Ex DIL leaving 8 year old in house alone

[billybobhonking]

Over the Christmas period I have found out my ex DIL has been leaving my 8 year old granddaughter alone in the house while she 'nips' to the shops. However, she can be gone for around about an hour.

When I brought up my concern to my son he said that he was fine with it, granddaughter is quite mature for her age I suppose. He said that ex DIL had spoken to her about what to do in an emergency/ to not answer the door etc. She has a snib on the door so whilst granddaughter is locked in she can very easily gets out. Ex DIL phoned her to check in.

It just doesn't sit right with me, I can't imagine leaving any of my boys alone at that age. Maybe in the car to nip into a shop quickly but nothing more than that. But since my son says he's fine about it I feel like there isn't much I can do. Other than look for reassurance that this is ok?

We are in Scotland and so there are no specific laws on this, it's up to the parents discretion but she just turned 8 in October. I feel it is far too young.

I could possibly speak to ex DILs mum to have a word but don't want to upset anyone.

AIBU to be concerned about this? I mean what about a fire? My son says she knows what to do but she 8 years old! Of course she doesn't know what to do!!

[DisforDarkChocolate]

Where I live most eight-year-olds start walking home alone or with friends as they start middle school next year most parents don't drop off at the school.

[Hugoslavia]

@TheOriginalEmu

What an unkind and uncalled for comment! Very judgemental. The OP is perfectly within her rights to be concerned. Concern is vastly different from judging someone! The Dil is only popping out for short periods and has said that she believes this to be fine. That is vastly different to being extremely desperate for childcare. If it's too much trouble for the Dil to take her daughter out with her when she pops to the shops, I doubt that she could be bothered to pick up the phone, call her mil and then wait for her to arrive.

[VividImaginationAgain]

I think it’s far too young to be left alone but, if both her parents are happy with it, I don’t really see what you can do. If you speak to the DIL or her mother you risk jeopardising your relationship with them and therefore your GGD.

I risk assess for my children and would not be happy with anyone interfering.

[liveforsummer]

@Wineandroses3

Icedcoffee and why have you decided that 8 is old enough to be left home alone? Some 6 year olds i know are more responsible that some 8 year olds - is 6 ok aswell then???
8 years old is just a child for God’s sake.

I'd guess because both parents have separately judged her as such and the OP admits she is mature

[HugeAckmansWife]

As a pp said, comparing your dil with your son isn't fair. If she has the child 90% of the time she has far less opportunity to nip out for child free errands etc than your son. She has made a parenting decusion that she and he are fine with. It's entirely irrelevant how it 'sits' with you. From the response on here, it's a judgement call based on the individual child and circumstances. In some, 8 is fine, in others not. There are some 14 year olds I teach who I doubt are left alone as they have zero common sense.

[liveforsummer]

If it's too much trouble for the Dil to take her daughter out with her when she pops to the shops, I doubt that she could be bothered to pick up the phone, call her mil and then wait for her to arrive.

Seeing it's no actual trouble to take an average 8 year old out - they can put on their coat and shoes while you get your own, not like getting a toddler out the door - I'd assume it's more because the 8 year old wishes to stay

[liveforsummer]

[quote FatBettyintheCoop]@liveforsummer

At our primary school, all children are collected by an adult at the school gate or they catch the school bus. No child is allowed to leave unaccompanied.
The school bus drops the child off to a waiting adult rather than leaves them to walk home alone. It could be a half mile walk up a quiet road/boreen.

I think the issue about leaving children at home also depends on whereabouts you live. I have to drive about 7 miles to the nearest supermarket so it's not a five minute trot to the corner shop. Doing a 'quick shop' is likely to take me at least 30-60mins door to door. I wouldn't drive all the way there just to buy some bread and milk.

Where I grew up, we all knew our immediate neighbours so if you had a problem, you could run round to get 'Aunty' Doreen from number 15 to come and help. When I cut myself badly aged about 8, one of my neighbours with a car drove me to the hospital to get it stitched. Mum didn't drive and we didn't have a phone either.

Many people on mumsnet don't appear to know their neighbours very well which seems very weird to me.

[/quote]
Ah ok. That's different to your previous statement. Are you saying they don't let dc walk home at any age?

[Waxonwaxoff0]

There's not much you can do about it really.

