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.

Are there any local older teens you could pay to hang out with him (babysit) for a bit? It’s the kind of thing my 16 year old does. Admittedly this does involve him playing Xbox, Table Tennis, football (basically whatever facilities the family has) but at least it is some company/supervision for younger teens. Doesn’t need to be a full day but a few hours or so.

Or do you have non-local family (aunts, grandparents, godparents) that your DS could go and stay with for a full week?

Have you tried Supercamps? They take children up to 14 for all days sessions. Or you could look at PGL where the child goes away to a summer camp. My 2 boys started with Supercamps and moved on to PGL. Both accepted vouchers.

French kids are taking the Paris metro alone at 9/10 years old.

This would be highly unusual as, in Paris, children at primary school nearly all live within easy walking distance by virtue of the catchment system for state schools and the reluctance of most private schools to recruit children with any sort of significant commute. Many French children go home for lunch during the school day.

Even when they move up to secondary school Parisian children rarely need more than walk a few hundred metres and they still go home for lunch.

It seems Parisian children would need much more supervision and protection not less, given they have to navigate what looks to be a war zone most weeks.

I live a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower and I can assure you that French children carry in with their lives just as they always have done!

Nico Supercamps aren't in a lot of areas

Lol at the idea that Paris is a war zone.

May I point out that if Paris is a war zone then London is too, with all its knife crimes, bombing setc??

What a silly thing to say.

Children in Paris are extremely well catered for during the school holidays: means tested day camps hosted in schools, with plenty of outings to sites of cultural interest, are available to all children local to their home.

I'm with you Op. Most 12 year olds will be fine at home for a few hours a day. But all day, every day for 4 weeks is too much.

Could you split it? A week at home, a week at camp/paid Childcare, a week with you x2. It breaks it up and cuts down costs.

It’s not right, the government is trying to make kids grow up too soon. Again, it’s another demonstration of a policy that is alright for the rich but a disaster for the working classes and poor. Twelve year olds still need to be cared for and it’s an age of rich pickings for the predators in our society.

well - I don't know about that.

I just don't think it's a great idea for kids of this age to be left entirely to their own devices for 10 hours a day for days on end.

Ds is 12 and in Y7.

3-4 times per week he has to come home to a empty house. He’s adjusted well and will use the couple of hours alone to have an hour long poo and mooch about talking to his friends on the Xbox. Sometimes he calls me at work if he’s had any issues that day but generally, he’s doing fine.

I feel lucky that we have grandparents we can rely on currently, during the school holidays. I did negotiate with Ds on the last holiday and let him stay at home for one of the days. Still, I like him to be doing something other than being online playing games.

Due to the distance I work from home I can’t be there quickly if there’s an emergency, if I worked up the road I’d feel more comfortable leaving him but not all day every day. I don’t like our town at the moment as we have had an increase in youths being antisocial, youths carrying knives, all who seem to think no one can touch them. This is very worrying for me and I don’t want Ds hanging around the parks or fast food outlets, especially if I’m not in the area. I also don’t want random kids in the house while I’m not there, that’s a big rule we have for after school.

There has been posts regarding the 70’s/80’s, the time of my youth. I can’t actually remember when I was first left alone during the summer holidays. My Mum only started working full time once I reached about 13? Even then my Nan lived just down the road, families seemed to live closer to eachother back then.

All 12 year olds are different. What works for one family, their home set up, working distance, safety in town, relatives living close by, older siblings, maturity of the child, won’t work for another.

My 12yo son is disabled so we have to pay for a nanny to look after him in the holidays. His asd means he find it impossible to attend holiday camps etc as he finds it so stressful. He is much happier at home
Childcare options for children with a disability is very limited as settings are not willing to make any reasonable adjustments even though this is discrimination.

egg I think the silly thing really is to deny that Paris is just like a war zone! We stayed there last month and full sized army tanks were rolling past our hotel at 3am, our windows were rumbling as they went by. There are barricaded streets everywhere and police in full riot gear. The army were there too.
I am not sure what part of Paris you are referring to, but it was everywhere we went. I couldn’t wait to leave. I was just very glad I didn’t have my children stay this time, they would have been really scared. Maybe French children have become accustomed to the fear and violence, but from where we stayed it all looked rather terrifying.

