Was it wrong to leave my children alone for 5 minutes?

[MrWrong]

This morning I took my 3yr old daughter to her weekly swimming lesson. As it's half term, my 5.5yr old son was with us. We had the pushchair etc as we were going into town after. When I got to the leisure center - late - I realized I'd left her swimming costume at home. We were in a cubicle in the changing room at the time. Panic, what to do? To go back to the house with the pushchair and kids would have taken too long, we were late already. So I asked my son to look after my daughter, stay there and help her get undressed while I ran back to the house to get her swimming bag which was in the hallway. There and back took about five minutes and when I got back they were fine and my daughter was undressed. She got to the lesson a couple of minutes late.

I swore the children to secrecy because I knew my wife wouldn't be happy about me leaving them. But my daughter blabbed and my wife almost burst into tears before storming off saying how upset she was. She made me feel as though I'd stamped on her hamster or something, but all I did was make a judgement call and felt I could trust my children for the few minutes I was away. (We live in a quiet town where a lot of people know each other BTW)

Was it a really terrible thing that I did?

What kind of an idiot leaves a 5 year old in charge of a 3 year old in a public place and leaves the building?

Yes it really was a terrible thing you did and I would back your wife up for screaming, shouting, crying and hitting you with a wet fish.

What a ridiculous unthinking foolish thing

Did the reception folk not say anything when you came back in? If you went in with two kids, then left without them, then returned 5 mins later -I would have noticed and asked where you left them.

It sounds to me like you made a snap judgement based on the scenario 'older child is here to look after younger child' and it was just inappropriate given the ages of the children. My seven-year old will stop my three-year old for me if she starts running towards a road and he's nearest, which saves me running myself, but he still doesn't totally get that once he's done that he has to hold on to her for a few seconds till I catch up - he can't just let her go as soon as he's stopped her. His mind just isn't that focused on what's going on and what the point of what he's doing is. Aged five I could imagine him nodding seriously when asked to keep a younger sibling with him but then forgetting two minutes later when he saw something interesting somewhere to climb on!

I think it's easy to accidentally give a young primary-school aged child a bit too much responsibility in that situation because you get so used to thinking of the older one as the (relatively!) sensible and rational one, compared to a toddler. But there are still so many scenarios that they wouldn't be able to cope with and they don't really understand what sorts of things a toddler might do or what might be dangerous to a toddler, so it's too much responsibility.

The poster's a twat. Stop feeding him/her.
FGS

Big mistake, lesson learned. Fortunately no unhappy ending, thank heavens. Hope things calm down at home. Incidentally, I think men often make 'throw-away' comments when writing about something they actually feel nervous/anxious about - that doesn't make someone a 'twat'. Also, someone who has a contentious situation to post about, but has never posted before, is not by definition a troll.

i wouldn't have even left a 5 yr old by themself for 5 minutes at the local pool, let alone left the 5 yr old looking after a 3 year old

dreadful behaviour

Classic AIBU! Poster posts something (in this case deeply unreasonable), everyone tells them they have been unreasonable (some verging on hysteria), the OP returns and accepts that they were in the wrong, and still people continue to be abusive...

LOL! This is utterly ridiculous

I'm glad some of you are so perfect...

It was a really stupid thing to do. Error in judgement, no more, no less. To start shouting social services/divorce/sectioning is actually laughable.

Obviously I would have shouted at you, OP. You're lucky she didn't cut off your bollocks

300m is quite a way (nearly a quarter of a mile, so narly half a mile return journey), and there is getting in and out of the building and house....

bad call, MrWrong!

If this is real

You will "try" to make sure it doesn't happen again?

You were wrong to leave the kids, wrong to ask them not to tell mum, wrong to not take whatever your wife threw at you and you should be apologising to the kids and your wife as many times as necessary. And why didn't youjust let your daughter swim in in her knickers?

Hi Mr Wrong
What you did wasn't right but we all make mistakes. As someone else said, you're just lucky this didn't end badly.
Some people posting have been a bit OTT. All that name calling is a bit nasty IMO but please don't let that stop you - or anyone else - posting here. We can all learn from ours and other post-ers mistakes.

Mrwrong,

Regarding your last post, I am very glad that you realise that you have been a twat, and I hope that you now really appreciate your wife because however harshly she reacted to you you now realise the reaction would have been worse from most of us.

Yes, you do need to apologise to your wife, but why exactly do you not feel you should apologise to your kids?

Children learn by example, You have given them a v bad example. Apologise to them and put it right.

MrWrong - i am pretty sure my dh would do exactly the same thing, not good and i would be furious too. But you have posted how you realise this, and have accepted posters opinions.

How is DW now???