To leave my son alone in the car?

[anxiousmumy]

This morning I took my daughter to school and had to bring my 10 year old son, who is ill with a sickness bug but mostly OK in himself now but following 48 hour rule, as I have no childcare. Normally DH is working from home so I could leave him but not today so this was a new situation for me.

I made the split second decision to leave him in the car per his wishes (belted in the back. Parked up in car park) doors locked, as it was hammering down with rain. He was out of sight for maybe around 3 minutes as I ran my daughter to the gates and back. When I got back to the car I saw a woman sat in a car opposite looking a bit judgmental and now worried it could constitute as neglect and be reported. didn't think there was any specific law /age and I have never left them before, I wouldn't do it with my DD who is 7.

I'm wondering if I've done the wrong thing and what the general consensus is here?

Absolutely fine! I wouldn’t think twice about it!

I regularly pop into shops etc and leave my 10 year old in the car ! If he doesn’t want to come in I’m not going to force him.

I would be more hesitant if it was not a nice area , it was night time or I wasn’t parked that close to where I was going etc .

In this situation too - he’s poorly and it’s raining , it was the best option !

Don’t worry about it , chances are you are just overthinking it and the woman wasn’t judging you at all and if she was , well it’s ridiculous and quite frankly , none of her business !

That’s a bit extreme. Why the ‘old’? Also we don’t know she was doing anything.

The person could have been having a bad day, been cursing the rain. Thinking about something else. Anything at all.

The OP made a judgment based on her anxiety.

Indeed! Not sure why she's being called names at all she probably didn't even notice the 10 year old sitting in the car and if she did she gave them no more than a passing glance. Poor women literally did nothing.

I sure that the woman was not judging you in any way.

Was he sitting with a sick bucket or something? Maybe she was more concerned that disapproving. You absolutely did the right thing.

Another one who thinks that it would have been fine to leave him at home.
I think you need to introduce responsibility and freedom gradually.
Big leaps are more risky than small steps. Try to use this sort of opportunity to motivate yourself if you find it difficult. Need to drop sibling somewhere, leave him at home, pop to the chemists, again at home. At this age start small 15/20 mins, then 30 mins etc.

He’s 10. He’s fine to stay in the car. I would have even left him at home at 10

I would have left him at home. YOu do need to toughen up a bit. It shard, I know. But we all have to deal with a shedload of judgement as it is without adding additional jdugement that's just in ou rheads.

I’d have left him at him to be honest if it was just school run and he’d stopped puking. Definitely left my 10 year olds in car before when nipping to shops and they don’t want to trail round. Suspect she was more judging about why he wasn’t in school??

I'd imagine the dirty look was more about you parking on the pavement in the makeshift car park and nothing at all to do with a 10 year old sat in a car.

You mention having anxiety, and I think it’s obvious that most commenters think that leaving a 10 year old in a car for three minutes, is absolutely fine. But it really does sound as of you need to let go the apron strings a little bit. A ten year old should have been absolutely fine in the house, on his own, while you were taking your other child to school. Even more so if he wasn’t feeling well. Most kids would prefer to be left in bed, than dragged out in the rain. As you say, he’s going to comp/ high school, in a little over a year and he needs to be a bit more self sufficient by then. I think you need to start working on both your own and his confidence a bit, to allow him to start doing things independently now.

You did nothing wrong, at my kids school people do this with sleeping toddlers

Some poor woman sat in her car in the rain contemplating the shit day ahead of her and she has a bitchy resting face as she's glanced over at you and you've taken it to heart.

You have a problem if you think random people have it in for you.

We usually leave DS, who is 7, in the car park when we go shopping. He watches something on the phone and isn't fussed at all. He dislikes shopping and would just run around the shop trying to play tag with DH otherwise.
I lock the car but it has a feature where it can be opened from the inside even if it's locked, so he could get out and walk to the shop, if he wanted to. (In theory, he'd be old enough for me to send him to the shop by himself at this age.)
We live abroad, though, and shop at our rather small Aldi in our rather small town most of the time. I'm aware that British parents seem to be a bit weird with these things. 10 is plenty old enough to be left for a few minutes.