To leave my 7 yr old home alone for 30mins ?

[confusedwithschool]

My 7 yr old DD has the dreaded chicken pox ( she’s on day 5) but still absolutely covered. Half of his class are out cos of this

Tomorrow is my DS’s year 6 graduation and there is no one I can call to babysit ( that’s even if they would want to )

I can’t take her there as I would be exposing other kids but at the same time how can I miss my sons grad?

im torn . I plan to be on video call with her while there and the school is just down the road , a 2 min walk

not sure what I can do ?

Why would a typical 7 year old burn the house down? They'd know not to use a gas burner unsupervised or to microwave something for 20 minutes. In my experience they follow instructions well because they want to be trusted. I'd have trusted my children at 7 far more than I trusted a few adults I've known. Adults will think they can do things safely because they have always done them, when sometimes they can't due to intoxication, memory loss, and other factors.

This is just not realistic. Ask a firefighter about kids who were told not to play with matches but did.

There will always be the odd child. Usually the ones who aren't allowed to do anything supervised so wait to be unsupervised. I'd say there are far more intoxicated adults and adults with memory issues and cognitive decline who are accidentally starting fires.

You miss your son's graduation. It is illegal to leave your 7 year old alone at home, besides which anything can happen in half an hour including a break-in, a fire etc. Paranoid to think of such things, certainly, but they are the things you looking at when you think it's ok to leave her. Sorry, it's not.

Why would I think it? Because they do. Or they scald themselves with the kettle making a hot drink etc. That's why you do not leave them alone.

But that was then. I was allowed to go to the ABC cinema for Saturday morning cinema at eight, with a group of friends who lived near me. Ditto swimming. At eleven I was taking two buses to my secondary school. But I would not have allowed my children to do any of these things because they grew up in a quite different environment.

None of mine did. They knew not to use the kettle when home alone until about 10 though they used it when I was home without issues from about 8. They just need to be taught properly and to have rules in place.

Not as big a deal as leaving a seven year old alone at home, sick or not, and being reported to Social Services for neglect/lack of safeguarding by possibly one of your yr 6 DC's teachers, who happens to ask how 7 year old is.

FGS, 11 year olds don't "graduate", they just move up to secondary school. Your 7 year old needs you more.

My DCs played out with older children from next door when around 7. On quiet streets and in a spinney owned by the neighbour. I would not have left then alone in the house at that age.

That your DCs did not scald themselves when left alone is no argument for leaving any 7-year-old alone. Yours might not. Mine might. Hers did. Which is why it is illegal in the UK to leave such a young child unsupervised.

Which law?

UK law does not specify an age when a child may be left alone. However:
Parents can be prosecuted if they leave a child unsupervised ‘in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health’.
Which about covers a child left alone whilst ill.

An unwell child would be better off in front of a television programme at home for half an hour than being taken out. It would not cause unnecessary suffering to a child happy to be left, in a safe environment, and able to stay where they are.

Not as big a deal as leaving a seven year old alone at home, sick or not, and being reported to Social Services for neglect/lack of safeguarding by possibly one of your yr 6 DC's teachers, who happens to ask how 7 year old is.

Well obviously 😂

My comment was to those who don't see the point etc in it

You said she didn’t want to be alone so why even entertain it!!

That’s why I found a solution. Was a win-win in the end 🙃

Burn the house down might be hyperbole, but things my kids have done (with me home); opened a chest of drawers and it fell forward on top of them, kicked a football into the window and smashed the glass, climbed onto the kitchen counter to reach something and fallen off, climbed on a bench to reach something and fallen off, fallen down the stairs. Active young children hurt themselves all the time. I’d trust my 11 year old to be home without any of these things happening but my 7 year olds? Not a chance.

Maybe you have very sensible 7 year olds. Lucky you. Mine are impulsive and boisterous.

A twelve-year-old, yes. Not a seven-year-old.

Many 12 year olds would be getting themselves to and from school and being home alone two hours after school everyday. I didn't leave any of mine until they were 8, but if this situation had come up it would be one in which I'd have considered it.

Maybe you have very sensible 7 year olds. Lucky you. Mine are impulsive and boisterous.

We did a lot of active outside time at that age, bikes, playgrounds, woods. They were certainly boisterous then. It meant that inside they were happy to be calm and quiet.

Even today secondary school children usually get themselves home from school. So you're working up to your child being sensible enough for a buss jounrey ar a walk of maybe 30 mins at age 11.

you cant leave a 7yr old on their own. if you cant get someone to watch them, then sorry but graduation will have to be missed.

Definitely not at 7. Far too young. As a neighbour if they can sit with her for an hour or so

I had never been left by myself until I reached the age of 11, and then I too had to navigate an hour+ journey, on two buses, to school, and the same back again. And I managed just fine. There's no correlation between being left alone and being able to navigate a journey...