10 year old alone after school?

[Picklelicklemk]

In a bit of a pickle. Our DC becomes too old for a local nursery we use for after school in a couple of months. I don't finish work until 5pm and home for 5.30pm.

School finishes at 3.15pm what am I supposed to do to bridge the gap? Is 10 too young to be alone? DC is fairly sensible and trustworthy but just seems so young!

No family or friends we can rely on.

What do other people do for after school care when their DC hit this age? TIA

After school clubs?

It has plenty to do with being sensible. And it's not the 80s where I live but this is still the reality, as it is in many other countries. The UK is an outlier in how little independence it gives children.

Their parents grew up doing the same, if it bothered them when they were children you'd think they'd do something different (one parent stay home, work different shifts etc.) But in general they don't feel like that. My daughter always begged to stay home, she certainly wasn't bothered by looking after herself!

What do you think is less safe today than in the 80s?

It is not neglectful. It totally depends on how mature the child is, what sort of area you live in and what the journey home is like. Honest to goodness, I know things have changed since us gen x'ers were young but heavens to Betsy, this is all getting very silly.

DD used to walk herself home and let herself in from 10, she'd be alone till one of us got home from work. Never had an issue.

I did, from 10, because I begged to be allowed to rather than being by far the oldest child at a childminder's. I think it's fine if your child is happy and sensible.

A key safe would have helped me, as I wasn't great at remembering my key.

I actually gave mine a choice of after school club or coming home on her own for a bit and she picked the latter.

Giving kids responsibilities and letting them handle things alone absolutely does help in building confidence and independence. You may not like that for wherever reason but it doesn’t change the fact that most people learn and build confidence in new things best by doing them.

It’s entirely possible your 10 year old wouldn’t manage and would be lonely and that’s understandable. It’s also entirely possible you are massively underestimating what your 10 year old could quite happily manage given the choice. As I’ve mentioned in a past post all my child’s Y5 9-10 year old friends manage time alone fine. They don’t do it every school night so it’s not exactly the same but I suspect many of them would prefer it to being at a childminder if those were their options.

It's no longer the cultural norm in the UK to let young children do (almost) anything on their own. Other countries - including Sweden where @Simonjt is, and Germany where I am - are still very much like the UK was in the 1980s: children walk home from primary school, and are given a lot more independence and freedom in general. It's not neglectful, the children here are also "small, vulnerable and needing to be looked after and cared for" but that doesn't mean they can't be on their own at home for a while after school.

I actually gave mine a choice of after school club or coming home on her own for a bit and she picked the latter.

Mine had a choice too for my earlier finishing job. School was on my way home so I could have picked him up after an hour in asc. He chose the bus with his friends and a short time home alone. For my later finishing job, school was in the opposite direction, but I still made sure he was fine with it before I took the job.

Honestly? Despite the pearl clutchers, you really should be able to trust a 10 year old on this. Are there kids in the neighbouring houses at the school? Its summer term, I'd probably:

• check if there are any school run clubs at all after school
• encourage them to walk back with other kids going the same way

However, yabu to think a couple of hours after school care would eat up everything you are earning. What tosh! Childcare for one 10 year old is far less than even minimum wage and you get all the time they are at school for no childcare cost, so its worth it. I mean what would you do if your DC was only 7? Childcare is just an inevitable cost of working & earning.

My child is 10, 11 in October. No, I wouldn't leave him home on his own. However, I am in the fortunate position of grandparents collecting him from school. His school is a car drive away. If the school was walkable and the time home alone was an hour, then maybe yes, I would let him.

If the DC were only 7 they’d still be eligible for their current childcare, which OP has been able to afford.

When you take into consideration I work for minimum wage, £11.44 an hour. I do a 7 hour shift, the childminder, and I must stress the only registered childminder in the area that would offer a school pick up, is £16 per hour with a minimum of a 3 hour block booking. This coupled with the fact I travel 30 minutes each way to work and pay national insurance on top of my wage it comes out around £30 for a 7 hour shift. So yes I am really the monster considering trusting my child to fend for themselves for an hour or so to avoid working for peanuts, we are on the breadline as it is.

