AIBU to leave 8 & 10 year alone to go out to dinner?

[BereftOfInk]

DH has suggested we go out to dinner together and leave the DC home alone. His parents often did this once he turned 10. I don't know if I'm being over protective as I was never left alone as a child. We live in a block of flats and would let our direct neighbours know they were alone, DC know them and could go and knock if they needed help for any reason. They offered to do this a while ago, but we thought the DC were too young so didn't. Neighbour suggested it as it's what her parents did when she was young (she wouldn't want to sit in our flat with them).

Get them ready for bed, stick a film on and let them go to bed when tired/fall asleep on the sofa. Acceptable or not?

I don’t even leave my 18 year old alone with her siblings in the evening to go out. She is very sensible and trustworthy but it still makes me uncomfortable. I have left her with her teenage siblings in the day for a couple of hours but not the younger kids

This is insane. Wouldn’t a babysitter typically be around this age or younger? Do you ever leave home without your kids?

I think it’s borderline. 8 & 10 year olds should be fine for an hour or so in the day. They can play out unsupervised and go to the park with friends, walk to school. With a neighbour on call it should be fine.
By 10 & 12 it would definitely be fine imo.

I think, considering your husband is accusing you of being too British and therefore overprotective, it would have made a lot more sense to post on a German forum. You will get a lot of responses from British people on here or from those living in the UK.

Personally, I wouldn't do this, but I don't live in Germany. FWIW, I have lived in the states, Ireland and France, as well as now living in England.

I just don't see the need and find it decidedly weird that your neighbour went out of their way to offer to watch them, but refuses to do so in your apartment.

Someone I know who is quite a responsible character, she is a HCP and her DH is in the police etc. Very sensible on paper. She used to leave her young toddler asleep in bed and go out for dinner. She gave the baby monitor to the neighbour and went for a meal out with the other adults, one of whom could surely have babysat. I just don't understand this at all, but it seems to be a thing some people do.

Anyway, these aren't toddlers, so obviously quite different. But no, I wouldn't do it. Pps are right. I think that in some circumstances, in the uk, this would get reported, rightly or wrongly.

No this is insane. Wound you trust they could get out in a fire? Get a babysitter

@Bluntness100 Why? Because the poster isn't hysterical?

How is it more dangerous in the UK? According to what statistics?

Ok cannot speak for Germany but Japan is very, very safe, none of this yob culture that is allowed to fester here. I never locked my doors when I lived there.

@Bigkingdom

I don’t even leave my 18 year old alone with her siblings in the evening to go out. She is very sensible and trustworthy but it still makes me uncomfortable. I have left her with her teenage siblings in the day for a couple of hours but not the younger kids.

Jesus

@Bigkingdom

You cant be serious. If your 18 year old isnt capable of watching her siblings for a night then something has gone wrong somewhere.

When I was 16 and my sister was 18, my parents went on holiday for 2 weeks. Once you reach late teens, you should he completely capable of looking after a home and yourself and doing all the necessary things and managing any emergencies. If yours cant then you need to do some teaching, and fast.

Trained primary teacher here. If I became aware of this I would be duty bound to report it to my safeguarding lead. At the very least its an indicator of neglect. Please dont do this.

Also, the expecting a five yr old to walk home alone is bonkers. Im shocked the school didn't pick up on it. Shocked!!! Once again I would have reported.

The fact is, this age of child is capable in many ways. But also very very vulnerable. Hence the reason they must be kept safe (safeguarding).

@beardybutton -re the walking from school - the OP is in Germany where social norms are different to the UK. There are lots of countries which encourage independence at a younger age than the UK

there was a really interesting thread on here a few years ago - I can't remember precisely the OP's name but I've seen them around. From memory, the OP was heavily pregnant with DC2 and used to take DC1 (primary) to school but was asking advice on if/how/when she should or could step back from the school run as it was too uncomfortable for her. They lived (I think) in Finland and DC1 journey involved ski-ing to school - it was such a fascinating insight into how different cultures/geographies respond differently.

Im shocked the school didn't pick up on it. Shocked!!!

