Leaving an 8yo home alone

[Polkadotbabushka]

My niece told me today that when her mum drops her dad to work and picks him up… so twice a day, they leave her at home. It’s a 15 minute journey if no traffic so half an hour twice a day.

She is quite immature for her age and is apparently left with the tablet to keep her company!

When I approached my DH about it he said he knew as his sister had already told him it’s just easier.

I just couldn’t do that. My son is a year younger and actually more mature than her but I wouldn’t dream of it.

what do others think?

From the age of 8 I was on my own for an hour each day between 3-4 when my sister would come home for secondary school. Then me and my sister (11!) would be on our own until 6pm.
I suppose you could call me a latch door kid.
That was very nearly 30 years ago.
However, my sons are 5 &7 and I don't like leaving him to park the car! (No parking except across the road!) I do it when the weather is awful but we live in v safe place in the world. My heart is hammering in my chest every time!

It's not illegal.

As a rule I don't think we are good at understanding risks.

We often hear what we want to hear and ignore what might be ridiculous to avoid / cause us great inconvenience.

Statistically the home is the most common location for an accident to happen. Not your car.

Around 6000 people died in the home due to accidents last year. Compare that with car accidents. There was 1,624 fatalities from road collisions in Great Britain in 2023.

So why are we not more 'on it' in terms of ensuring children know what to do if something happened to YOU? After all the most common accidents are falls.

Yet we talk about cars being far more dangerous than being at home. We think about the risks of cars, but not so much the risks at home.

Having said that, the risk is highest with under 5 and over 65s and that increases with age. Not so much 8 year olds.

So logically, we could make the argument here that we shouldn't be leaving 8 year olds who can't cope with making a phone call for help, alone with someone over 65 at home if we apply some of the more bonkers logic on this thread.

Somehow I can't see this suggestion going down well on MN for some strange reason involving the cost of childcare.

We also should not have single adults left in charge of children because that might be neglectful, if the adult has an accident. How would the child cope? Therefore all children should be removed from single parent homes until the age of 10 for their own safety. Right?

Also to minimise the risk of dying from falling in your house, you should live in your car instead.

Alternatively we could remain actually sane understand how risks exist everywhere and learn strategies to cope with when things might go wrong as part of everyday life. We learn that some level of risk is always acceptable because we can only reduce it so much without going stark raving mental.

This includes teaching kids how to call for help, especially in situations they often are in, from as early as they are able to go to the school. Not waiting until they are 'mature enough to cope.'

Certainly I know DS did this both in yr1 and at Beavers. So before age 8. Which is probably a good thing as I'm obviously going to die having fallen down the stairs having stepped on rogue Lego pieces deposited by my child when just the two of us were in the house.

Yep we never talk about the hidden risks of Lego and stairs on MN. We should have hundreds of threads on the subject.

Indeed. I started talking to my oldest since she was a toddler about what to do 'if mummy doesn't wake up'. Admittedly I haven't actually talked to my son about this yet, not sure why, I guess because there's always been more people around whereas with my DD it was just me and her a lot of the time. I will start talking to him about this today. And before I started leaving her home alone I went over many many times what to do in various "what if" situations like fires, accidents, strangers etc.

No I said that MAYBE he has a disability that he can't.

Not that all disabled people can't ride bikes. Take your faux outrage elsewhere

What if someone is blind or partial sighted? Cycling ( and also driving) not ideal. Or has bad arthritis. My mum couldn't have cycled due to this.. Many things could affect abilities to cycle- its not necessarily t a case of getting " off his lazy arse" as a PP commented

What if...
What if ..
What if...
What if....

Loads of what if's there.

Maybe they are just lazy.

Somehow a question on if it is OK for 8yo to be home alone fore 30minutes turned into a debate on whether every single disabled person is incapable of cycling

Absolute idiots.
Take the girl with them.

That’s Mumsnet for you.
ND will be mentioned next.

I taught my son this, too.

There was an awful case where a dad had died and his little son ( Bronson(?) was found deceased, he had been clinging to his dad’s legs.

Absolutely tragic.

I remember that case, so awful

Who really cares if the Dad cycles or not. It may well be that it's just not a safe road to cycle on.