Private childminder may be happy to have him. Mine takes childcare vouchers.

vickibee that sounds tough.

Local to me we have a centre that provides affordable holiday childcare for children with disabilities. Perhaps worth checking if there is one local to you?

There definitely is not holiday child care around where I live and I have no parents to gave the children. I'm lucky last year my boss was very flexible and I had a 17 and 16 year old to help. This year I have a 14 year old and 13 year old but the older 2 are busy doing their own thing. I suppose I'm going to have to leave them home alone at some point.

(In the 70’s)... We were nigh on neglected and many, many didn't survive as a result, or were bullied horrifically, raped or sexually abused, got into horrible accidents. Because 12-year-olds, being children, don't have a lot of sense.

Bamboo that’s a load of shite! I loved in a very poor northern town in the 70’s now renowned for abuses against white British girls. We were pretty feral and many of us were left to our own devices from the age of 8 or even younger. We were street wise and pretty savvy. A gang of us chased a flasher from the park one summer throwing stones at him (I mentioned the feral bit!). I was ironing, making cups of tea and frying bread at 8 yrs.

Yes, some children in the 70’s were abused and bullied, just as children are now, but to imply the majority of children were is just plain wrong. Children then were more likely to have mum at home during the holidays, but I think were more self reliant and possibly more ‘sensible’ than children are today.

I also lived in a northern town in the 70’s 😄

I get you, OP. I wouldn’t want to leave my 12 y.o. completely unattended 8am-6pm five days a week. They haven’t got the maturity at that age.

The holidays is the reason I have been self-employed for years. We would be paying in excess of £250 a week for our three children to attend holiday care. I just can’t make it pay if I were to go back to working FT. We have to survive on one income and a bit because we haven’t got family childcare and buying childcare puts us in negative figures. I am afraid, no solutions from me.

This thread is so funny. In the mid-90’s I was berated for getting a full-time job and leaving teenaged boys unattended in the holidays. ‘They’ll become delinquents!!!!’ Often it was the same people who had berated me for being a SAHM mum.

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Experience taught me that some teenagers need more supervision than others so everyone saying ‘why can’t the just.....’ or ‘I just.....’ don’t have enough experience to comment.

No assistance with child care (supervision) costs once children are 12 is penny-pinching. Nothing less.

I’m with the op on this. Leaving teenagers to their own devices 5 full days a week, is asking for trouble and the government should recognise this.

My friend left her two very sensible 13 year old dds over Easter 3 days a week for a few weeks. Started out brilliantly, all good, I don't think they even bothered to get dressed or see daylight for the first week, the second week was a whole different ballgame. They got bored, invited friends over, one thought spin the bottle would be fun. Fast forward my friend is minus a bottle of vodka and wine from her cabinet. The girls being drunk was plastered all over SM, and now many of the parents have said their children are not allowed to go there again.

So yes, if you want your dc to entertain themselves, go for it!

Leaving teenagers to their own devices 5 full days a week, is asking for trouble and the government should recognise this.

Why is it the government's responsibility to organise childcare for teenagers?

I don't know anyone who went to camp over the age of 11/12 in the 2000's - we all got left at home to our own devices. If you want your child to go to sports camp or music camp or not to be alone all summer, isn't that your responsibility as a parent to save for?

My friend left her two very sensible 13 year old dds over Easter 3 days a week for a few weeks. Started out brilliantly, all good, I don't think they even bothered to get dressed or see daylight for the first week, the second week was a whole different ballgame. They got bored, invited friends over, one thought spin the bottle would be fun. Fast forward my friend is minus a bottle of vodka and wine from her cabinet. The girls being drunk was plastered all over SM, and now many of the parents have said their children are not allowed to go there again.

And what about all the millions of teens who manage just fine without getting plastered? One bad incident doesn't mean all teens need childcare organising for them.

I also think it's a bit daft to leave two teenagers in a house with free access to alcohol!

I took my A/L as half days at this tricky inbetween age, leaving along for the morning was no problem