To think people in the UK are very lax generally about children being left alone?

[Toxicityofourcity]

Not from the UK. Some of the threads on here baffle me when it comes to leaving children alone. Children as young as 10 and 11 getting themselves home from the school, bus etc and letting themselves into an empty house. Being left for a few hours on their own. Have just read a thread about a 16yr old being left for 4 days... because she has to mind some cats?!? WTF? I just don't understand. This is not something that's done in my country at all. Is it a cultural thing? Do people not worry about house fires, accidents, abductions etc.? I just really don't understand it. But here on MN it seems totally acceptable?

You sound quite smug tbh.

Nothing wrong with leaving a 16yo for few days if they're sensible. My parents went to Spain for a week and left me at that age.

lol having lived in ireland most of my life i can categorically say you are talking rubbish and this is real clickbait. lol loads of kids even primary school kids go home alone

At age 14 I was childminding, 16 I was going on multiple camping/festival weekends with friends, at 17/18 I backpacked around Europe before starting university. All before mobile phones were a thing.

If a 16yo can't be left alone for a couple of nights, the real world's going to come as a bit of a shock.

Jesus if a year 7 was going to after school club they would surely be picked on ! Yes in this country I would say from secondary school children start having independence

From about 12 years old, both my parents left for work at 8am and weren't home until after 5. I got myself ready for school, my own breakfast and would sometimes make my own tea too. When we were ill we stayed at home on our own and also during the week on school holidays if my parents had to work. I absolutely loved the independence I had as a teenager and couldn't have thought anything worse than my parents being there all the time for me and taking me back and forth to school. I loved walking home with my friends.

From about 15, I was regularly travelling 2.5 hours to go visit my cousins on a train and 16 was left while my parents went on a holiday for a week. I think giving me that independence is the best thing they did.

I'm absolutely baffled that a secondary age child would need childcare or a 13 year old can only be left for 30 mins to an hour at a time!

Tbh when my eldest turns 10/11 (he’s 8 in Aug so couple of years off yet!) I will only be leaving him for short periods of time and I’m in the uk!

I’ll be teaching him to make himself some simple snacks/meals and trying my best to get him independent!

my stepdaughter who is 11 walks to her aunties (about 15 mins away from her mums house) and also gets left alone for short periods of time, she is planning to walk to and from Highschool on her own.

I will be encouraging my children to use transport when needed but if I had a car of course I’d drop them off to assure there safe🤷‍♀️

at 16 I would expect them to be able to spend a couple of nights alone, I’m hoping by this age they’ll know how to cook, make beds and put a wash on themselves!

I can completely understand tho why some parents may not feel comfortable leaving there children, so I plan to only do it here and there for an hour or so, I’ll also ring to make sure everything is ok!

I don’t think it’s bizarre to want to make sure your children are safe tbh, they will gain independence at any age, I think starting younger is best however others will disagree and have your view op.. nobody is right or wrong.

do what you feel comfortable with! I sometimes am surprised when I drop my children off at primary tho and some of the year 4/5s are walking alone.. I saw a year 6 today dropping off there younger sister who is in my son’s nursery class (older ones are meant to start at 8:45) I don’t understand why the parents wouldn’t just take there own little one to school as that meant the year 6 child being late by 10mins for school.

'a backward country like Ireland'??????
Was that a joke? If not, that's really not an appropriate thing to write on here. In many people's living memories you had signs up saying 'no blacks, no dogs, no Irish'. Anti-Irish sentiment isn't OK.

This thread is hilarious.
You can't leave a 10/11 year old home alone for an hour because you'd be reported? You can't leave a 16 year old alone for a few nights in case they forget to turn the stove off? But at 17.5 you will start to let them, to prepare them for full independence at age 18?!
You sound batshit OP.

First, please those of you saying that if you can't leave an (in my case) 13yo for a couple of hours you've done something wrong, please remember some of us would give anything to be able to safely allow that 13yo the independence. My 13yo is years away from being able to be left for more than a couple of minutes.

His 9yo brother though, even though he also has SEN is far more capable of being independent. Thankfully his school seems a lot more willing to allow the children independence than seems the norm nowadays. They allow children to walk/cycle home by themselves from year 4 and this is something we've built up over the last year, steadily increasing the distance between where we leave/meet him and the school (which he cycles to/from after doing a cycling course which is kind of pre-bikability). He can also go to the shop on his own and is happy to be left for 20min in the house while the dog is taken for a walk.

Unfortunately I seem to be a bit of an outlier here, possibly because I'm an older parent and grew up in a time when it was very common to spend hours on my out of the house. We actually had one busybody report us to the school for leaving the 9yo for 20min while the dog was walked. Good thing the headteacher is the sensible sort who encourages independence in the pupils. (And that we'd had discussions with her on how we were going to start building that independence over this year).