Years ago I considered cycling to work. It was about 8 miles so not wild, but down hill all the way, horrible up hill all the way home. I'd end up getting off and pushing it. Then take into account two horrible junctions that I'd need to cross, two that were horrible in a car. I just concluded that it would be a horrible experience, and positively dangerous.

And that's before you take into account we are currently in January, the man's probably travelling to and from work in the dark, it's cold, icy and damp just not pleasant to be cycling.

At the end of the day they are doing nothing wrong. The kid is fine. Probably feeling quite grown up and responsible having her 30 mins at home

A 15 minute car ride could also be a junction or two down a motorway - so could actually be some distance, and not at all accessible by bike. The OP hasn't come back though, so I suspect this was a nice wind us up and watch us go post!

Agreed.
And I bet if someone posted, with a sob story on how kiddo being left home alone 2 x 30min a day was what they needed to do for whatever reason. People would say not ideal but it's fine.

So it’s out of our house, up flight of steps across a yard and in to a barn.. we don’t keep the cows in the house 😜

Like I said, people are way more aware of risk, safeguarding and children's welfare than they were several decades ago.
Many things children were allowed to do then would be seen as inappropriate and neglectful now.

The pendulum has swung too far the other way though in the UK, and many children aren't being allowed age-appropriate independence.

More aware or are overly anxious about?

There is a point where 'awareness' tips into anxiety which is has been unhealthy.

I don't think that there is enough awareness of this!

Ps.. I’m disabled and I can’t ride a bike… 😜

I caught a glimpse of something today about young kids 6-8 yos having increased anxiety levels.
Now while I think that's a hard thing to measure, maybe it's more awareness that kids can and should open up if they have concerns.
6-8 yos aren't generally the age groups with phones or unfiltered Internet access nor are they stressing about exams. So where is this anxiety coming from?
Is it they are being helicopter parented and just not getting age appropriate freedom to grow up?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gp19n111vo

BBC in-depth write a no shit Sherlock article.

Parents are harming children.

But one of the country's leading experts in child and adolescent psychiatry, Prof Andrea Danese, from King’s College London, believes that resilience needs to be taken seriously.

While greater awareness of mental health "has generally been a positive thing", according to Prof Danese, who is general secretary for the European Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, he says that he is concerned that it may also have "inadvertently contributed to over-pathologising distress in young people".

And

Two studies involving young people aged between 13 and 18 found those with greater resilience were more able to develop their own coping strategies when dealing with stress, including seeking support and advice from others, and were less likely to dwell on negative emotions or turn to drugs, alcohol or smoking.

So there is evidence that wrapping your child up in cotton wool and saying they are incapable is harmful.

But no one wants to tackle the problem because that involves parents acknowledging their level of anxiety is problematic and they aren't assessing real risk accurately.

Kids need to be exposed to risk from an early age in order to learn to manage it for themselves. Otherwise they can't.

I think lockdown and modern devices make this more workable again.

In lockdown, I had the choice of taking the kids in the car to the supermarket, and leaving them in it with no way to communicate with me (phone came with me, so no internet in the car, and children weren't allowed in the supermarket), or leaving them home for 40 minutes while I did the shop. (no delivery - I live rurally). So I left them (at the time, 11-12 and 7-8 ) at home, kept them on facetime the first few times, then just messaged them to keep them up to date with where I was and how long I would be. There was no other choice.

Ditto when one of their classes went back and the other didn't - they had the choice of coming on the school run (I insisted if it was dark, or if weather was bad) or staying home with facetime.

These days they're obviously a bit older, but happy to be left alone for an hour or so while I sort out something for the other/do the shopping/whatever.

So yes, 8 is young, but she's not abandoned, she has the ability to communicate with her mother, mum isn't far away, and she's safe at home.

@CleftChin I think lockdowns could also have pushed things the other way for some families. Kids who were maybe 5-7 at the time on the cusp of playing out unaccompanied, parents were loathed to let them play out. So confidence was lost.

Same with kids starting secondary, missing out on their end of primary school trip. Starting secondary in masks 😷 that must have put a level of fear and anxiety into some kids.