We have first:middle:high school. Middle school is y6-Y8. DS's birthday is in October - he was 11 the week he started middle school. He used to walk himself home -got in about 3.45 , and was alone for about an hour and a half til me or dh got in. He'd ring us when he got in, and I'd leave him a snack in the fridge. It's completely normal for Y6 kids where we live because of the middle school system.

I hadn’t realised they had different splits by area. Ours are
First school - reception & Y1-4
middle school - Y5-8
high school - Y9-13

I grew up somewhere with primary/secondary or infant/junior/secondary & was oblivious another system existed. I’m sadly intrigued to discover there is yet another variation available.

Depends on the child, I had a friend at school who was a latchkey kid from 9 and I remember she had to get the bus home, she was fine. She knew how to cook, deal with basic things going wrong (like a blown fuse), knew the neighbours and had numbers for both her parents. She'd generally have about 2 hours home alone each night. She grew up into an adult who was capable and resilient.

I had another friend who was never left on her own to the point that when her parents left her in the house for a few days on her own at age 22, she messed up cooking an M and S ready meal so badly, that she lived off sandwiches until they got back. She had no idea how to do anything, couldn't cook, use the washing machine, change a bulb, nothing.

I don't think I'd leave my old child from 9 - but 10/11 - I'd give it a test run and see how it went. If the child is normally sensible and knows what to do if something went wrong, they should be ok.

Mine walked to/from school alone in yr 6 and would be home alone 4-6 with zero problems at all

At my DDs' school, pupil can walk to and from school unaccompanied by an adult from Term 5 of Year 4.
I wouldn't allow my DDs at that age, as both have SEN and we live 30 mins walk from the school.
However, I do think children within the UK are wrapped in cotton wool, thus I think (in the absence of SEN etc), children's independence should be encouraged at an earlier age than appears to be the current norm.

Do they not have any after school activities they can stay to.

How did we get to this, surely we're not infantilising a whole generation? At 8 I was roaming south Manchester., catching the bus, hiring a boat. walking down to the Mersey to see the frogs when the river overflowed, walking to my friend's house a mile away. She walked to school on her own from 8, twice a day as she went home for dinner. At 5 I went by bus with my 8 year old sister every Sun am to our piano lessons.The norm was you called out to your Mum on Sat morning 'I'm going out now', and she said 'don't be late for dinner at 1'. At 10 my friend was catching a train and then a bus to get to Secondary School. (She'd passed the entrance exam a year early.) Another friend was cycling to a station to catch a train then bus to school at 11. I routinely shopped for my Mum and aunt from 8. Hopefully there are still a majority of parents who are teaching their children independence.

It isn't neglect. Get a grip.

I think that's absolutely fine.

My nine year old (turns 10 next month) gets the school bus home twice a week (we are in the US; literally door-to-door service) and is alone for just under an hour until his big sister gets home. In September when he's in year 6 he'll be doing that 4 days a week. He gets himself a drink, snuggles up to our dog and plays Minecraft. I am not concerned.

I think it's fine if the kid is responsible and ok with it, and tend to agree that cultural norms in Uk and US are a bit over protective.

I was 10 when my mum let me walk to a museum by myself and spend a couple of hours there. There weren't mobile phones so she couldn't even check in on me. There are museums around where I live now (USA) where the staff will come and find you if you leave your under 15 kid in another room of the museum for 5 minutes.

My sisters used to get the public bus home together age 11 and 8 in Scotland.

I'm not yet sure when I will let DS come home by himself or stay home alone for more than a very short period but I have 10 in mind as a reasonable age.

It's fine if the child is happy to do it, 11 year olds should be OK on their own for an hour or so.

People can be very dramatic on here, fending for themselves 🤣 like they're dodging wild animals on the way home from school then going out hunter gathering before building a fire to cook whatever they've caught rather than grabbing a snack from the kitchen and turning the TV on