (apart from frigging candle wax on the carpet!) but what might have been really really hit home.

I would be very reluctant to leave this child. You say he has MH problems. Anxiety that is something he only feels regarding school could quite easily manifest into something much bigger if he is left alone for such a long time over so many days. As a one off maybe but not as you are describing it. Unfortunately you need to prioritise here and being at home with your son is the single most thing you can do to help him here. Without you he may well feel unsupported and decking mentally. I would not take the risk. I would be off work without question.

*decline mentally

At 12 going on 13 I was babysitting a baby round the corner. At the same age my brothers would have injured themselves if not each other.

I was going to add my own thoughts but Granny has summed up exactly what I wanted to say.

As for the you have failed as a parent comment - I don't really think that's in 'the spirit' of MN, do you?

I loved being left home alone all day when I was 11/12 as I enjoyed the independence. My sister, on the other hand, got very anxious about being on her own - I think she was well into her teens before she was ok with being left at home for a full day.

At 17 I had to take a year out of 6th form because of depression and anxiety - my mum worked 8.30 to 4 and would come home at lunchtime to check on me, because I was self-harming and suicidal so I couldn't be trusted as much as I was when I was a mentally healthy 12 year old! If it had just been the anxiety without the depression/self-harm I would have been fine at on my own all day.

If you trust that he will be 100% honest with you and let you know if he isn't ok with it, if he feels unsafe or anything, then I think it would be ok.

Would you leave for 6 hours? With a phone call every 2 hours?

Probably, yes. At a younger age, too, probably. Not if the kid didn't like the idea, then would have to come up with another plan.

I can remember 13yo DD dancing around in joy at the thought of having the whole house to herself for 6-8 hrs (I was the same at that age).

I would leave my nearly 13 year old for 2-3 hours, not a full working day and definitely not over a few days.

Firstly because once the novelty of being home alonewore off boredom would set in and the devil makes work for idle handles/minds. Also once the novelty wore off at that age feelings of abandonment could set in which you don't want with existing MH issues.