Page 22 | Twelve year old at home alone, friend's parent "rescued" her

SpringCalling · 2023-04-30T08:34:47+00:00

Hello I'd like a reality check into whether I have lost the plot or not, Have a 12 year old DD. Last night I went out for 3 hours to a venue a 19 minute cycle away. She does not like babysitters and said no to the option of going to her dads. I have left her in the evening once before - for a couple of hours at a school do. So i thought ok will let her stay in her own again, she can call me if needed etc. All day she had tried to get a sleepover with Friend A and it had not come off. So i go out, one hour in I check my phone (had turned sound off as music venue) and loads of texts and calls. In short, she'd been on phone to Friend A saying she was scared and alone. And Friend A's mum had come to pick her up and taken her to her home! I left immediately and went to Friend A's home to bring her back. I apologised to DD that she was scared and have said in future she will just have to go to her dads etc. But I suspect master manipulation - she nearly got that sleepover after all. Plus not sure how to think about the friend's mum just picking her up, not calling me. I was incommunicado for an hour, but she didn't even try. Have i lost the plot? Was i unreasonable leaving 12 year old home alone for 3 hours?

grumpycow1 · 02/05/2023 08:13

I know the point has been hammered home… but YABU. What’s the point of saying you’re only 19 mins away if you didn’t answer your phone for an hour. I get the heebiejeebies alone in the evening sometimes and I’m 38! It’s totally understandable at 12 and I don’t agree it’s manipulative. Next time just make sure she is looked after somewhere and you can relax.

Ace7 · 02/05/2023 08:24

I totally agree with:
carriedout · 30/04/2023 09:39
“IMO, 12 is still a bit too young to be left for the evening.

I think you should make a choice between the basic options which are:
-You are home
-DD is at dad's
-Babysitter
-DD comes with you

You can't outsource that decision to a 12yo, you remain responsible for the consequences.”

And being uncontactable for an hour is absolutely unreasonable when you have a child at home on her own.

Ohhoho · 02/05/2023 10:11

Of course now everyone takes for granted that we have the means of constant contact when out and about. The shock that someone is unavailable for an hour is very new. How do you think people coped before mobile phones? The shock and horror expressed is a bit much. We don’t know the personalities involved I would trust the teller on a forum which is for support. She admits to being conflicted.
12 year olds can be very self sufficient and glad of the responsibility and resourceful, or not. I should think there is a bit of manipulation going on. But that’s pretty normal too. Other arrangements will have to be made in the future, forewarned. Or just don’t go out.🤷🏽‍♀️as it seems she has no siblings or even a dog, being alone in a house can be … well lonely.

Goldenbear · 02/05/2023 10:42

Dibbydoos · 02/05/2023 07:50

As a Gen X kid - the generation of latch key kids from age 6 or so - we were left home alone from a much younger age. I don't know if today 12yo is too young, but I'd say it isn't.

However, the reality is your daughter manipulated everyone. You def need a conversation with her and she needs to be under no doubt that what she did was unacceptable. Scared my ass.

You also need a conversation with the parent of friend A to clear the air. Firstly about what you checked prior to leaving your daughter and then what she did/wanted. Lastly about contacting you so you know where your child is if she picks her up again in the future. Be friendly, she did what she thought was the right thing and may say, the kids contacted you so she didn't feel she needed to.

My older brother was Generation X, I'm a bit younger and no we where not left on our own at 12 neither were we all latch key kids from 6 and I don't know anyone that was, South west London upbringing there is no way my Mum would have done that.

I can't believe the proposition that a 12 year old is a master manipulator, all this plotting and planning ridiculous!

fUNNYfACE36 · 02/05/2023 10:44

It's only OK if the child is happy with it.She wasn't

lanthanum · 02/05/2023 10:57

We found a halfway point at that sort of age of getting a babysitter for half the evening. DD was happy on her own for a while, but the babysitter came before she went to bed. Might she be happier to have a babysitter on that sort of basis?

lanthanum · 02/05/2023 11:00

Oh, and the other thing we did, if we were going to be out of contact or a distance away, was to ask a friend to be "on call", so that DD knew there was someone she could call who would not need any explanation.

weirdoboelady · 04/05/2023 22:45

Ohhoho · 02/05/2023 10:11

Of course now everyone takes for granted that we have the means of constant contact when out and about. The shock that someone is unavailable for an hour is very new. How do you think people coped before mobile phones? The shock and horror expressed is a bit much. We don’t know the personalities involved I would trust the teller on a forum which is for support. She admits to being conflicted.
12 year olds can be very self sufficient and glad of the responsibility and resourceful, or not. I should think there is a bit of manipulation going on. But that’s pretty normal too. Other arrangements will have to be made in the future, forewarned. Or just don’t go out.🤷🏽‍♀️as it seems she has no siblings or even a dog, being alone in a house can be … well lonely.

Before mobile phones, you wouldn't have a 12 year old child panicking because her mum, who had assured her would be available if needed, was uncontactable by phone for (well) over an hour. I've been in this situation as an adult (vulnerable husband not answering the phone) and it's pretty terrifying, without the addition of being a 12 year old alone at home for the first time.

