Would you let your child do this?

[Peach897]

Go to play in a garden with 3 other children. My DC is age 5. They are 5, 7, and 8. Their mum is in the house but not really watching them? They know not to leave the garden though.

Yes and have done, from younger.

Next doors little girl is only in year 4 and still comes round to ours.

Depends on the family, kids, garden, whether they’ve got a dog, pond etc

Yes I would and did.

Yes. Unless there is a pond I’d be happy for them to do that.

Does your DC know not to eat berries, mushrooms etc without checking with an adult? That would be my concern re my DC playing in an unfamiliar garden at that age.

Agree completely.

Also the older two could easily be distracted whilst your little one wanders off.

Depends on the children. Depends on the garden.

Everybody will sit somewhere on the sliding scale of when it becomes too risky to leave them unsupervised.

Nope, not at 5. The other children are too young to be responsible, there should be an adult there.

Who on earth has an unsecured garden so assume no lock on gate /no gate when have small kids

It's just not worth the risk

So I would say no to this if mum isn't watching

If they could guarantee can't escape the garden then yes

Yes I would if I trusted the Mum.

But it depends on the child, is the 5 year old sensible, well sensible as a 5 year old gets of course?

Yes, children need to learn to think for themselves, be independent and self reliant.

You will have already given opportunities for this at home in your own garden or with some ‘watching from a bench’ in the park. You will have supported them around dangers ( not eating berries, not wandering away), as will the parent of the other children).

Make the visit short initially and build from there to give everyone some confidence. Talk after each visit about how it was, reiterate the safety messages and spit any additional ones.

Please let them play.

Depends on the dynamics of the other kids given yours is one of the younger ones. One of my neighbours has 2
kids who play outside together, she’s inside with the door open. When I’m in my garden I can hear how the big one (7 or 8) treats the little one (4) and it’s not very nice but because it’s verbal or stuff like the big one blocking the little one from getting last or getting a toy she doesn’t pick up on it until the little one cracks and runs inside crying.

When the big one had his friends round it escalated further. Even the nicest of young children can be awful to younger ones whether teasing or picking on etc plus sometimes the egging on to do silly things so I’d want supervision for the 5 year olds that’s not just a 7 and 8 year old.

If the other kids aren't problematic then this is fine, and no different than letting kids play upstairs. Eating random plants is more like 18 month old behaviour. My DS wouldn't do anything daft nor start hitting others though, some kids these ages do need watching.

Yes.