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

[HiddenPineapple]

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.

I think people here need to understand what austerity means. Yes it would be ideal to have support for more types of childcare. But we no longer have youth clubs, care support, old age drop ins. We don't have libraries, school teachers, support for disabled children.

If you want more support in any area - get out, get political and fight against the current government.

meanwhile - Brexit prep has cost a billion so far.

Would be lovely if employers were that unferstanding. Mine certainty wouldn't allow half days/ reduced weeks etc if I couldn't make it in due to childcare that would go down as sick or unauthorised absence with no pay

It’s not necessary for their safety so why should the tax payer pay for it?
Actually Im not sure its unnecessary for their safety.
Plenty of teenagers are getting into trouble duing the summer hols. Because they are bored out of their mind and left alone.

Of course, its different f you have family nearby they can pop round. Your won friends whose children are a similar age around or parenst whos are not working full time and can keep an eye on them whilst you do the same when you are not at work (because you are woking part time).
The thing is, that might have been working 20 years ago. Nowdays, more and more women work full time, long hours. Its expected from them and they dont really have a choice anyway f they want a roof over teir heads. ANd they are working away from family too so have less of a social network around them to support them.

I dont think the system is fit for what society is expecting women to do (because lets face it not one poster has mentioned the FATHER popping round, reducing hours etc...)

Ds1 loved staying at home in year 6, for 1 or 2 days over 1/2 term. So he was only 11 then. That was the first time I tried it. But I only work 3 short days 9-3, and I work 5 minutes away, so this worked perfectly. For us, admittedly. By the time he was 12, he has already spent one term at secondary and had grown up alot. He had no interest in childcare! He didn't want to go to the childcare with Ds2, 6-11 year olds.

He was at home with me one day, at home alone the next, off out playing football all day at he local sports centre all day the next, in town at the cinema the next, at home playing x box all day the next!! So it continued. I didn't need child care for him.

Some children will need it. Others won't. Depends on their maturity, their personality. And your working needs. Admittedly if you are out the door for 12 hours, with a long commute, 5 days, that's a different need to mine.

But are many other posters here posting thinking about this for the future? If so, you may be being unreasonable. I think you'll find that most 12-year-olds have zero interest in going to any childcare club. See how it is when you get there? / nearer the time? You might be surprised.

All there is to do (here) for DC is to loiter in parks at this age, usually being antisocial!
Sorry but that was me as a young teen and it only got worse with drinking and smoking. I really was concerned about it being a bad parenting decision to give them the option:

Stay indoors all day for 9 hours
Go out all day with friends and I don’t know what you are actually doing

12 is young, I have girls and I wasn’t comfortable with it

They went to a kind of ‘dance academy’ every summer hols and made loads of friends, got exercise and got to choose what music etc. It was fun

There was a sports camp and football too and they all enjoyed them.

Neither of my DC hang around in parks if they go out with friends it’s for something to eat, cinema etc

I had nine weeks summer holidays at that age. Parents split their annual leave so I had two weeks with mum and two with dad - but I still spent five weeks alone all day.

I went to friends houses, sunbathed, watched TV, read stupid amounts of books, played the Sims for hours and ate far too much toast.

I was absolutely fine and I had a great time!

Would taking 2 days holiday per week work better? Say: Monday and a Thursday? Each week, to break it up.

Unless your dc has sen, or severe anxiety, being left home alone for the day, shouldn't be a problem. Ds1 entertained himself, cooked. No wild drug infested parties happened!!

@MadAboutWands

I agree. 12yo are not that sensible, there is a very likely risk of them getting involved in stupid things at that age.

I was 12 and unsupervised all summer it was boring, hung out with a group of cool older kids who shoplifted, smoke, drank, graffiti on the park, littered the park and made it horrible for families to go to. By 14 I was off the rails!

Probably covered already but Im not wading through 6 pages of individual coments - dont you have any holiday OP if you are working ?

Sympathies, OP. I found that although there were a few activities around for the 12-15s, they tended to run from 10 till 4 and involve three separate bus journeys with endless potential for missing connections. On top of that, most places insisted on a parent signing the child in and out.

