WWYD - 11 and 7 year old being left alone

[BlueBlueElectricBlue]

Struggling with this.

I know a single mum (rather not say how, not related, but I don't want to be outed), who is leaving her (just) 11 year old and her (just) 7 year old alone every week day after school until 8pm.

Just 11 year old is very sensible, just 7 year old is not.

She is leaving them to go to work as it's the only work she can find. I feel a lot of sympathy for her, no family support, difficult to find work, work doesn't pay well enough for childcare costs.

However, it feels a REALLY long time for her to leave them and she is going a way away.

I don't know how to tackle this at all. Or, in fact, if I should. FWIW her background is very different to mine and I get the impression that in her home country kids being left on their own is much less of a big deal than it is over here.

WWYD?

I personally wouldn't do it, but one of my neighbours does. I don't think it's great. Heard the kids get home the other day, and the seven yr old said to the 11 year old "remember, Mums rule is, if she doesnt come home, to put ourselves to bed!!!"

Mumzy - you heard that and you think it's relatively normal? I despair, I really do

These are PRIMARY SCHOOL AGED children. This isn't an hour or two once a week. It's 25 hours a week. 25!

Op - just stop procrastinating and do the right thing. Or carry on discussing the ins and outs of it on here. Your choice.

It sounds like she has no other option. At 11 and 7 they can take care of themselves in their own home though. It's a lot safer than being out on the streets and if you wrote a post about same age children out playing at all hours every day, nobody would suggest phoning social services as some have here 🙄

You can offer to be an emergency contact for the kids if they need anything.

Struggling to see a problem here, unless it's that the children are having a whale of a time.

Littlegreenpear ...where did I say that's normal? Are you mixing my post up with someone elses? I said I didn't think it was great!!!!

Ethyl.....for me, the problem is that the 11 year old is in charge of the 7 year old. So if anything happens, it's down to her. That's a lot of responsibility to put on an 11 year old child.

Wow am boggled that some people think it's ok for an 11 yr and 8yr old to be on their own for so long.
Sure from after school to say 5.30-6.00pm, but until 8pm is an awfully long time. I'm all for building independence up gradually, but there's teaching coping skills and then there's leaving young children to fend for themselves.

As to what to do I have no idea, sorry OP but it would play on my mind as well.

if you wrote a post about same age children out playing at all hours every day, nobody would suggest phoning social services as some have here

Actually if the children had no one at home to go back to and not even an emergency contact closer than an hour away, I suspect they probably would.