AIBU to think teenagers should be capable of being home alone overnight without parental supervision?

[OtterlyMad]

Was chatting to colleagues over lunch today and one of them was complaining about how little time she and her husband get together due to having children. I know her kids are old enough to be doing GCSEs and A Levels so I asked why she and her husband couldn’t go away for a night or two without them, and she looked at me like I’d grown another head! We live in a small town with a low crime rate and she acknowledged that her quiet, studious daughters were extremely unlikely to set fire to the house or throw a party…

I explained to my colleague that by the age of 14 I was babysitting younger children overnight, from 15 my parents would go away for a week without us (and we’d be expected to cook our dinners, keep the house tidy, get ourselves to school etc.) and at 16 I was holidaying abroad with friends! She was appalled. I pointed out that her eldest would be going off to university and living independently in less than 2 years, all she could say was “well she’ll be 18 then” as if turning 18 would flip a switch and magically make her daughter capable of functioning as an adult.

I’d always planned on parenting in a similar way to how I was brought up - building maturity/confidence by gradually giving my kids more freedom and responsibility - but now I wonder if this approach would get social services called on me! I’m in my early 30s by the way so it’s not like my experience is from yonks ago, it would have been around 2010.

Would you find it completely unreasonable to leave a 14-15 year old and 16-17 year old at home alone overnight? (And if yes, when and how would you bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood?)

unless they have sen or are particularly badly behaved they should be able to be left from 16/17 overnight and a bit younger just for the evening. Mine certainly were and they are only in their 20’s now. There does seem to have been a bit of a shift in parenting from when mine were younger and just a handful of years younger though

My neighbours went to France for a week and left their older teenage children alone in the house. We got a knock one evening - the electrics had stopped working. Luckily we knew an electrician who lived at the top of the road and he came round after work as a favour to us - he said the whole place was a death trap. He made it safe, anyway, thing is for kids to know what to do in an emergency. You think it won't happen but then......

At 16 I was keeping my father’s house and at 18 I’d moved in with my future husband and we were completely independent. From 13 I was carer for my disabled mother.

Only if the thing that happened was as a result of negligence of the parent. If the parent went away and a random freak event happened, parents would not be charged.

So why reply to me about England and Wales.

Realistically it wouldn’t make a difference anyway, as long as you moved and showed intent that Scotland was your new domicile then you could come back to England and have your passport changed, bank updated etc. The real banana skin is in things like if you got divorced it could be argued you were never really married, but to fix that you would just marry again in England at 18 🤷‍♀️

I wonder if there's a touch of the rose tinted specs here? I, too, was looking after myself from fairly young. I'd come home at 7, let myself in and stay alone for 2.5 hours. By 15 I was alone for a week while my parents went on holidays. Standards were just different in the 80s and 90s.

I do not parent my dc the way I was parented because I can see how inappropriate it is to put dc under that amount of responsibility before they're ready for it.

We first left our oldest when he was 15, we where staying only 25 minutes up the road and someone visited him every day.

Then once he was 16 he didn’t want to come for another weekend away but this time we would be 2.5hrs away. I text daily a just you alive basically.

At 17 we would go hours and hours away for upto a week leaving him a full fridge and freezer plus cash. I do still text a morning mate. So check he is alive.

The neighbour also knew he was there and has my number as well as family living locally should an emergency of happened.

Then I give my head a wobble as I had him at 17 and was living with my now dh without any adult checking I was alive or buying my shopping haha. But I still send the daily text if we are away.

i think 16 is fine. The 14 could stay with a friend for the weekend?

sounds like this person just likes a moan and a whinge

theres nothing to stop her and husband having some
nice days and nights out

I was a normal thing to do then I was 15.

You're asking on the wrong forum here.

On another thread, there is a grandparent who has been treated extremely rudely and disrespectfully by her 21yr old grandaughter.

One poster on there cites the usual bullshit of 'brain development, not complete , blah blah blah, not got full planning and executive functioning, blah blah blah'

as an excuse for a 21 year old being rude

So any thought of a 15 year old being at home on their own is going to have people passing out!

Different standards.

This.

I think your colleague is extreme in not leaving her late teens overnight though tbf she knows the dynamics of them best.

I think your parents were irresponsible leaving a 14 year old overnight in charge of other children. maybe things were different in 'those' days. but now if anyone knew that there would definitely be concerns

Haha this did make me laugh!

Did you know that 12% of people hear voices at some point in their lives? Because I didn't until my daughter developed paranoia and hallucinations. It means she can't be left alone as she sees things that are just too scary to cope with. So here we are, unable to leave the house but unable to explain to anybody why because we want to protect her privacy.

The point is you never know what a teenager has going on, just because a child is a certain age it doesn't mean they are automatically able to do the same things as their peers.

You shouldn't judge any parent for making an individual choice based their own kids abilities.

The experts on parenting are always the ones who haven’t had kids yet!!

I’ll let you into a secret OP. Not all kids are the same. They come with a variety of strengths and weaknesses, and whilst us parents can stick to our general principles, we also have to tailor our parenting to the needs of our kids, regardless of whether or not it matches our own experiences of childhood.

DH and I decided not to leave our DC's aged 13 and 17 overnight last month. We thought it was unfair on the 17 year old to be responsible for the 13 year old (who is almost 14) and likelihood that 17 year old would at least invite a few friends over and be drinking.

At 18 and (almost) 15 I would be ok, but may offer 15 year old choice to sleepover at a friend's rather than stay with 18 year old + friends.

Leaving a 14 year old alone at home for a week is seriously neglectful, sorry. I would call social services on someone who did that.

A former friend of mine was left alone at 14 for two weeks by her neglectful mother and threw a party which was so devastating it did structural damage to the house and a kid ended up having to go to A&E with severe alcohol poisoning.

Obviously not all teenagers would do that but why would anyone be comfortable with that level of risk?

I'm sure a lot of people will be along shortly to say how kids are mollycoddled these days and need more resilience, but, no.

That happened before social media too. A friend once announced to a pub there was a house party and took many people there on a bus. The house parties I went to at 16 are one of the reasons I'd be reluctant to leave teens alone for a week!

But at 16 I would generally be happy with leaving dc alone for a night, I think at 17 a weekas that is the age my parents went away for a week without me and that felt right.

This could also apply to a grown adult so in the gentlest way it’s not really relevant to this discussion, just like you couldn’t leave an intellectually disabled person on their own no matter their age.

Parents of under 16s left overnight risk prosecution if they are deemed to be in danger, or if something happens. So no I would not leave a child under 16 overnight.
Mine are now in their 20s and I didn’t leave them overnight until the eldest turned 18 and was able to ‘legally’ look after younger children. My other children were 17 and 11. But they were sensible and I knew they would be capable of looking after the 11 year old who was also quite sensible. Before that I did sometimes leave them to look after the younger one but not overnight.

Your parents shouldn’t have let you look after younger siblings overnight or for a week at a time at 14/15 that’s ridiculous and just because you did it doesn’t mean you should expect your own children or other peoples children to do the same like there’s something wrong with them if they don’t.

I think history shows that teenagers are capable of doing much more than current orthodoxy seems to allow them to.

Staying with a French family on an exchange trip is hardly the same as being left without adult supervision for a week, though, is it?

Only my opinion but I think that is too young to be left alone. Maybe for a night but for a week??

Don't judge everyone by your standards.

My kids nope. My house would burn down

My mates kids yes as they are really switched on and chilled

Totally depends on the teen. Some hate being left.