My young teenagers lost enough doorkeys to carpet the neighbourhood at that age, too.

PookieDo me too. And that was before drugs were a big thing.

adaline op has already said her son's friends live miles and miles away, he will not be hanging out with anyone sunbathing or otherwise.
This is the whole point he will be alone all day every day for up to ten hours for the best part of a month. Would it be so fun then if you were in his position? Thought not.

I think 12 is a reasonable age for it to stop - it can't go on indefinitely - i would imagine it also assumes that most parents may want to take a couple of weeks off to spend with time with their child so actually it only becomes around 4 weeks - if both parents in the picture and not take time off then goes down to 2 weeks......

It's not all or nothing: six weeks of paid childcare or six weeks of isolation at home. Break it up into chunks:

Two weeks: you're off work, so you can plan to spend time together
Two weeks: paid camp or whatever
Two weeks: make arrangements for sleepovers a couple of times (you can reciprocate at weekends or during your time off work), plus some days at home. Is there a bus he could get to a town where he can meet up with friends? 12 is a good age to start being a bit more independent.

I agree with you OP to some extent. My 13 year old is a very sensible girl but I would't want her on her own for 10 hours a day 5 days a week at all and she wouldn't want to be on her own that much either.

Different if there are a couple of kids in the house who can keep an eye on each other, or older and can go out independently all the time. My 13 goes into town by herself and out with friends and walks home, but to have no adult contact during the day is a lot of responsibility.

Not sure of the answer, but I don't think it's overprotective to want your 12 year old to have some reassurance/adult contact, even just for 10 min or lunch just before they run out again to see their friends. I guess camp is a good option.

Erm, of course 12 year olds need childcare! Their brains won't fully mature for another 13 years. There is no legal age at which the law says it's ok to leave a child alone at home all day, so if an accident occurred whilst the parents were at work they could be looking at being charged with neglect and having the child removed. The government really needs a consistent policy on this. Look at the US - summer camps at this age are the norm - yes most are expensive but the expectation is that children of this age will not be sitting around the house alone whilst their parents have to work.

To the op, if you register interest in PGL and Kingswood camps, they start sending you offers, up to 1/2 price in the last few weeks before the holiday.

If I'm reading this correctly, the vouchers are valid for a 12 year old but the organisations running programmes for that age group do not have the correct registrations to accept them. Therefore, it's not really the government's fault although I agree that there is a disconnect- possibly the regulations need to be lighter for teenagers than children

OP I agree with you. 12 is not old enough to be left all day. I certainly would not want my 12 year old alone from 7.30 when I leave until 5pm!

Most 12 year olds shouldn't need childcare. They don't need to sit at home all day either, give them a key and they can go out and see friends, give them some jobs to do at home to earn extra pocket money to pass some more time, that kind of thing.

To late for the op, but I do think a lot of the problem is the way children are treated now. Children are generally not left at all tell they are 12 and then are expected to occupy themselves.
When really if parents started leaving them from the age of say 8 for 1/2 an hour and building on that, then by 12 they would be fine.
Society has changed a lot in the past 50 years. Kids used to just go round each other's houses, no one ever worried about ' expecting other adults to parent your child'.
Kids knew how there parents would react, so we knew where was best.

If as adults we 'tell' our children that they need supervision all the time, is it any wonder there has been a dramatic rise of children with anxiety?

I think it's more worrying that there are 12yos that can't be trusted alone all day.

Surely an NT 12yo can make toast, use a microwave, lock a door safely and take a mobile phone with them?

Kids do seem very babied these days.

I wouldn't want my almost 12 to ds to rot his brain in front of YouTube for four weeks or hanging around the town with the other street mouchers trying to fill the endless hours and failing to keep out of trouble. That sounds shit.

YANBU.

Can you space your annual leave out? So instead of taking 2 weeks annual leave (10 days assuming you work mom-fri) you take 20 half days. This could be 3 afternoons a week - leaving your child to sleep in on a morning and you’d be home shortly after lunch time. Then that just leaves a few full days for him to be alone?