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.

My daughter is 11 and in Y7 and I would do this, buy her a drink and leave her with her phone for half an hour but she is sensible and calm

I think single mums who sleep should have their children removed. What if they choke? What if they sleep walk onto a road? What if they accidently fall and land with their head in the toilet and drown? What if they are the target of a terrorist attack? What if an asteroid hits earth?

Exactly. I think it is important to bring up confident, well adjusted children.

I don’t think it’s better & didn’t state it was 🤷‍♀️

As I said before - hire a local teenager for an hour, to mind the children in the cafe, @justkeepswimminginalake. I would also suggest checking with the cafe - they may be OK with your dc sitting there on their own.

You’ve never seen the sign, “no unaccompanied minors”? Really?

So I don’t mean this critically but I see this advice so much on here and I am guessing you’d find them via a Facebook group, and that in itself seems a bit dubious to me, announcing publicly that your children will be effectively without a parent for a while.

Then how do you know the teen is trustworthy? I’m sure they would be but you don’t know if they are just going to get up and wander off. And it seems awkward to sit in a cafe with younger children you don’t know! And then I don’t see that a teen and ten year olds are inherently more likely to be sensible and not at risk than two ten year olds.

I would just leave them at home, it seems much more sensible to me.

PP said she'd never seen it for a cafe.

Mostly this wording is in the small print when booking things or travelling somewhere.

Some shops have "no more than 2 unaccompanied children at one time" (stealing) and restaurants have "no U18s after 7pm" (child free space).

A cafe at the side of a lake is really unlikely to have such a sign.

I was thinking @justkeepswimminginalake might have teenage neighbours she knows, @newseries.

My considerations are,
are they sensible?
do they behave well together?
do they mind being left in a cafe?
Is the cafe happy for them to be left?
Do they have a relatives phone number to contact in an emergency?

I'd all the answers are yes then I'd try it and see how they got on.

I mean, I used to walk to the swimming pool with my neighbour, get changed, go swimming, get out again, go to the newsagents and go home again aged 10. But, this was the 1980s. Now, such behavior is obviously very dangerous.

Sometimes, we even went to McDonald's as well 😳

We don’t even know if she’s got neighbours at all, never mind teenage ones that she knows well!

My DC were 11 before they did anything without an adult looking out for them in the vicinity (so the summer before going to secondary).
Are the just 10 or nearly 11? How long will you be in the water?

I’m so baffled by the negativity. A cafe is no more responsible for a 10 year old customer than they are for an 80 year old customer. If a customer is choking - call an ambulance regardless of the age, if a customer is being rowdy- tell them to pipe down or kick them out.
You wouldn’t be contemplating this unless you thought it was an option to do. As so many people say on here - you do you.

This has been a real eye opener for me - when my eldest was this age I used to leave him in the local leisure centre cafe while I sorted my youngest for her swimming lesson, and then again when she came out at the end. It never occurred to me that this was in any way controversial!

I’d expect a 10 year old to go into a cafe alone and order something themselves if they knew it quite well!