As for my childhood, I was walking to the park, shop etc with my similarly aged cousins (London so lots of traffic) from around 7. Moved out of London at age 8 and then was walking to/from Junior school, picking up my younger sister and her friend from Infants on the way. Come senior school I was walking the 3 miles to/from school in all weather's from day 1, and we finished a lot later than most schools finish now, in the middle of winter it would be dark by the time I got back, especially I had had detention. At the same age I was cooking roast dinners on a Sunday.
As soon as I turned 13 and 9months, I got a paper round plus working Sat/Sun in the newsagents (for the princely sum of £1/hour). Around the same time I started babysitting for local families, including overnight (for police officers no less)
The day I turned 16 I applied for a part time job in the local supermarket (and started about a week later). By about 16 and half I was working 30hrs/week as well as going to college full time. I was contributing to my families household expenses, buying my own clothes, paying for my nights out.
At 18 I lived in my own flat with a baby, thanks to being taught to do the things needed to be independent, despite having undiagnosed ASD and ADHD, I was capable of running my own household. Of working full time, and being a parent.

@Honeymud your situation was the same as mine, exactly, but 12 year old girls are more mature. I have three sons and would leave them alone for up to an hour, maybe two, but certainly not all day. I think boys are different and take longer to grow up. I would be afraid they'd egg each other on to do something daft.

Ah another slag the UK off thread. Lot of them lately. Seems like we're fair game atm

Was left at home from a young age. Not 100% sure what age. My mum passed when I was 6 and I had to grow up quickly. Maybe made me more responsible.

At 16 I was working weekends and evenings in a DIY store and navigating a late evening bus home. Three of us went camping for a week to Alton Towers. I was often home alone for a few nights as my mum was a single parent who was a nurse. From 11 I had a key and made my own tea. Depends on each child of course.

Like the OP (allegedly[1]) I'm Irish and live in Ireland and don't see it as a 'slag off the UK' thread, more as an 'isn't the UK great for encouraging independence and self-reliance in children' thread.

That may not have been her intention, but it seems to be the general response.

Sympathy to anyone caring for a child or adult who can't be left alone - I've done a bit of that with the elderly, and know it's tough.

[1] Not that I recognise the Ireland she describes, with 'large towns' (not cities, she admits cities are different) in the south west where child abduction is a threat and 16 year olds can't take responsibilities for a few days.

And I'm sorry, a 16 yr old being left for 4 days to mind some bloody cats is just irresponsible IMO.

That “bloody” about the animals who are totally reliant on a human says a lot about the OP, none of it good imo .

I’m in Australia and was walking home from school alone by the time I was nine (mid 70s) and would be home for a couple of hours alone from my early teens because my mother was at work. This was before the era of “latchkey kids” as they were called, but there was nothing eyebrow-raising about it.

I’d be pleased that a sixteen year old was responsible and knowledgeable enough to care for animals for a few days.

You sound quite mad OP.

I’m in NI. My children have taken public transport on their own since 11 as they had to get to secondary school.
When they started secondary school they were home alone for a couple of hours.
They are smarter and more capable than you give them credit for.

You kept saying " Where I'm from" as if you were in some restricted country..
And l have friends in Dublin and you must just be one of a few because they and their family/ friends don't share your view.
Every child is different, some are more than capable than their peers at the same age.
When my daughters got to the age of 15, they were like adults, seemed to old to still be attending school. Age 16 they were going to London with their friends to see concerts and theatre shows.
Yet some of their peers in school seemed still very child like.. l think it's how they have been brought up etc... no two children of the same age are the same.

I was working full time from 16 and was expected to be a responsible employee. The idea I could not have been left alone at home for four days would have been alien to me.

I first heard the term 'latchkey kids' in the late 60s on a BBC schools programme (I lived in the UK with my Irish parents until my early teens). It baffled me - I walked home from school (literally round the block, scores of other children walking home 'alone' at the same time) from the age of 8 if not earlier and let myself in the door with my key. My mother (secondary teacher a couple of miles away) was home within an hour, The TV programme's horror of there being no-one home to give latchkey kids 'tea' baffled me because tea was a drink that I didn't particularly want. Family dinner was at about 6.

I think I vaguely realised, even then (I was probably 10 or 11) that it was a criticism of women working outside the home - a very repressive class-based narrative.

I used to go to the library on my own too (similar distance to the school), and by the age of 10 or 11 used to sometimes take a load of sheets and stuff to the laundrette a few streets away and wash and dry them - had other friends who did the same thing (automatic washing machines at home hadn't come in). That final year of primary school I was let go into the city centre with a pal if I wanted to - luckily the museums let unaccompanied children it - I loved them. The one place I wasn't allowed alone was the local recreation ground beside the school - not sure whether that was because it had a reputation of because of a bad experience my father had with a dodgy man when he was a child (he repressed that memory - his brother told me about it). Before I was 14 I was let go by bus to the swimming pool.

None of that was regarded as negligent or odd by anyone.

16yo alone for 4 days isn't irresponcible, but quite unwise, unless the said teenager is super trustworthy and reliable.

Secondary aged children going to school and staying home for a couple of jours - totally normal. Unless they have special needs, they don't need to be babysat. They aren't babies.

The OP left the thread on page 4.

If a 16 year old can join the army they can stay at home by themselves for a few days.

If it was truly the norm where you are across the country that dc of 10-16 couldn't be left alone, there would be childcare available for that age group, it would be profitable for people to provide it.

The fact that your dc are too old for the available childcare tells me that most people are beginning to leave their dc for certain periods.

The idea that a 16 yo can't be alone for a few days seems particularly strange - dc can live independently at that age.

I left home at 16! I’m pretty sure majority of 16 year olds are capable of caring for themselves and a cat for a few days 😂😂