to leave seven year old DD alone at home for short periods?

[firstaibu]

I've name changed for this as am fearing a flaming...

I'm not talking about leaving her for an evening or anything like that, but on several of occasions recently I've left her at home while I go to the supermarket. She didn't want to come with me, and I usually leave her sitting in the car reading when I go to the supermarket anyway. I lock the front door and she knows to ignore it if anyone knocks. She has the cordless phone and knows how to ring my mobile (she has repeatedly demonstrated this to me), and also how to ring 999. In an emergency, she could unlock the gate at the bottom of the garden to get out into the street. I phone her at least once while I'm out. She's seven and a half, and reasonably sensible; I'm confident that she just sits and reads, or plays the wii. I'm never gone more than an hour.

I know a lot of you will think I'm being very U, but is there anyone out there that does this too, or doesn't think I'm a horrendously neglectful parent?

You are being very brave as if anything happened to your LO, you would never forgive yourself.

You have to imagine everything that could go wrong. It's a billion to one chance that it will not.

But it could.

If my DCs school thought , knowing me, that I would put my DC at risk and would then fill in a form- I would have chosen the wrong school. I would be raising matters in the highest quarters. Firstly at overworked social workers having their time wasted and secondly at the emotional damage being done by over mollycoddling our nations DCs.
I wouldn't leave them if they hadn't instigated it and weren't personally quite happy about it. I wouldn't go to the supermarket at that age but I would certainly go to the local shop if the DC was happy.
Since I can't imagine why my DC would even think it conversationworthy with a teacher-I don't see a problem. In the highly unlikely event that a social worker spoke to my DC they would see that it was a complete time waster and I would be telling the social worker, and the teacher, that I would be doing it again.
I think that it is far better for a 7 yr old to be left for 10 mins while you pop to the post office than to have a TV in their bedroom!! I wouldn't have left mine for the supermarket, there are some DCs of 11yrs that I wouldn't leave to go to the supermarket. You have to know your DC-the Scottish police have the right, common sense attitude.

Obviously if a DC confided to a teacher that they were being left alone, and they were very scared and unhappy about it, it would need to be taken further and might be a sign of neglect. They are 2 entirely different things.
Teachers, like everyone else, need to use common sense. I can't see any reason why a DC who is happy and secure about it would even mention it.

I agree with Piscesmoon - I would have real issues with the school if they were to waste resources like that - after all, they should know your child's capabilities nearly as well as you, the parent.

However, like her, it would never come up for two reasons - one is that ds would never think to mention it to the school because it would be so boring "I watched TV last night - oh and mum & dad weren't there for part of the time" and second, the school has more common sense. They know ds is a very sensible lad - especially when away from his school mates - and they respect our judgement.

I asked my dad before ds was born to let me know if I ever exhibited any signs of "paranoid parenting". I respect the way that my parents brought me up (with lots of independence) and want to follow their example. My dad knows what real abuse looks like - as a doctor, he often had to testify in court about cases of Non Accidental Injury.

We have a large house and a large garden - I can often spend hours in one while ds is in the other, without really knwoing what he is up to. I have to admit that I did once get caught out by not checking on him and a friend when he was 4 or 5. Went upstairs to find out that they had got the poster paints out and had used them liberally all over the rug and elsewhere in his room . I had to soak his trainers to get the pait out of the soles.

I have had interesting discussions with my dcs about this, as they spend time in two different cultures and are quite intrigued to find that what counts as irresponsible and dangerous and a matter for child protection in the UK is considered normal practice by loving parents in Sweden.
(This was one of the main reasons dd wanted us to emigrate when the offer came up last year: she wanted to have the kind of freedom her peers in Scandinavia have, and she wanted to have friends to enjoy it with.)

I cannot in honesty tell them that Swedish parents are less caring, nor that Swedish children have more accidents, nor that English homes are more dangerous than Swedish ones. The statistics prove me wrong: Swedish children do not have more accidents )(British child mortality and morbidity is higher), the homes are pretty much the same and there is very little evidence of more neglect and abuse in Sweden. So what do I say?

My dad made an interesting comment about (UK) childern's lack of freedom. He said that if something were to happen to an unaccompanied young child - for example on the way to the local shops - nowadays our society would blame the parents.

When we were being brought up, the perpetrator would be blamed.

OP - it sounds fine and normal to me.

When I was young, all young DC walked to the shops-it was perfectly normal. When I was 7 yrs old and my mother ran out of something when cooking she would give me the money and just ask me to 'pop and get it'. Recently there was a mother of a 10 yr old posting who thought she was giving independence by sending her DC alone, into a shop,.....while she stood outside!

I agree with piscesmoon - when I was 7 we lived in a village and my mother often sent me off to the shops with a purse and basket to buy bits and pieces. I had to be able to cross a couple of roads (no traffic lights) and to pay and check my change. And these were village shops, which required one to ask for things.

At my DS's school the headteacher told me she she knows of 5 year olds who walk home alone (presumably to an empty house). She regards this as the parents' issue not the school's. It isn't considered to be a CP issue.

