Home alone

[KillswitchMinge]

AIBU to leave my 16yo over night?

I'm dating and it's going well. I'd like to occasionally spend the night at his but I've never left DS before. He is sensible and I would be reachable on the phone.

I'm not ready for DS to meet him yet and I feel like it would be extremely awkward to bring him back to stay if DS is home even if nothing happened.

I lived alone with newborn twins when I was 16.
Everyone is different though and only you know your son here. I don’t think he’d feel abandoned though unless you disappeared and didn’t tell him you weren’t coming home.

I think it’s because you said it was a bf, If you didn’t mention that I think the comments would be different usually mumsnet would laugh at anyone not leaving a 16 year old overnight and accuse them of babying them! It’s definitely because you mentioned a bf, I was living alone at 16

I’m a realist!

Not a chance. I'd be terrified my house was still there in the morning.

If my parents had left me overnight at 16, I would have had the party invitations sent out before they’d got to the end of the road. There’s absolutely no way I would trust a 16 year old in an empty house!

Of course it’s fine!

I think this is absolutely fine. And preferable to him having to meet him so early on.
i have left my (very sensible) 15 yr old this year as she didn’t want to come to a uni open day which was an overnight away. She was, obviously, fine - I mean, I don’t know what I could do that she couldn’t anyway if a baddie came in. She has loads of confidence and I do think some of that is down to my trusting her with this stuff. Next door neighbour knew that if the door knocked at 3am she was to answer it, and she left her phone on all night for her.

I don’t see the issue unless he really doesn’t want to be left alone for whatever reason. And you trust him not to have people round who would trash your house.

At 16 I was in my first full time job and didn't want to go with my parents on a caravan holiday. At that age I was deeply self conscious about my body and there was no privacy i a caravan back in the 1960s. They are very different today. So I told them I couldn't get that two weeks off as annual leave and they believed me and went without me. Its fair to say that I had relatives (my aunt and uncle) living only 5 minutes walk away and she did ask the NDN to "keep an eye" on me. It was during that blissful two weeks that I realised I was quite capable of living alone and entertaining myself. Of course there were no mobile phones back then and we were not even on the phone at home.

I never went on holiday with my parents again.

Absolutely this! If you wanted a night out with friends you'd not seen in a while it would 100% be a different reaponse.

You know ur DS best….

My DS 16 is more than happy being at home on his own. I trust him and he can always get hold of me if needs be and there are plenty of neighbours/friends nearby if he needed help urgently.

If he’s happy and you’re happy, go for it!

I'd not have a problem with him having a friend over but our house is tiny and his bedroom doesn't have space for a friend to stay over so he tends to go elsewhere if that's what they're doing.
I just think it might be preferable for me to be able to say I am going out for the night, than trying to chase him out of his own home just because I have plans.

How absurd. Of course he won't - unless you have a shaky relationship with your child. He'll very likely be really happy to have the house to himself.

No, please don't leave your child to go shagging especially if you've never left him overnight. Just go on dates then come home.

Unless your child has SEN or raging unmanaged ADHD or something, why??

Why shouldn't she?

At 16 he can have a job, have a child even, climb Everest with cadets, live solo with your permission, go on holiday, be criminally liable etc etc.

There is a crisis of lack of independence and of helicopter parenting in the UK and it's getting worse, as a lot of the lame controlling replies to this thread demonstrate.. Let yours grow up and learn to be competent, it's in his best interests!

And I daresay it's in your best interests too... We are not simply one dimensional parenting robots, you deserve to have adult time and do things for yourself, it's healthy to model that to your son (as you say, without the gory details of course lol).

Leaving a typical 16 yo overnight should be totally fine (there will be exceptions). I've left my DD at home overnight occasionally at 14 (her choice), although I was only staying 10 minutes away.

However, I'm not so sure it's a good idea to tell ds that you're staying overnight with a boyfriend that he doesn't know/hasn't met, that could be quite worrying for ds. I think you should introduce them first, assuming you think the relationship has legs. At 16 he should be mature enought to understand and cope with the concept of a parent who's dating/getting into a new relationship.

Can a 16 year old look after themselves for a night? Yes

Will they be happy about it? Also, very possibly yes or hell yes!

Could it cause other issues in your relationship with your son? Also yes.

He's probably more than capable of staying home alone, he may well enjoy it, but that doesn't mean there's not a little part of that teenage brain that won't also be thinking mum had ditched me so that she can go off and bonk a bloke. All of these things can exist in the teenage brain at the same time.

I wouldn't do it myself. I'd go out, make sure he had food and a plan, seeing a friend, going to the movies, gaming online etc. But then I'd still make sure I was home by about 1am.

16 is young and he's never been left before. Going for a shag isn't a good reason.

It's not young, there is a first time for everything and staying the night with a boyfriend is a perfectly valid reason to want a night away. Some women are so judgemental of other women having/wanting a sex/love life.

Some of you are raising utter man babies if a 16 year old can never be left alone.
It’s not a flex that your near adult teenager has no sense of independence.

I think at 16 and sensible he would be fine to leave for one night . I'm very surprised that people think a 16 Yr old is not capable of being without their Mother for 1 night !

Depends on the child, my DSis would have loved the house to herself at that age, I would have hated it.
Sounds like you think he’ll be in the former camp so why not give it a try? He doesn’t need the gory details of where you’re going and what you are doing 😉 “out with friends, might want more than one drink so don’t want to drive” will do, surely? Unless you’re the type of person who usually goes into loads of detail about plans

Even with raging unmedicated ADHD my 16 year old (and my house) survived him being alone overnight! And even for a weekend. We did have an incident of him forgetting to close the freezer door fully and being unaware that £££ worth of food was slowly defrosting.... But these are learning points