2userspast3 · 04/05/2023 23:18

Has OP said it was for the first time? There was a friendly neighbour and a dad. And 12 isn't young. School leaving age used to be 13.

Stewball01 · 05/05/2023 00:13

I remember my sister baby sitting me when she was 13.
Switching your phone off was ridiculous.

Survey99 · 05/05/2023 04:45

2userspast3 · 04/05/2023 23:18

Has OP said it was for the first time? There was a friendly neighbour and a dad. And 12 isn't young. School leaving age used to be 13.

When? Over 100 years ago? I would like to think we have moved on a bit in terms of child welfare and safe guarding since then.

2userspast3 · 05/05/2023 08:52

We also infantilise children. A 13 year old is capable of phoning her dad or walking round to the neighbour's house. How are children supposed to learn to have any initiative? To develop any independence? These are the children who are going to university and are still on the phone to their mum every day over any tiny problem.

Rhondaa · 05/05/2023 08:55

2userspast3 · 05/05/2023 08:52

We also infantilise children. A 13 year old is capable of phoning her dad or walking round to the neighbour's house. How are children supposed to learn to have any initiative? To develop any independence? These are the children who are going to university and are still on the phone to their mum every day over any tiny problem.

A 12 yr old should not have to go knocking on neighbours doors because her mother has gone for a night out and switched her phone off.

melj1213 · 05/05/2023 09:04

2userspast3 · 05/05/2023 08:52

We also infantilise children. A 13 year old is capable of phoning her dad or walking round to the neighbour's house. How are children supposed to learn to have any initiative? To develop any independence? These are the children who are going to university and are still on the phone to their mum every day over any tiny problem.

12yos might be capable of doing those things but that doesn't mean that in the moment of panic they will think logically enough to do one of those things.

This 12yo was told her mum would be out but had her phone to call her if there were any problems ... She had a problem so repeatedly called her mum and got no response. That probably lead her into more of a flap and she didn't think to call anyone else, instead she contacted the friend she'd already been talking to to tell her, who in turn told her mum that her friend was upset and couldn't contact her mum so the adult made the rational decision to make sure the child was safe.

If her mum had been contactable then the problem probably could have been resolved logically: either mum needed to come home if it was something serious; she could have talked the DD through the issue if it was something straightforward; she could have told the DD to call her dad or another responsible adult that was "on call" (or called them herself to ask them to check in on DD). The fact she wasn't contactable probably turned a little 12yo wobble into a massive panic (already scared and mum not answering multiple messages/calls? Of course you're going to worry) and she did the first thing she thought of and told her friend.

There's a massive difference between a 12yo being left alone for one of the first times in the evening and getting spooked by something and wanting reassurance and an 18yo away at university calling home for every little issue, but that's what those intervening 6years are for - giving children independence in age appropriate ways and stages.

Sartre · 05/05/2023 09:33

I think she was playing the game tbh. I have a 12 year old DD and I know damn well she would do something like this in order to go to her friend’s house. She wanted to be at her friend’s house but her Mum didn’t agree or whatever so she played the ‘oh I’m so scared’ card in the hope the Mum would take pity on her which worked… If she was genuinely scared (which I doubt) she could have called you or her Dad as you say. She was playing the game.

Leaving a 12 yo home alone is fine fwiw, I do it all of the time.

Survey99 · 05/05/2023 09:46

2userspast3 · 05/05/2023 08:52

We also infantilise children. A 13 year old is capable of phoning her dad or walking round to the neighbour's house. How are children supposed to learn to have any initiative? To develop any independence? These are the children who are going to university and are still on the phone to their mum every day over any tiny problem.

Maybe she didn't feel comfortable phoning he dad and telling him she had been left home alone and mum had switched her phone off and felt more comfortable telling her friend who then told her mum.

For whatever reason she was scared being in the house alone, it is not inconceivable she was also too scared to leave the relative safety of the house alone and go knocking on other peoples doors.

Some 12 year olds would be fine being left alone. This one obviously wasn't. Her mum screwed up not making proper arrangements for emergency support if she needed it.

MichelleScarn · 05/05/2023 09:58

@Sartre , If she was genuinely scared (which I doubt) she could have called you whole point of thread is dd DID call and text the mum, who'd put her phone on mute so didn't hear the phone to respond as promised. But hey, jump on the bandwagon of being horrible about a child!

melj1213 · 05/05/2023 12:26

If she was genuinely scared (which I doubt) she could have called you or her Dad as you say. She was playing the game.

SHE DID FUCKING PHONE HER MUM ... REPEATEDLY ... OVER THE COURSE OF AN HOUR... NONE OF THE CALLS WERE ANSWERED

JFC how many more times are people going to suggest the child was manipulative and she could have called her mum if she was really scared?

Perhaps she was playing the game initially, but how do you know that over the course of the hour of all calls and messages going unread/unresponded to the "game playing" didn't turn into genuine fear?