To insist my 12-yr old collects nine-yr old from school

[Bigroundpear]

My nine-year-old is in year 5 at a small inner-city state primary a five minute walk from home. School policy is for children to only be able to walk home alone from year 6 which I fully accept (though I don't particularly agree with it).

Last week I let the school know that my 12-year old (who is in secondary school and travelled alone from year 5 for 40 mins each way - different school) would be collecting nine-year-old from school today. School emailed back to refuse because their policy is siblings who collect must be over 14.

I emailed back to say I will be exercising my parental responsibility, that it's up to me what happens to my child outside of school and I will not be there to collect, but my oldest child will. My kids have done this same journey alone together often (school is next to a supermarket they visit together frequently), I have risk-assessed this and feel confident that though of course there are risks, everything that needs to be is in place to prevent them coming to harm. I have prepared both kids for all eventualities with the school today, including that they may call social services (not bothered about this, know SS won't do anything).

I think the school is over stepping the mark, and should release my nine-year-old, however I'm sad I have put office staff in this position.

AIBU?

Hey, from a ss pov you’re absolutely correct. If your child has health issues, school attendance may be impacted. Have a look ant section 17 and section 47 of the children act 1989 for a bit of info about what ss do. This may fall under s17, but that means you’d need to give consent.

Ideally they’d call you in and think about ways to support his education when not I’m school. Sounds like they’ve gone for a one size fits all approach. Actually SS rarely got involved in school attendance and if you were to call to ask them for help for this specific issue they would be highly likely to say no!

I would go in or call, calmly ask how they can support you and your child, explain visits to your home will not be happening as school isn’t a statutory body and you don’t consent but you would appreciate support to get him what he needs.

Not sure about this. I was a kid who looked after my own younger siblings - my mum moved out when I was 11, so I do know a thing or two about this. It has affected me too, I don’t doubt it. I don’t think that’s what’s going on here with my family. I am with my kids loads, unlike my own parents with me, if they’re cooking dinner it’ll be because I’m tiling the bathroom or making something else, and they are particularly happy about their excellent cooking skills. I am indoors the vast majority of evenings by 5.30 and we’re together.

Update on this evening is my oldest got a detention and because it’s a one off and emergency my boss let me go 45 mins early. Time I’ll make up tomorrow lunch… gah.

Isn't that always the way, OP!

In future can you ask the school to move the detention to a different day? With my eldest's school I would just email to inform them he couldn't do detentions on a Wednesday as he collected his sibling, so they'd move it to Thursday.

Is your 12 year old also going to be responsible for her younger sibling while you’re at work when she picks up from school? I don’t think the school is in the wrong here. A 12 year old can walk home alone, but adding the responsibility of a younger sibling and including childcare duties is a form of parentification and is both risky and unnecessary. Surely if your regular babysitter is on holidays you could have taken a few days leave too?

@Bigroundpear thanks for the advice I really appreciate it. I requested a meeting at the start of year 7 where I stated that through having hospital appointments and illness every winter, he had yet to achieve 100% attendance and with regards to that and his physical disability, could they assess what sort of support he could get in school. I told them what support he still needed physically. He was never given any support which resulted him getting locked into the pe department by himself from the end of 1st period until lunchtime. My mistake was not putting in a formal complaint about this.
They aren't making it an attendance issue, they have authorised every absence. They are making it a safeguarding issue, because in their words, if something was to happen to him and they hadn't seen him bla bla bla. It's their policy bla bla bla.
I have already looked at section 17, not that I can remember what it said, but I will have another look and also at 47.

Regarding your son's detention, was you given 24hrs notice of an after school detention? If not, I would make a complaint about that.

Ha, yes!

I did ask and they said yes but by the time they got back to me my boss had agreed. Fortunately one day more then back to babysitter.

Keep going be gentle and firm, you have the medical evidence, but need to stay in close contact with the school to let them know how he’s getting on.

I didn’t make a complaint about the detention - pissing one school off is enough for me, and oldest kid should have done his homework properly!

@ i completely understand. I have just looked it up anyway and according to the government website, schools don't have to give notice of a detention if the child is able to get home safely after.

married the now absent father very young and we split up mid-twenties, I have no control or say over him and he doesn’t often do pickups - but will occasionally, when it suits him, not in line with what I need for work.

thank god your child is only showing a few PTSD symptoms from your extreme parenting choices… 😂

Picking up my younger sister from school when I was in my teens is one of my happiest memories and the responsibility was good for me. I guess it depends on the child though and if they have to miss out on other things to help.

Someone probably already suggested this but at my DC primary our work around for this was to ask one of the other parents to ‘collect’ your kid then they hand them over to sibling at the gate. Then school are happy they have handed over to an adult.

@Bigroundpear also, when he is ill, I do call them every day to explain his absence and tell them about his wellbeing.
When they turned up on my doorstep, I was about to get my son and his medicine so that I could get him to take it. Them turning up made me completely forget what I was going to do and it wasn't until his next dose that I realised that he had missed a dose. It is not only an inconvenience but also disruptive when you are trying to care for a poorly child when neither of you has had much sleep.
I am really sorry to have hijacked your thread a little. I didn't want to make my own thread incase it got bombarded with comments that I Abu yadda yadda yadda. I have seen how brutal some of the comments can be. Plus I just wanted your professional opinion.

