to leave ten year old twins in a cafe while I swim?

[justkeepswimminginalake]

I’m a single parent to ten year old twins and I was hoping to start open water swimming again. There’s a swimming lake near me which has an onsite cafe and I was thinking about leaving the boys in the cafe by themselves while I swim. We’ve been to the cafe a few times and it’s fairly chilled, mostly swimmers (and their friends/families), young families and old people. It’s also next door to the reception area for the swimming lakes so if they feel uncomfortable there’s somewhere else they can go.

Would I be unreasonable to order them breakfast and a drink and leave them there for half an hour while I swim. They’re generally pretty sensible and I’d pack Yotos with headphones, and some games and books for them to entertain themselves. There’s no one else who can take them.

I would think they will be fine if they had their IPads for half an hour. You know your boys and I’m sure you would not consider it if you didn’t think they would be sensible.

But, @stichguru nothing bad happened to your son from what you say here. He learned that sometimes places are evacuated and they were presumably told where to go. And you will have had the opportunity to talk about how these situations are dealt with. Now he'll have a better idea of what to do the next time he encounters an unexpected situation while visiting an attraction. If he'd been 10 it would have been just the same, except I expect the staff might have checked where he expected to find his parent. And OP can discuss with her kids what to do if the unexpected happens - eg if for any reason they couldn't stay in the café, they could a) go and ask staff at the lake to call their mum in from the swimming area, or b) wait outside the café, or wherever OP suggests.

Why would they be any more devastated if they were in a cafe than they would if they were at home, or at at school, or anywhere else?
Their mother being dead would be the problem, not the location they were in at the time!!!

The OP is probably more likely to be killed in a car accident on the 20 min drive to the lake than she is to drown swimming in a 100 x 100 metre lake with a lifeguard.

@FreddoBRIDGE where did I actually say she was being unreasonable? I said it’s not something I would do. I reported another poster who was calling her all sorts of things because it wasn’t appropriate.

I have just made the point that you can be against a cafe at 10 but still be fine with dc travelling to school. And I have reiterated that I do not see cafes full of preteens. I don’t think either point is particularly controversial, we don’t all have to agree on everything! Surely you were taught this at school yourself 😆

I've always thought my parents were a little on the over protective side!

It's absolutely fine for two 10 year olds to sit in a café and have something to eat on their own.

It's not an unhinged idea. And for those worried about all the million things that could happen I don't know how you manage to ever leave the house if you think like that.

That’s not a good thing. Year 7 is the ideal time for children to start going to school independently if they don’t do so already. Not allowing them to do that is doing them a disservice and they aren’t developing independence skills. Hell if my visually impaired students that I teach can navigate a journey to school (that’s my job), most sighted 11 year olds can manage it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the op has abandoned all ideas of going for a swim now. Never mind the twins, she’ll be lucky to survive all the hazards to her safety!

I think it would be fine. You're not asking anyone in the cafe to look after your children. They're old enough to be on their own for half an hour IMO. One of my favourite memories is walking to a cafe with my cousin when our families were on holiday and having lunch together. We were 9 or 10 years old and we felt so grown up, ordering lunch and eating together, just the two of us.

I think you know the point I’m making. Costa.. whatever… insert independent cafe if you want to.

This is absolutely ridiculous. How is your very sensible 10 year old going to get themselves to secondary school next year? How are two ten year olds “at risk” in a cafe? At risk of what?

Sorry but if you think you’re protecting your ten year old child by never letting them out of your sight, you’re actually doing quite the opposite because no independence or responsibility makes for a very vulnerable adolescent I’m afraid

I dont see the issue if the 10 year olds are responsible. Kids here go to cafes/milk bars/fast food places at 10 years old without parents. (The sensible and able ones).
If I were doing it id ask that they pee before I went to the water so they arent going go the loo. [Predator dar] amd I doubt you would be more than 40 minutes.

If i were staff my only issue would be if they clowned around and disturbed people - i would be happy to keep a side view on them, esp knowing its giving mum a chance to swim and kids getting a wee bit independence. Go for it OP.

