To leave my 7.5 year old home alone today?

[brewbrewbrew]

She's off school as the bubble are isolating and I had school runs to do today.
Was fine for the morning run as dh was here but not for the afternoon one.

I drive a 7 seater car and had been given a curtesy car for the day. This car only has 5 seats and I needed 6 if dd was going to fit in.

I couldn't do anything else at short notice. The others were at school and needed collecting.

I spoke to her beforehand about the dangers and what to do if x or y happened, explained she could use Alexa to call my mobile also if there was a problem. I was gone about 15 minutes in total.
Even if I'd have walked (which isn't so close) she wouldn't have been able to come to the school with me as they've sent the bubble home. But at least next time I can leave her in the car if needs be now we've got the big one back.

I came home and she was where I'd left her, on the sofa watching tv lying down on her iPa

Is this awful of me? I feel so negligent.

It’s perfectly normal in other countries for children as young as 6 to walk to/from school and stay at home for few hours on their own after school(they often finish school at around lunchtime).I walked to school by myself from the age of 6 and wanted to be left on my own but it never happened because we lived with my grandparents.I don’t think it’s unreasonable to leave a 7 year old at home for 15 min if she’s aware what to do in an emergency situation and is happy to be on her own.She was sitting on the sofa watching.I’ve never left my 8 year old even though he’s been begging me to leave him when I need to pop out for a few minutes.I haven’t done it yet just because I was never in this sort of situation.So if your daughter is sensible and aware of the dangers (not to open the door to strangers )snd knows what to do in emergencies ,it’s fine.There’s no law that says you can’t.

I think it’s all down to the level or maturity more than age. I’ve left my 8 year old home to dash to the local shop as I was out of nappies (for my son not her haha) and it would have took 10 times longer waiting for her to get ready than it would going alone, I was gone roughly 10 mins and all was well. She was just sat playing on her Xbox. I wouldn’t make it a regular thing but you did what you had to do. Don’t beat yourself up.

Difficult, and depends on the child. Worst case scenario, what if you were involved in some sort of accident when doing the school run and those 15 minutes turned into much longer, would your DC have coped with a much longer home alone? I have left a much older DS at home, but later when he was an adult he told me he nearly had an accident with the grill catching fire. Luckily he managed it.

Nearly 30 pages and 700 posts on something that has already taken place when the question was asked?!

You did it OP why do you need to be reassured

If I had a sensible 7 yo and was genuinely going to be out of the house for only 15 minutes (assuming this is really the case) then yes, I'd have done it. You did it, OP, nothing bad happened and the chances of something bad happening in that particular tiny window of time were miniscule. Don't beat yourself up and try not to do it again.

I'm trying to work out how far it is to walk a 7.5 min drive. I think it takes me about 7.5 minutes to drive to the centre of the next village from here, though I'm able to hit 50 mph once out of both villages. I think if I walked it, it would be about 30 minutes +. That sounds ok but if you have lots of smaller kids (I'm assuming primary age) it could be a real trial, wrangling 4 of them (you only have two hands!) on what might be busy or dangerous roads, roads with no proper pavement or path, roads with horrible crossings ... use some imagination! We don't know what the local circs are like. And this was something of an emergency, and friends and non-household family are NOT ALLOWED to put your kids in their car at the moment, are they?

I will say though, once you leave a child for a few minutes in an emergency once, it will become easier to do it again, and that's where the danger slips in. We rationalise that nothing bad happened the first time so it'll be ok the next, etc - and of course across time, the chances of something unlucky occurring will increase (I'm not running this past DH who sort of does probability for work because he'll say I'm wrong but...). So do it once if you had to, make better arrangements for next time and try not to beat yourself up.

I'd also second ringing school - they might have been able to help in some way.

"msgreen
not legal ,,,,,NO not ok
surely they should all stay off school until tested etc
otherwise if she has it all of the other kids will pass it on as well to other families even if you don't seem to care about your own
FFS we will never have our lives back if people like you keep this behaviour up ,
can't we all behave as caring citizen"

What a load of misinformed rubbish, msgreen! Please educate yourself about what to do if a child of yours is sent home to isolate because another child in their school bubble tested positive. You do NOT take the others out of school and you do NOT all isolate as a family unless your child (or any of you) develop symptoms. The child from the infected bubble has to stay at home/garden for as long as they've been told to (this will depend on the date of exposure - by the time they get the test done and results back, it's often a lot less than the 14 days needed). The siblings and parents don't have to isolate.

And no, it's not illegal. You are allowed, as a parent, to make a judgement based on your knowledge of your own child's capabilities, the safety of the household and the time spent away.

but apart from that ...

All these 'don't do it again' statements. Of course she will do it again the child will get older not go backwards in time - this was the first baby steps towards independence. Soon her DD will be 8 and might well do it again. She might start going to a friends down the street alone or walking to school with a friend at that age. Her DC is going to mature and clearly was ready for this small step. You can't just turn around and give kids sudden independence when they turn 11 and start high school, it's a gradual process (although I do see from some posters even at 11 or 13 some have not begun this process - this is actually very detrimental to the child )

I walked a mile to school and back twice a day alone at 7

Sometimes I wonder at some of these reactions. YANBU to leave a 7.5 year old alone at home for a short time. Every day we face risk especially in these times. We need to raise out children with an ability to cope with the decisions needed and how to keep themselves safe. If they are over protected, they will become nervous and unconfident young people. Confidence in themselves gives them the power to grow into well rounded adults and face the World for themselves, and learn along the way how to do this. I would recommend sending all children to Beavers and Scouts. It will open your eyes to what you can trust a young child to handle. Rather than instill l fear in them, you will equip them with the tools they need for real life.

