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've got a just turned 7byear old and can't imagine leaving him in a years time, however I suppose it depends how mature your kids are.
tbh though I'd feel very uncomfortable with the whole idea. maybe for 10 mins while you pop to shop but not on an evening. I think i would feel different if they were 10 and 12.

Just go and enjoy yourself. Children need independence.

Personally thats too long for that age. We started to leave ours at 10 and 11 but only when going local so walking distance but at that age (8) I don't think we even left them to go to the supermarket. They need a babysitter still imo.

@Gogogadgetarms - it's totally normal in Germany/Switzerland for 5year old kids to walk to school by themselves, it just is. A lot of the time the school is just around the corner and they dont have to cross any roads. Totally standard.

I remember looking after my sister then 2 when I was 10 while my parents were out in the evening and honestly I was a bit of an idiot while doing that. For example, I would bake biscuits with her, create random but totally unsafe water games etc all the while thinking that I was being totally responsible. So I would say they are perhaps just a bit too young.

Are you mad?!

Just get a takeaway. Children get frightened at night. Children can't risk assess. Children don't have much worldly experience. You can't possibly predict what could happen to them alone, is going out to eat worth the risk?

No. You are responsible for them. Don't leave them to go out for something unecessary

Poor kids

@Coldspringharbour Whether you have actually worked in safeguarding, or not, means absolutely nothing here. OP lives in Germany, where this is legal, which means the German government doesn't agree with your opinion. OP will make her own decision whether she wants, or not, to do something which is totally legal in the country in which she lives. Your opinion of risk and responsibility doesn't matter at all actually. OP can do what she thinks is right for herself and her family.

No. An hour during the day fine. At nighttime the need to go to bed knowing an adult is there. Too young. Youngest needs to be 13 or 14 imo.

I've read most of the (pointless) thread - including the massive drip feed about you being in Germany, and then another about it being "legal" so, OP, have you asked your children how they'd feel about it? because obviously, once your DH has de-British-ised you and got you on board, it'll be a what? weekly thing? monthly thing?

Sad really that you can't just wait till you're able to employ a trustworthy childminder.

Absolutely no chance would I leave my 10 year old at home in charge.

@bloodywhitecat

Not acceptable. Get a babysitter.

Exactly

I can actually well believe the 'stopping a 5yo being walked/collected' thing. I think it would be unusual these days, but certainly in the past, or in some areas or even in relation to the culrure of a specific kindergarten, I can well imagine a robust headteacher telling a parent that they expected children in their final pre-school year to come and go alone. (The parent could choose to ignore that, and quite possibly would, but the expectation would be set). In our kindergarten it would be seen as neglect not to drop/collect your own child, but nobody would bat an eyelid at a pre-schooler (which in German terms means age 5-6) scooting or even cycling ahead and arriving several minutes before a parent with a younger sibling. Indeed they would be praised for their independence, I suspect.

As an example, my German niece, who is now 24, used to walk down the road to her village kindergarten alone from probably age 4.

I've just tried to find out what the law says in Germany and there's no fixed age, but the German Conference for Parenting Advice, whatever that is, suggests that a school-age child (so from age 6/7) can be left alone for up to two hours.

A quick scan of some German parenting focums suggests the majority (not all) are happy with leaving children aged 8 or 9 home alone for a couple of hours in the evening, and quite a few seem to have done it since age 6 during the day.

I have two very sensible kids the same age and there’s no way I would leave them home alone long enough to go outmoded dinner. Not a chance.

Do you want to leave them, OP? Or are you being pressured into it by your German DH? It can feel strange when you move between places where parenting cultural norms differ so much. If your children are culturally German and assimilated to local norms about safety vs independence, will they be ok with it?

I wouldn't. They might be fine having a film and going to bed when they're ready, neighbour being there if they need anything but I always think worst case scenario, would they know what to do if the building was burning down? Neighbour trapped or unresponsive? Would to tell them not to answer the door to anyone or only emergency services, would they know the difference between the real thing or someone just saying they're the police and they must be let in?

Why is it considered safer for 5 year olds to walk home from school on their own in some European countries than here?

When DD was at primary school she had to cross a busy main road at a crossroads, with no traffic lights or crossing patrol. As UK government road safety advisors suggest that children won’t be ready to cross roads independently until they’re at least eight years old there was no way I wouldn't have taken DD to school.

When she was older I asked if she wanted to walk without me, but she always wanted me there. Even in year 6 most parents took their children to school.

So, are there more crossing patrols in these European countries?

@OxenoftheSun

Do you want to leave them, OP? Or are you being pressured into it by your German DH? It can feel strange when you move between places where parenting cultural norms differ so much. If your children are culturally German and assimilated to local norms about safety vs independence, will they be ok with it?

It does leave you in a weird place. I know that some of my parenting decisions probably appear as lax bordering on reckless to UK parents, while in Germany I am definitely at the 'helicopter' end of the spectrum. Tbf to the dh, I wouldn't necessarily call what he's doing pressuring (unless he actually is) - he's merely acting in accordance with his own cultural norms (his dc are at pretty much the exact age at which the forum users I mentioned tend to start feeling it OK to leave their children in the evenings). But again, I would not have done this, and didn't.

Certainly in Germany there tend to be crossing patrols at known tricky points on school routes. (When my older two were in primary, though, the patrol on the very easy zebra crossing, with a clear view both ways, right outside the school on a pretty quiet road would, IMO, have been better deployed at one of the absolute nightmare junctions half a km down the road (one of them awful due to all the secondary school parents dropping their children in cars!) - for which reason I walked mine to school until we moved away from that town when they were 10 and 8, although they were allowed to walk home alone).

Oh, I agree, @CatteStreet, he’s doing ‘normal’ for him. I’ve not had to deal with wildly differing parenting norms in the places I’ve lived since having DS, but I had antenatal care in two countries with very different ideas about what was acceptable to eat and drink when pregnant/normal weight gain/birth practices and pain relief etc. which was discombobulating in itself.

Are you seriously asking that question?? No way!!!

What about if something happened to you or your DH when out? Car accident as an example, no one knows you have children home alone. It simply isn't necessary to leave them alone at that age and is selfish to do so.

My son isn't released from school until he can see his adult he is 8. As with a 5 year old, surely in any country you would take them right to the gate. What right would a school have to make them walk alone?

My 8 year old isn't allowed to walk alone. I drop him off in the car (less than 2 miles) but that's a whole new thread