Honestly if they had Ipads I would. But be realistic could you do it while they are in school or at a time you don't have them during custody? Most Cafe's will get annoyed

YANBU to pop out for a swim and leave two 10 year olds at home for a small length of time however YABU to dump them at a cafe etc and expect other people to parent your children while you swim.

So which is it. You either trust them responsibly to care for themselves (leave at home) or you don’t but quite happy to pass parenting responsibility onto staff?

By dingodan·
Yesterday 21:44
I think that’s crazy particularly as you are around water

I’m really surprised by these responses. If they’re sensible kids and don’t mess around then I think it’s fine. My 10 year old went to McDonald’s with her friends after school last term (just started year 6 now) and didn’t think anything of it!

Most 10 year olds where we live walk to school and back. So if walking for 15 minutes there and 15 min back is ok but sitting in a cafe for 30 minutes is not, perhaps the OP should shoo them out into the street and make them walk up and down until she is done swimming.

Also, equipping children with a feeling that they can't possibly cope for 30 min without an iPad is significantly more damaging than anything that could happen in a cafe. We're raising generations of screen addicts despite significant literature on how damaging this is to development, attention, and cognition.

At eight years of age I was going to a cafe with my friend and ordering a toasted tea cake and a pot of tea for two. That was in wales. I now live in London. At ten I was allowing my daughter to go to Starbucks and sit and read while I went around Sainsbury’s - with our without a friend. I actually thought some of these posters saying absolutely not were having a joke. It seems not. Looks like parenting has changed in the past few years. My daughter is 18 now - I absolutely trusted her at ten to behave in a cafe, order her own drink if she wanted something extra, go to the cinema with a friend. At what point to you start letting go? I see it now - she has 18 year old friends heading off to uni that still ‘aren’t allowed’ to do things. Or have anxiety about catching a bus by themselves. Wrapping them in cotton wool is never the answer.

I am also absolutely flabbergasted at the negativity. Of course I would leave them in a café! If I felt like I couldn't give my 10 year old child(ren) an hour of independence, something will have gone terribly wrong somewhere.

You know your kids best. If you feel you can trust them to follow your guidelines, then I think they’ll be fine.

I do childcare and one of the kids just turned 11 and she’s been riding her bike all over for ages. She’s a very sensible girl and sticks to the plan and her parents are very comfortable with the amount of freedom she gets.

Her 8 year old brother now also gets to ride his bike a bit, but more limited.

I’m kind of ancient, but I started taking 2 buses across Manchester when I was 11, including coming home from school when it was dark in the winter.

Times would appear to have moved on. We went out on our bikes in the days before mobiles and cycled miles at 9 yrs old and 7 yrs old. Even we didn’t know where we were , and parents didn’t give us a thought so long as we were back before street lights came on. We would be left in the library..don’t know where parent went. I had a key to the house on a string round my neck from age 5 . Nobody home when I got in from school.
Helicopter parenting disrespects our children. I wouldn’t leave one child, but 2, if I knew they were going to stay put, I probably would. So long as they knew where I was. At ten I had been taking my brother to dentists and doctors, was doing most of the housework and we went bramble picking and wandering wherever we chose. There are 10 yr olds and 10 yr olds . Only you know yours.

I agree. I think it’s a MN thing. I saw a thread on here once where a woman said her DH would insist on her keeping the back door locked, when she and her son would go in and out and play and she could see the door from where she was sitting the entire time if she was in. The whole thread was people telling her how insane she was for not keeping her door locked without having to be reminded.

I honestly can’t see a problem with this. They’re 10 and there’s two of them. You know your own children, and as long as they’re sensible boys, I don’t think that leaving them with a meal for 30 minutes would do them any harm.

I think it's absolutely fine! I used to walk home from school aged 10 and wait around for an hour or two for mum to get home, this was early 2000s l. It seems that times have changed!

This. I started secondary school when I was 10, the idea that I couldn't be out of sight of my parents for half an hour would have been laughable. My friends and I were going to milk bars at that age without any form of supervision.