I think 8 is too young to be left alone though no matter how mature the child seems. I have an 8 year old and wouldn't dream of doing it, I am a single parent so that is not an excuse. I think it is neglectful personally.

[Trivium4all]

Are contemporary 8yo really so much less competent than we were? By that age (in a small town) I was loose about town on my bicycle with a house key and a curfew (as long as my homework was done), and by 9yo (in a big city), I was taking the bus on my own to piano lessons or to go buy Xmas presents for my family. I knew emergency numbers, I knew to leave the house if there were a fire (which there never was, and I also knew not to cook on my own), and I would have felt confident to ask a bus driver, shop keeper, or police officer for help. I would trust my 8yo self alone for several hours. But I found, when my nephew was 8yo, that I wouldn't have trusted him to even cross the road without getting splatted...what's happened?

[ldontWanna]

@Waxonwaxoff0

There's not much you can do about it really.

I think 8 is too young to be left alone though no matter how mature the child seems. I have an 8 year old and wouldn't dream of doing it, I am a single parent so that is not an excuse. I think it is neglectful personally.

Why is it neglectful?

[liveforsummer]

@Waxonwaxoff0

There's not much you can do about it really.

I think 8 is too young to be left alone though no matter how mature the child seems. I have an 8 year old and wouldn't dream of doing it, I am a single parent so that is not an excuse. I think it is neglectful personally.

That's just opinion though, not fact. Plenty parents of 8 year olds leave them in the house while they pop to the shops. It's very common for 8 year olds here to walk to and from school alone too. School actively encouraged in on august when they reopened to keep crowding at the school gates to a minimum

[Wineandroses3]

@HugeAckmansWife

As a pp said, comparing your dil with your son isn't fair. If she has the child 90% of the time she has far less opportunity to nip out for child free errands etc than your son. She has made a parenting decusion that she and he are fine with. It's entirely irrelevant how it 'sits' with you. From the response on here, it's a judgement call based on the individual child and circumstances. In some, 8 is fine, in others not. There are some 14 year olds I teach who I doubt are left alone as they have zero common sense.

What utter nonsense. So they have made a “parenting decision” so that’s the end of it? OP is the grandmother and she has concerns about her 8 year old granddaughter being left home alone - that’s a legitimate concern. If something awful did happen to the child when she was left home alone - do you think the parents would get off Scott free as their defense would be “we made a parenting decision?”. No they wouldn’t because it’s a foreseeable risk that a child of 8 is at risk being left home alone

[icedcoffees]

@Wineandroses3

Icedcoffee and why have you decided that 8 is old enough to be left home alone? Some 6 year olds i know are more responsible that some 8 year olds - is 6 ok aswell then???
8 years old is just a child for God’s sake.

Well, in many countries, 5 and 6yos walk to school on their own @Wineandroses3 so a lot of it is obviously very cultural.

Unless you think English children are much less competent and capable than German or Swiss children?

Yes, eight is a child, but at some point you have to allow them to build independence. At 11yo, most children catch public transport or walk to school totally unaccompanied, and come back home to an empty house as their parents are still at work.

You can't go from never leaving your child alone to expecting them to do that without building up to it first, and most 8yos are more than capable of being left for short periods while parents pop to the shops. I

I remember being left at that age while my parents popped out and I don't think I moved from my spot in front of the TV, tbh.

[icedcoffees]

@Waxonwaxoff0

There's not much you can do about it really.

I think 8 is too young to be left alone though no matter how mature the child seems. I have an 8 year old and wouldn't dream of doing it, I am a single parent so that is not an excuse. I think it is neglectful personally.

But that's just personal opinion - it's not a fact that 8 is too young and to leave them is neglectful, hence why the law doesn't actually give a legal minimum age.

I suspect a LOT of it is cultural. 8yos in this country aren't inherently less capable than 8yos in countries like Germany and Switzerland (where children walk to school unaccompanied from age six) - it's just they're never given a chance to build any independence because they're either with their parents or in organised childcare.

[Waxonwaxoff0]

@ldontWanna because anything could happen. Just my opinion of course, I wouldn't tell anyone else how to parent, but that's what I'd think.

It's funny because there was another thread about pierced ears the other day and the general consensus was that no way is a child responsible enough to care for their ears until at least aged 10+ but on this thread people think being home alone, walking to school alone etc at age 8 is fine.