@Caelan2018

No way would I leave a child alone in the house in case of fire or anything else happened she is way too young sorry! As for someone saying they left 5 year old alone holy god .. no words ans before anyone judges me yes I she kids they are 15 yrs. 2 yrs and 10 days old no way would I leave them without an adult

You wouldn't leave your 15 year old without an adult??

@LoisLane66

By the time you got in the car, drove to the school, parked and waited for the children (all yours at same school? ) to emerge then drive home. I can safely bet it was longer than 5 minutes. I would never have done that with my five children. Can't understand whether you were picking up other children too or just your own and how old are they to all be at the same school? I think if you were comfortable about leaving your daughter, you would not be asking us if it was ok. I agree with other comments that you had enough time to make other, safer arrangements.

Read at least the Ops posts.

She was 15 mins
She had a smaller car than usual.
The children were a combination of her children and DSC. I think she was collecting 3 children and took her 2yo with her on the school run. Hence 5 seater car was full.

Sorry posted to soon

Op wasn't particularly comfortable with it hence looking for reassurance that she isn't the worlds worse mum.
What other arrangements would you suggest?

I thought you'd left them the entire day! I think if you leave a child that age telling them to call Daddy if you're not back in 30 mins, watching a show on TV, it's safe to pop out for a very short time. I know I used to pop out to buy milk when my daughter was that age and she wasn't much older before she was walking home with friends from school.

@TheSecretaryBird

You spoke to her and explained what to do if she needed you and you were gone for 15 minutes. You wouldn’t left her if you had any doubts. If her bubble is isolating then she shouldn’t leave the house (regardless of the number of seats in the car). YOU and only you know your child and what she is capable of and what is reasonable. You are not negligent - you are doing your best in a rubbish situation. Modern technology has meant that situations like this can happen relatively safely as she knows how to contact you and you would be able to get back quickly. Most kids will easily spend hours in front of a screen so 15minutes is neither here not there. You sound like a very caring parent who is doing their best in a very difficult situation.

This!

I know a few parents who have needed to do this at times, myself included, I’ve even had my DH virtually babysit on FaceTime when I’ve needed to briefly go out. Not everyone has people they can call on and if the child is mature enough to understand the situation and you have put all precautions in place then it’s not unreasonable. It’s no different to spending 15 minutes in the shower or being outside doing jobs while your DCs are in the house.

Stop beating yourself up.

I think it was absolutely fine. If you didn’t think she’d be ok you wouldn’t have left her. It was 15 minutes while you did the school run, you weren’t out shopping it at the pub.

You did what you needed to do & I’m sure she loved that tiny bit of trust & independence. It’s not something you’d do on a regular basis so don’t worry about it.

Honestly I think it depends on the child. My eldest would probably have been OK, my younger son - who is now 8 would likely find it terrifying.

You're alright. This whole thing is a shit situation and you're doing your best.

It’s perfectly normal in other countries for children as young as 6 to walk to/from school and stay at home for few hours on their own after school(they often finish school at around lunchtime)

Yup. My daughter did when she started school at 6, twice a week I was at work when she finished school at 1pm and I finished work at 2pm for a couple of months until I went on maternity leave. Her best friend in her class was similarly home alone a few days a week, sometimes they hung out together instead of being alone but both were fine alone too.

I think there was a case where lady left 6year old for 45 minutes she got a caution? No legal age when can leave children. Looks like your incident is in the grey area to me. At that age children start to become a little independent.

Depends on child. My son is same age and 3 of his class mates walk to school alone sometime and when I was a child we did all sorts at 7 that they don't do now. My son cannot be left alone at the moment, he wouldn't do anything dangerous but I don't think he would react to a danger presented to him. So a very subjective issue.... If you child, like mine has learning disabilities then probably no, but a friends seven year old is probably more responsible than most adults...😕

what if you were involved in some sort of accident when doing the school run
No way would I leave a child alone in the house in case of fire

• I would prefer my 7 year old was sitting on the sofa instead of being in the accident with me. If you do not come back when you promised, wouldn't your 7 year old know to call someone, or go ask the neighbours what to do?

• the chances of house spontaneously combusting in the 15 minutes child is alone are extremely low. We are talking about child watching TV, not deep asleep and not hearing fire alarm. And a 7 year old should be taught what to do in such case.

In case someone sent SS after you because your 7 year old was alone, I would expect they will actually take into account the maturity of the child and if parents have taught them how to manage in potentially risky situations. If your 15 year old has no idea how to handle and issues or emergencies then that can be putting them more in risk than a 7 year old who has.
We actually had this topic in real life in the neighbourhood a few weeks ago, relatively young children were left and an incident happened. They did everything correctly and bigger damage was avoided - no authorities had any issues with them being alone, because parents had done their job preparing the DC.

YANBU. I have done this countless times over the years with my 4. They all survived into adulthood without any issues. I had no friends or relatives to call on and I would never trust a neighbour to sit with them.
Maybe you could keep an emergency fund to pay for a taxi to collect the children next time you find yourself in a situation like this. 💐❤️

Maybe you could keep an emergency fund to pay for a taxi to collect the children next time you find yourself in a situation like this.

Would a taxi actually take 3 young primary aged kids? Yes I know some kids are Taxi'd to school but are those drivers given additional checks?

I'm confused - why couldn't DH have collected them ?

We nearly always played with matches if our parents left us alone.

@Mango101

I'm confused - why couldn't DH have collected them ?

RTFT her DH was at work.