AIBU for wondering why the government assumes 12 year olds don’t need childcare?

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Hi folks,
Looking at Tax Free Childcare and I see it stops when a child turns 12.
www.gov.uk/tax-free-childcare
Can I ask what the heck working parents with 12 year olds are expected to do in the summer and why there is so little provision for that tricky bit where they’re pretty independent but you really don’t want them sitting around the house all day on their own?
DS is 12 and it looks like summer care will cost me £125 a week. Normally I’d apply accrued childcare vouchers, but the summer camps are not registered for childcare vouchers. The ones that are registered won’t take him because he’s 12.

Government has to draw the line somewhere and 12 seems appropriate. It is your problem.
My 13 year old loves the freedom and does a mixture of slobbing around he house and going out with mates. I do have neighbours who keep an eye on her. This is not the government's responsibility.
As I regularly point out to my dd, my grandmother moved 200 miles to London take a job in service at age 13 because she had to start earning to support the family. She can cope with looking after herself for a few hours.

I was alone every day of every school holiday from the age of 11. My parents worked full time. I was perfectly capable of cooking myself a meal and entertaining myself. I walked to the library and the council tennis courts, got the bus to meet friends or sunbathed in the garden.
A 12 year old is at secondary school, they’re hardly a helpless baby. If you take your own annual leave in the middle of the school break, your DC would only be alone for a fortnight at a time.

Your child or anyone else's, in my opinion, should not be other tax payers' financial responsibility.

RussianSpamBot Some threads are started to gage what people normally are thinking. If they are planning to do something they want to know if they are being reasonable or not. Other threads are created because they want posts that provoke thought and debate. You don't have to agree with what I or others have posted but that doesn't matter its what the op wants to get out of the thread. That's why they posted because they want opinions on what others think.

My eldest is 12.

It is absolutely unreasonable to assume that 12-15 year old children are safe left home alone for 5 days a week for a whole month.

Some families and children/young teens will have social and/or familial networks that can alleviate this type of isolation. Friends and known adults around who will share activities and care.

Some people live within communities where other children/youth are local, accessible by foot/cycling/public transport.

Some people have activities that aren't too expensive and which interest their children available locally too. Swimming pools, tennis courts, youth centres.

But some people don't have family available to provide care or company. No friends who are able/willing to fix things up. And no local facilities.

It's not just about childcare, I think most agree. It is about meaningful employment and appropriate supervision so that young people are safe - including safe from radicalisation, sexual predators online etc - and the responsibility cannot be just on the parent. Singular. And when it's singular it's usually the mother.

Not all work places will allow the same flexibility and many cannot afford to risk losing employment.

It's not unreasonable to be unhappy that a system of tax credits has changed.

And it is not unreasonable to want something to be available beyond programs for primary aged children and volunteer/work opportunities for older teens.

I'm not sure OP posted because she wants people to tell her to think about her son staying with non-existent local relatives wengie...

RussianSpamBot It was a suggestion let it go and the op responded. You should ask yourself the same question.

You cant really be telling anyone else to let it go wengle.

Summer when I was 12 would have been 1 week scout camp, the odd day going to relatives with my younger brother if I fancied it, and the rest at home or going out with friends. At that age I was more than capable of going into town, the park etc. Is it really that different now that 12 year olds aren’t trusted to do their own thing?

RussianSpamBot From now on I want respond to you. I will let it go.

*want is meant to be won't

@Springwalk i have every confidence in my child, she's well cared for, good mannered, i always's know where she is and who with, don't get me wrong she's no angel, if she want's to do something or go somewhere and i say no she sulk's like a 5 year old hoping i'll give in, back in the 70's different estates had gang's but all they did was annoy one another there were no carrying of knives, i don't live in London but i hear what's going on watching the news, the government can't be blamed for everything that's going wrong in society, people say there's nothing for them to do so does that justify carrying knives and killing? We had nothing to do we entertained ourselves, playing games, out on our bikes etc, the governent can't be expected to lay on 24hrs entertainment for teenager's, do the parent's play a part in there children carying knives i think they have to take some responsibility, where i live a "10" year boy has been suspended for bring a knife to school yes "10", why is he doing that is it because he's hearing about it on tv? There's alway's been child abuser's from the year dot, we have to remember most children i said most not all are abused by someone they know or a family member. I agree with another poster your doing a lot of scaremongering

The tories put UC together because they want to ween people of of benefits. The tories hate the benefits system and the nhs. I have met people with 2 or 3 jobs with children and they are still struggling.

It is absolutely unreasonable to assume that 12-15 year old children are safe left home alone for 5 days a week for a whole month.

At that age I didn't want to be at home I was out everyday. I hated being at home.

OP the original tax free system, that got scrapped last year, lasted up to the child's 16th birthday, so the government used to think you may be paying for teenagers' childcare. One of the reasons we stayed with that, rather than opt for the new alternative, was because it had a higher upper age limit.

YANBU.

We have no money for schools, nhs, toddler groups are closing down, they have cut down on police. They had to scrap that scheme. All because of Brexit and now we are down on GP's what next. The tories are of the opinion that work should pay and you don't need handouts.

This is about survival and people have to do what they need to do to feed there kids. People who has jobs uses food banks. Its tough out there and a lot of families don't have the luxury to pay for holiday clubs.

@wengie well said people do what they have to do, there is to much child pampering these day, children starting school not being able to fasten there own shoes, not very well toilet trained, if a child at secondary is not mature enought to be left at home for a few hour's without trust that's the parent's fault, in Canada and some states in America 12 is the legal age for babysitting..

There must be other parents in your area that have these issues, ask in a local group, phone the council, they will have a list of childcare providers. You could even maybe club together with other parents to look after each others kids one day a week through the summer maybe then you could just book one day a week off through the summer

happy whilst I don’t doubt your dd had grown up beautifully, she is only twelve and is far from mature and fully developed.
We are not talking about the odd hour. We are talking full working days for weeks on end.
We would all like to think grooming happens elsewhere, and drug addiction and self harm happens to other people’s children, but this perception is false.

Perhaps it suits you to imagine that life is just like the 1970s. The fact remains that the volume of traffic has increased massively, the internet is a danger to our children unsupervised, and mental health problems in children have reached record levels. None of these things were present in the 1970s/80s nor 90s. It is inaccurate to say it is the same, it most certainly isn’t, and most parents recognise this.

I don’t consider caring for ones child as ‘pampetong’ either happy

Pampering!

I agree with you op.
Dd2 is about to turn 12-she's mature in lots of ways but she can also be ditsy, and at times reckless... I wouldn't trust her in the house alone for more than an hour or two occasionally at most. She set fire to the microwave last week for example-despite being shown millions of times how to use it and lectured about the danger of metal objects being put in it.
Not all 12 year olds are built equal. Dd1 would have been Ok-but wouldn't have liked it especially-as I didn't as a 12 year old left to my own devices every day between 3.30 and 6.30... People are always going mad about 'parents not knowing where their kids are' when something goes awry. But if they have to work and child care isn't affordable or deemed necessary, how are parents supposed to monitor their kids for those 3 hours or so a day?

There's a few hours and there's 10-12 hours/day.

@happyhillick, a few hours, fine. 10 hour days, 5 days a week is not fine.

You wouldn’t treat a dog that way.

What do you plan on doing with your son?

Are you going to pay the £750 for him to go to go to activity days?