[ldontWanna]

@Trivium4all

Are contemporary 8yo really so much less competent than we were? By that age (in a small town) I was loose about town on my bicycle with a house key and a curfew (as long as my homework was done), and by 9yo (in a big city), I was taking the bus on my own to piano lessons or to go buy Xmas presents for my family. I knew emergency numbers, I knew to leave the house if there were a fire (which there never was, and I also knew not to cook on my own), and I would have felt confident to ask a bus driver, shop keeper, or police officer for help. I would trust my 8yo self alone for several hours. But I found, when my nephew was 8yo, that I wouldn't have trusted him to even cross the road without getting splatted...what's happened?

If they are less competent is because they have less experiences/opportunity to practice. Quite a lot of SAHM , less need to leave the house for every single thing, school runs must be done by parents up to a certain age (y5 at least where I am), a lot less children have the opportunity to play outside with a group of friends, knock on each other's door etc. as a lot of the activities and playdates are organised and supervised. Basically there's no need and less opportunities. Even if I wanted to send DD outside , despite having a designated outdoor communal are no other children are ever there. None of her friends meet up to go to the park or whatever and only two of her classmates walk home , and not all the time either.
They'd probably be competent if they had the opportunity to learn and practice the skills.

[Wineandroses3]

No iced coffees I don’t think English children are less capable than German or Swiss children 🥱 What I do think is that your opinion on this matter constitutes neglect because that’s what it is - neglect.

[RedHelenB]

Yabu. I left mine at that age for up to an hour and they were happy for me to do so.

[KurtWildesChristmasNamechange]

Just thinking back to when I was 8.. walked to school and back on my own, nipped to the shop for my mum, played out on my bike all over the place on my own, went to the park, occasionally watched my younger siblings while my mum nipped out.

My eldest DD was about 9 when I used to nip out and pick her little brother up from scouts, maybe gone 20 minutes.

But in actual fact, this thread isn't really about what the right age is to be left for a little while, it's about whether OP should take it up with her ex-dil's mother. I can only speak for myself here but if my ex-mil had an issue with me and spoke to my mum, not only would my mum not be best pleased with her, neither would I.

[ThirdElephant]

We let kids be kids a bit more now, not expecting them to be as able to handle themselves as adults are? My DF was one of the first lots of kids made to stay in school beyond age 14 (he was furious about that)- go back far enough and kids were deemed competent enough to go down mines and into factories.

I think there's a good argument to be made that we've gone too far in terms of protecting them- lots of people theorise that if we don't give them the chance to be responsible and take risks then we rob them of belief in their own competency and increase their anxiety levels. We make simple everyday tasks seem more complex and dangerous than they really are.

I'm not sure what the solution is.

[icedcoffees]

@Wineandroses3

No iced coffees I don’t think English children are less capable than German or Swiss children 🥱 What I do think is that your opinion on this matter constitutes neglect because that’s what it is - neglect.

lol, so millions of parents in this country must neglect their kids everyday according to your views.

I shall report all our local schools immediately for allowing 8yo's to walk home unaccompanied

[ThirdElephant]

Sorry, that was meant to be a reply to @Trivium4all

[MrsPelligrinoPetrichor]

@GrandmasCat

At 11 my son was taking 2 buses to get across the city to his secondary school on his own, like the vast majority of his classmates.

He could certainly manage an hour on his own at 8.

Yes, quite.

[backtolifebacktoreality]

Is an eight year older capable of dealing with an issue if something went wrong? Could they open the door to a stranger, cut themselves with a broken glass or knife, deal with a fire etc etc?

[Cupcakeschocolate]

I leave my 7 and 8 year old to go to the shop. Admittedly it is a 1 minute walk as it backs our house. I have left them for 20 minutes each when Ill to collect other children from school as they weren't allowed on site due to corona scares. They have a phone. I bought a dim card and have credit with just me and DHs number and o call them a couple of times. They can call me. They know what to do if there's a fire.... get out and call 999 or go to a neighbour for help. They don't touch anything dangerous. To be honest they are either watching TV, reading or playing on a tablet and don't even realise I have been gone. They know I have gone but when I get back they haven't realised the time. Parents know their children better than anyone. Unless they are under 6 and left for hours I don't see the issue. It depends on the child's maturity, location and parents