to thinks if a school has issue with my parenting skills, that they contact me first?

[mixformax]

I recently made the (long-mulled-over) decision to leave DD (13) and DS (12) alone at home overnight with close supervision by friend and neighbours. Both children are sensible, trustworthy and used to being left for a few hours at a time.

One of DS's teachers learned of this and, without making ANY attempt to contact me, or any of the other emergency contact numbers (4 in total) called in social services which resulted in a plain clothes DC turning up on doorstep and questioning DD.

Also DS and DD attend different schools - DS's school had the cheek to email the other school and alert them of the "problem". Thankfully this school seems to be a bit more in touch with the pupils and actually listened to DD when she told them that she was perfectly happy with the arrangements.

But WHY couldn't DS's school even attempt to listen to him properly before jumping to (very wrong) conclusions of neglect?

Over 1000 children die each year left home alone?
That can't be right surely? Who estimated that??

I'm checking out where the stats came from - got it from 2 sources - both parenting sites - and I agree it seems very high - so I wonder if that includes all child abuse cases.

Haven't read whole thread as its getting rather long now, but think I'm right in saying its against the law in England to leave under 14 year olds on their own for long periods (and definitely over night).

Have not read the entire thread but I agree with solidgoldbrass' post.

By SolidGoldBrass Fri 25-Sep-09 14:04:20 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster
Oh FFS. It doesn't matter why the OP was away from the house that night, she made a careful and considered decision that her DC (whom she knows better than we do) would be OK. Some 13 year olds are more capable than others, sure, but don't forget that kids of 10/11 are going camping with scouts or brownies or whatever and coming to no harm.
And I would imagine that the reason nothing further has been heard from SS is that someone with an actual braincell looked at the circumstances and worked out that the DC were in no danger, not regularly neglected or abused and that there was in fact no need to waste any more time on the issue.
I do get very tired with the shrieking, nappy-filling, WAAAAHHH what if it RAINS HAMMERS? mindset some people have, expecting the absolute worst to happen every minute and rendering their DC incapable of doing anything without Mummy, a lawyer, a social worker and a coule of therapists handy.

I tried to check out some stats - which hopefully have more validity, as they other estimate I read was clearly rubbish. APOLOGIES!

Anyway excuse the thread hi=jack but here goes.

www.lbfire.org.uk/fire_safety/safety_home_cigarettes.htm

This seems a more sensible bit of info - it appears there are 500 deaths a year due to house fires but they don't give the breakdown on children/adults. They do state that 4 in 10 of these deaths are a result of someone being careless with smoking materials, like cigarettes, matches and lighters. Nothing about being home alone though:
? These fires are more likely to happen at night ? between 10pm and 3am
? Men are twice as likely to be victims as women and every year, smoking materials cause 1 in every 3 deaths of children under 16. Such fires injure another 500 children, every year.

Not sure if this has been asked but I wonder if the OP has done this before and is a bit fed up that she/he has been caught out this time?

I cannot believe that 2 school aged children didn't have any friends that they could have arranged a sleepover with. Sounds like neglect and if I was a neighbour I would be calling SS.

I can't imagine a situation ever where ds would have to stay home alone at any age even in a short term emergency. If there was no one I could leave him with I would take him with me. Makes me wonder what the OP was doing that meant she/he was away all night and couldn't take the children and couldn't arrange proper childcare. Like I said I reckon this isn't a one off for this OP.

My friend who leaves her 11 and 9 year old occasionally on their own at home, is Armenian(near Turkey), I am half Armenian and I think that this is a cultural thing, children are taught from an early age there to be more independent and self sufficient, this also applies to other cultures too. They sent their children to Armenia in the school holidays for a month once to stay with grandparents to learn about the culture and to be more domesticated.

Unlike here where children tend to be cotton wooled and cossetted, children in other cultures are taught to be more independent, and are considered to be adults at a far earlier age than here. My friend would never leave her kids overnight though, that is a bit risky.

By Indaba Sat 26-Sep-09 11:55:08 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster
Haven't read whole thread as its getting rather long now, but think I'm right in saying its against the law in England to leave under 14 year olds on their own for long periods (and definitely over night).
This is not true.
There is no age limit for leaving children on their own.

At 14, children can babysit others, (I think), and pay full price on bus for example, so you might logically say that they are treated as adults and could be left overnight at that age?

chegirl - I have not been impolite. I was referring to your assertion that you have been involved with CP for years. I am shocked that you would have worked in a sector which involves CP for years and not understand about needing to take a careful child-focused approach particularly as you have said you have been a foster parent where a good understanding of CP is very important.