My eldest who is 19 in a couple of weeks often went to shop for me from the age of 6 or 7, it only seems to have been in the last 10 years or so that there's this mass hysteria of parents not letting primary aged children do anything without supervision.
Things haven't changed much in the world around us,it's just that we hear and see more due to 24 hour TV and media coverage.

I have tried to read all pages, but not sure if I've missed some.

Has anyone pointed out yet that if you are trying to avoid harm to your dc over a given period of an hour, you are far safer leaving them at home than taking them with you in the car.

I would suggest in terms of hierarchy of risk, so to speak, that statistically speaking:

most safe - take your dd with you, but travel by bus
medium safe - leave your dd at home
most dangerous - take your dd and travel by car.

Of course, as we all know, although car travel has a risk attached, it is not THAT dangerous. Why on earth we can't make the same assessment about leaving a child at home for a short time, I don't know.

And I am utterly astounded by the poster higher up who didn't like to leave her 11 y/o at home for more than a few minutes. Now that is quite a scary thought.

Bit concerned about a seven year old not being allowed to be unsupervised in a room for an hour. I don't think I would leave a seven year old alone, but I haven't got one yet so I don't know. I do agree with instinct being important but if it were all down to that then a lot more people wouldn't send their children to school (a whole other thread?). How many parents feel wobbly about first day at school. I went to shop a mile away at age eight. Apart from nearly forgetting to pay for bread it was all fine.

Me too about the 7yo not being allowed unsupervised in a room for an hour when parents are at home. That seems to me like treating a 7yo like a toddler. Besides, why is an hour more dangerous than the first 10 minutes? If they were going to rewire the electrics, who says they will wait for a certain amount of time before they get stuck in? And what do you do if they wake up at night? Do you have a baby alarm?

I was in P4 (year 3) when I started going to ballet classes on my own. This involved getting a train from a suburb of Glasgow half way into town, getting off in Partick and walking about half a mile - including up a lane and then ding the reverse, including walking from the station home - about a mile.

Although this would only have been late afternoon/early evening, in winter this would have been all been done in the dark.

I can remember my mum "training" me: doing it with me a few times, and then letting me do it on my own while she followed at a discreet distance before finally being left to do it on my own.

Children were not ferried to everything in those days. My mum and dad were both at uni (although my dad might have started his house officer training by that point) so if I wanted to go to ballet lessons, then I had to get there under my own steam. So I did.

MintHumbug Fri 11-Jun-10 09:00:34
"Why then does the NSPCC recommend 12 as the minimum age to leave a child (and 16 for overnight)? I assume the NSPCC are a charity expert at child protectiona and child welfare issues. I would say they should be immune to getting hysterical from watching news reports?"

But then again, why do similar organisations in other countries take a different attitude?

The NSPCC doesn't recommend 12 as "the minimum age to leave a child (and 16 for overnight".

It recommends 12 as the minimum age to be left along for more than short periods of time.

Now, we can debate that an hour is not a short period of time - but not that they say never to leave an under 12 year old, because they don't.

They do say never to leave a baby or toddler unattended (although I will admit that I left ds sleeping at 4 months old to post Christmas cards at the post box a 2 minute walk away)

NSPCC also say "the child may not mature enough. Not the same thing as saying "the child will not be mature enough".

And besides, if an 11yo is never old enough to be alone for more than a short period- how do the NSPCC square this with the fact that a great proportion of 11yos, once they reach secondary school, will be travelling across town to get to their schools, using public transport in many cases or walking? Most children I know who attend to secondary take considerably longer than a quick pop to the postbox to get to school every day, and the LEA will only provide transport for journeys over two miles if there is no public transport- so basically isn't going to happen. The schools assume that pupils are getting there under their own steam.

My experience is that guidelines by charities, as well as government guidelines are swayed not only by research but also by the current emotional climates. It is very difficult for a charity like the NSPCC to be seen advocating something potentially more risky than many parents would agree to. (Looking at some of the guidelines from 1960s Sweden, they seem absolutely loony to modern thinking, but obviously made sense in the climate of those days).

Also, the children that come to the NSPCC's attention are the ones that are left alone because they are neglected: they are going to have relatively little to do with healthy families who encourage a sense of adventure by sending their offspring out in a dinghy. So that is bound to colour their views.

'Has anyone pointed out yet that if you are trying to avoid harm to your dc over a given period of an hour, you are far safer leaving them at home than taking them with you in the car

They have pointed it out, over and over again-there is a distict view that it is far better for the DC to be in the car crash with you than a bit tearful at home because you are late!

Mine are past that stage now, so it won't happen, but if a teacher or child protection worker questioned me about it I would tell them why I was doing it and my precautions and I would look them in the eye and tell them that I would be doing it again. They are not going to take it further and if they did I would be getting it all over national newspapers and seeing my MP-I feel so strongly about it.
I have yet to see a happy, well cared for and emotionally well balanced DC taken into care because the mother goes to the supermarket knowing they are sensible, have rules, a next door neighbour and that you are instantly contactable by phone!

One of the saddest thing that I read on here was a mother who couldn't see why her 7 yr old would ever need to be on his own, unsupervised by her. I can see why people are scared to do it, but not that they don't even see it as desirable to have freedom.
The worst that my 4 yr old did, unsupervised, was play Thomas the tank engine in the snow-with talcum powder!