I don't think it's right to put so much responsibility onto a 12 year old... As others have said, it's not their job to parent their sibling, what happens if like most young siblings, they bicker or have a falling out over something and the younger one takes off or the eldest tries to assert some kind of authority? I suggest looking up parentification.... Regardless, the school shouldn't be enforcing their rules over yours when it comes to outside of school hours

good grief! At 12 years old I was regularly collecting my little brother and sister, walking us home, letting the dog out and going to the stables to muck out, saddle up and ride my horse, attend to its welfare etc if my mother and father weren’t available.
@Bigroundpear ignore the mollycoddlers who it seems would prefer to raise fragile infantiles instead of confident, independent humans. A parent’s guidance, influence and presence does not always require they be ‘present’ - some parents choose to have careers as well and can’t just work 5 hours a day in their dream jobs to simply baby their children the rest of the time! You are clearly an immensely capable, pragmatic and intuitive parent who knows their children inside out, has taught them well, isn’t afraid to put faith in that teaching, and has the fortitude and tenacity to challenge policies that do not align with legalities. An excellent example to set your children, and I’m really pleased with the outcome in your favour.
Some of the emotional blackmail bandied about on here is quite sad actually, and likely just projecting personal weaknesses. Take no notice - my three are 5, 7 and 9 and all board together at the same co-ed school to allow my husband and I to continue our careers (involves a lot of spontaneous international travel). We are not ‘physically’ there for anything 10 days out of 14, but FaceTime every day and cram an awful lot of hands on parenting into those 4 days - the children love school, seem happy and content, and we are raising very outgoing, self-assured and resilient little people as a result.
You sound like you’re doing a sterling job, and as long as you can always pick up cues from either child if they’re not happy with the arrangements, the school should be grateful for such a proactive, common-sensical parent!

I have two degrees in social work which covers child development luckily so don’t need to look it up. Parentification is a relatively new term, with somewhat unclear definitions. I wonder if you truly believe that picking up a sibling a few times once in a week is parentifying? Seriously?

I’m not asking for a medal but I make my kids a hot breakfast every day, clean their uniforms and lay them out, help with their homework, check their bags are packed correctly night before, and play, eat and talk with them every day. They are in no way in a parenting position. I was doing all I’ve mentioned above myself and for my own siblings when I was 12, i think that would be too much for my kids, but looking after each other occasionally is acceptable.

At my child's primary school it has to be an 18 year old picking up. They've been known to allow 16 year old in emergency.
Personally I think 14 is the right age and 12 is too young to be responsible for picking up.

12 is too young to be looking after other children. It’s not too young to be looking after yourself (walking yourself home and letting yourself in)
Don’t let your 12 yr old be too responsible for their age - they are not a substitute parent. It’s great to get them to do chores and pitch in to the team of the family just be careful how much you expect them to look after younger siblings . It’s not actually always that healthy. I speak from experience of what was expected from me.

I don’t think you should be challenging the schools policy which is literally in place to keep your children safe. Their standards will have to be ‘higher’ than an individual parents because they have to have a blanket policy for all children. If they allowed a child to leave school being picked up by another child and something happened- they would be at fault. They have to protect themselves as well.
I know it’s frustrating but don’t put your children or the office staff in a difficult position.

Same here! Well, we were about 8 and 6 when we started doing this - 2 miles across London on a bus.

I got intercity trains to my grandparents from 11, and I once got a transatlantic flight on my own at 10.

12 is plenty old enough to pick up a 9 year old if they're sensible DC.

It's for 45 minutes not 4.5 hours! Goodness, some perspective is needed here!

How will your DC cope if they never get to be independent?

The OP has already posted that the school have accepted her approach and her elder son will be collecting his younger brother.

A good result!

Wow. My Y6 kid cycles to and from school by himself and once the mornings and nights start to get lighter again the school have agreed that my Y4 child can cycle with him. Both are proficient cyclists and do club cycling and racing and have undertaken the proficiency courses. I say if both children are happy and confident with the arrangement (and obviously sensible enough to know what the potential issues are and how to deal with them) that it should be allowed. Independence doesn’t just happen, it is learned in small baby steps. There’s some incredibly overprotective parents in this thread. I’m with you OP. As a sensible, risk aware parent, we are more than capable of assessing risk and making choices for our individual children.

I’m 38 and grew up in a single-parent household. From the ages of 9 and 11 my brother and I walked to and from school together and were at home alone from 3.30ish until my mum got back just after 5pm.

It was fine: we could use the kettle, make toast etc but weren't allowed to use the oven or hob (although I was perfectly capable of making tuna pasta or slinging some fish fingers in the oven at that age). Mostly we watched TV and did our homework.

Technically you could say that I was 'in charge' of my brother but honestly, i never had to tell him what to do and I doubt he'd have let me! We recognised the responsibility we'd been given and didn't want to let our mum down.

@FeistyPanther1611 youve made a risk assessment and deem this safe. I totally back that. Wouldn’t let mine anywhere alone on a bike as they’re both dodgy cyclists - it’s all about making the decision that’s right for your child.