Theoretically you could phone the police if the parent turned up. I believe that based on an uninvestigated single accusation there is not too much the police could do to prevent the parent from removing the child. Even if there was how would this be in the best interests of the child? Also, why would this be a good example of CP or "working together"? What this would do is upset the child, possibly place the child at further risk, escalate the entire situation unecessarily, compromise the investigation into the original accusation and undermine the parent's relationship with the school. It would also mean the school would have to make a judgement call about whether to call the police because they felt the accusation might have some basis.

was it SGB who said about kids going camping with scouts at 10/11? They don't go camping unsupervised, it isn't the same thing at all.

Anyway, it doesn't matter why the OP left the children or where she went. Parents are entitled to make whatever decisions they like about leaving their children, other people can report these decisions to SS if they feel they are placing the children at risk and SS are entitled to make a judgement which disagrees with the parent.

The school acted correctly. This situation needed further investigation and it has been investigated. The OP might be annoyed that she wasn't informed first but if she was then she might've been much more upset by any of the other ways the school could have chosen to handle things.

We are not talking about a 14 year old baby sitter - we are talking about a 12 and 13 year old left alone overnight and the parent being annoyed because a school took action, informed ss's who then it appears informed the police who popped around and then asked that the neighbours take in the children for the night. That is if my interpretation of this post is correct - the op could shed some light on this.

So, because for whatever reason - and it does not seem to be an emergency - as the op carefully considered her decision - it meant that the school, ss and police were all involved - yes it would appear to be a waste of resources as the children were able to be put in a safe scenario. But why is the OP really annoyed at the school - why could she not just have arranged adequate child care and sorted this out herself.

I think she is being unreasonable to direct her annoyance at the school - how are they to know that this is/was a one off? What else was she really expecting the school to do? We don't know the timescales involved except of her intent to leave her children alone overnight - we don't know the extend of the close supervision she thought she had in place.

It does not seem to me like they have investigated her parenting skills - they have passed the matter on.

oh and didl at 14 years of age it would be illegal to expect a child or young person ( 14 year old baby sitter) to work through the night.

The WTR's would not allow it.

I´m not talking about them working through the night.

I´m saying if a child of 14 can babysit, and be treated as as adult in some ways, perhaps you could reasonably argue that a child of 14 could be left alone all night.

oh ok I didn't see the relevance or logic follow through as to what children do for jobs translating to being left alone all night - it is still a risk leaving a child alone all night. I don't see why a parent would need to do this?

There are some many other safer sensible alternatives, which I don't think mean that you would be wrapping up your children in cotton wool.

Dispel some myths -Working time regulations don't apply to babysitting.There is no legal mimimum age to babysit.
The law is very vague on what age you can leave children alone.
Personally I think 16 is the minimum age to leave child alone all night.

I wouldn´t do it, either.

But in UK there seems to be no legal age, which obviously doesn´t mean it´s OK to leave a child of any age all night.

I think a good rule of thumb is if you have to THINK about whether they will be OK on their own , then don't do it!

Mine won´t be on their own until they leave home, then!!

I've mostly skimmed but read half in detail.

Would like to make a comment that I don't think has been brought up yet.

Your daughter answered the door to a plainclothes police officer - ie. didn't know him from Adam.

SURELY you can see that what you did was wrong now, as your prepubescent daughter had no qualms about answering your front door to a strange man. Your 12 and 13-year-old are not responsible enough to be left in the house as they are willingly answering doors to strangers.

As adults we answer the door to strangers, i dont always look through the window, but usually shoo them away pretty quickly. Ok so the girl answered the door to a plain clothes policeman, did she ask him for id or anything. The elderly are preyed upon everyday by strangers posing to be professionals yet should they be on their own!

Babysitting - is not normally considered to be employment as it is usually conducted without any form of employment contract and is often unpaid, but I think you could take the view the the regs would apply if it was an all night role - as it would then fall into an employment catergory - but anyhow didle clarified what she meant.

Yes I agree - everysinglestar - op has not commented on whether her children were scared etc and why they opened the door.

The more I think about this the more stupid it seems.

HMm - picturing an AIBU thread on 'AIBU to report parents who've seemingly gone off on a jolly leaving their 12 and 13 yr olds home alone'.....er, no.

and can you imagine the outcry if the home alone scenario had been reported and nothing was done by the school, ss or police.

However i feel that if (older) kids are to be left on their own in a house (younger ones no way), they should be mature enough to know what to do in an emergency and what to do if unknown people kock on your door. If they are not mature enough to deal with it, they are not mature enough be left on their own.

Piglet An adult answering the door to strangers is completely different than a child doing so.