They did. I was called in by his kindy teacher and told in no uncertain terms I had to stop walking him to school (kindergarten).

My MIL is German and her huge family live in the South. None of them leave their 8/10
year old chikdren alone in the house, whatever the time of day.

I will leave my 11 and 9 year old alone for half hour max but wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving them longer and I’m quite a relaxed parent...

Why would you need to do that for the sake of dinner out? I have left my kids at times for compelling reasons, but not late in the evening and not for something non-essential.

[quote Nandocushion]@Coldspringharbour Oh FFS. Yeah, that's totally the same thing, besides the fact that neither of OP's children is four years old, asleep in an unlocked hotel villa, unsupervised, in a foreign country on an insecure property.

I suppose I should be grateful that it took this long for someone to bring up MM. Is this McCann's Law, the leaving-a-child-alone version of Godwin's Law?[/quote]
It’s about being a responsible parent. My point, that you failed to grasp was that things can go wrong. As I said it’s highly unlikely to be like the mccanns case (which is pretty much a worse case scenario of consequences of bad parental decision making) but a ten year old is not mature enough to be responsible for an eight year old. As I said I have worked in safeguarding for many years and believe me, things can and do go wrong. Just because some parents don’t have the imagination to see that it’s a bad decision, doesn’t mean it’s ok to leave two little kids alone.

If a child in my class disclosed this information, I would be duty-bound to report the fact that they were left alone at such a young age to the safeguarding lead of my school and SS would be involved. This is considered to be neglect.

@Mumsnet

I have an extremely hard time believing that your school forbade you to walk your 5 year old child home alone. Collect them from the school gates perhaps, but not walk home! If such ludicrous advice was issued, I would expect any decent parent to ignore it.

Yes I was trained in UK. As it happens I know a fair bit about Germany.

Maybe at issue here - what has motivated the UK system. High profile child abuse neglect cases where there were judged to be failings on the part of state institutions
So Victoria Climbie for eg. So in theory, the learnings from these cases is that there should be protocols and procedures in place to catch safeguarding concerns and potential neglect and abuse. In the UK, thid would flag an internal report in a school. The safeguarding team would then discuss.

The question is - is the UK too overzealous compared to Germany. I think the only way to know this is by comparing safeguarding failures. If the German institutions havent failed children in this way, then they do not need to tighten their procedures. I dont know enough to know whether this is the case. It may well be - the German state resources social services and schools appropriately. I bet this means they are better placed to catch cases of neglect and abuse eithout needing procedures abd protocols like UK.

On an individual basis - its still daft to allow a 5 yr old to walk home. Children of this age, although capable in many ways, are simply not developed enough to be able to reliably interpret dangerous and risky situations and reliably (reliably is important here) act accordingly.

Put it like this - if something did happen. The 5 year old was killed crossing the road, the children died in a fire. Then assess the norms - i dont think there would be much difference between uk and Germany. If it ended up in the papers, public opinion would travel towards blaming the parents as negligent.

Ill say it again - please dont do this. Your most important obligation is the safeguarding of your children. Like it or not, if something bad were to happen, your absence would make them vulnerable. You cannot rely on them being very grown up and knowing what to do. They might. They might not. They wouldnt be atypical for not acting appropriately in conditions of stress. They are young children. Its your job as a parent to make sure that your actions do not leave them in a situation where they are alone and facing a threat, until they are at an age where they can reliably act appropriately.

What age can you rely on them to reliably do this? Thats a different topic - but it is not 5 (walking home alone) and its not 8 and 10 (being alone at night).

Hmmmm. I ve had a kid in a German kindie. This is definitely not a universal thing. I find the prohibition on walking to and collecting hard to believe. And thats from someone who understands the difference between uk and Germany. And yes - I think Germany is to lax.

You are joking right??? No way you can leave a 10 year old alone, let alone in charge of an 8 year old. What a stupid question. If you can afford to eat out then you should be able to set aside some money for childcare. Or ask a friend to babysit for free and offer to return the favour.
If anyone I know ever did this I would report them to social services.

No way

I wouldn’t leave kids home alone at that age to pop to the shops, nevermind go out for dinner!

That's neglect.

obviously not!