Leaving kids for 5 minute late night walk?

[OneOliveOtter]

Husband and wife went out for a quick walk an hour ago whilst kids were sleeping (3 and 5). Gone for just over five minutes. Unreasonable or not?

In fairness my dog will not poop in our yard so I'd say SOMEONE probably needed to walk the dog. But only 1 and if they both wanted a bit of air then one of them does a round the block and they swap. Which sounds mental I know but we juggle that way regularly

Are you sure no one is in? I'm sure my neighbours sometimes think I've abandoned my kids when I run over the road to the shop but either my mums wfh or my mother in law has called in, she'll often come in the back so the dog doesn't bark

I wouldn’t, but they’re not breaking the law..

There is no minimum age to leave a child or children alone and unattended in their home. It only becomes an offence when they are put at risk.

I would imagine, that as it was late at night and they were sleeping and it was for 5 mins, parents judged that risk to be low, taking everything they know about their children, home, neighbours, community and location into account.

Is there some other reason you’re concerned about their welfare? If so, you know what to do.

Absolutely unreasonable you can’t just leave your kids because you feel like you need to have a walk and we all know it was more than 5 minutes. Never, EVER leave them alone at that age if something happened you’d never forgive yourselves and if child services find out, you will lose your children. Take a walk with the kids.

It was unreasonable when they did it to Madeline

At those ages? Unreasonable. But not illegal as soon as I know, so I guess it’s their risk to take. Not something I would do.

You seem to know an awful lot about them, are you one of them?

5 min walk - what is the point? Why not sit in the garden with a drink/picnic for an hour? Or book a babysitter and go out once a week?

I just don’t think the risk is at all worth it. My brother’s neighbour house went up in flames due to a faulty charging battery. They only JUST had time to get all the kids and pets out.

No take it in turns to walk the pets. I was a lone parent I never left my son at all he was with me wherever I went.

Yeah a good reason why I never ever left my son alone.

This. It’s not great parenting but those saying Social Services need to be involved need some perspective.

No proof the OPs neighbours have either

Why did they both go. One at a time. Or let the pet out into the garden. They’re dicks

The chances of a catastrophic fire taking place in the five minutes you are out is literally than one-in-a-billion. You place your child in far more “danger” every day without thinking about it. Yes, it’s not great parenting, but the reaction on this thread is WAY WAY over the top.

If you think Social Services would remove your kids because you took a five minute walk, you are completely clueless. I’m not saying it’s right, just that the bar for SS intervention is way higher!

And if fire happened while you were asleep or down the end of the garden or in the bath?

For 5 mins I don’t find it bad, they could be out the garden longer

Sorry I would never leave the window off the latch either. Again total pain in bum in terms of heat but just not worth the risk. Under 13 means latch on always if kids are in the house in my mind.

Not acceptable to leave children of that age alone at all.
Their pet could be walked by one of the adults not both

Why did it take the pair of them?

Extremely unlikely things happen to people everyday

Has everyone read the thread???

The op lives a way away from this family and saw them going out for 5 mins.

She has no idea if there was another adult in the house and sounds a bit judgey.

So we may well be debating a non event here.

Unfit parents. They could have taken turns. Poor kids.

No judgement, it's done now and what's done is done. Luckily no harm came to them. But I definitely wouldn't do it again.

They do, but we don’t stop doing things, even unnecessary things, just because there’s a negligible risk.

Every time you walk down the street there’s a chance a car will plough into you and kill you. I could find many cases where that’s happened if I trawled the internet. But we don’t stop going out because of it.

So, yes, there’s a risk of a fire starting in the building in the five minutes you’re out, but you take bigger risks every single day with your children every time you leave the house with them. We need to have some perspective here.

I’m not saying it’s right, and the bigger risk is that they hurt themselves or even just get upset if they happen to wake.