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?

I think I'd have made the same judgment call as you MumNWLondon.

On the walking, we have let ds walk to school since he was 7 - initially followed by us 80% of the time (so he didn't know if we were follwoing him, so had to behave "properly"). It's a 10-15 minute walk and involves crossing one relatively busy road (with a lollipop man) and three other quieter roads). We made him walk down one side of a particular road, even though it meant an extra "quiet" road to cross as one of the other junctions was more dangerous on the other side of the road, with cars turning right into without properly looking.

He didn't walk him because at the time he went to after school club as I worked full time.

Last year (when he was 8) we stopped following him. This year (now 9) he walks to and from school. On the afternoons that he does after-school acitivities, he has to corss the "main" road on his own.

This is all in an inner city suburb of Glasgow - albeit with wide open streets and not too much traffic.

I'd have started letting him walk on his own earlier - but it was more concern about what other people might think that stopped me

We built up to this from as soon as he could walk, with getting him to tell us when it was safe to corss the road. He has always shon a good traffic awareness - bordering on the over-conscientious. Sometimes, it would take us forever to corss the raod, as even a car in the distance would put him off . It probably helped that we live in a long straight wide road where cars had a tendency to race (until the put the traffic calming measures in, after a car ended up on its roof on the pavement ) - so that he knew to be wary about cars and to be very sure of the speed that they were going.

There are certain of his friends that for a long time I wouldn't have been happy with him walking with unupervised, as they showed no traffic awareness (acknowledged by their parents).

I'd make the same judgement calls as MumNWLondon, and prettybird.

MumNWLondon -unbelievable!!!

Mumnwlondon, as with the OP, was there any reason why you couldn't take the kids with you to the gp?! Is that not what parents of young children usually do? You left a 6yo in charge of a sleeping baby?!

It just beggars belief MumNWLondon. What if the baby had woken up? What if one of your kids choked on something, or fell? So many what ifs. So irresponsible. Even worse than the OP in my opinion.

YOu do NOT leave small children unattended, however "special" and mature for their years you think they are, it's neglectful - end of story.

I'd be with MumNWLondon & prettybird as well.

DD used to play outside around the farm where we used to live from being very young. Certainly by age 4 I wouldn't have expected her to be in view - only within earshot. And by age 5 I expected her to be within earshot allowing for me going to either end of the yard & shouting. (The kids were totally forbidden to go in the field where the machinery lived or the field with a lake without an adult.)

So I guess she could easily have fallen/choked/whatever - but it has to be a matter of assessing risk vs benefit. That is to say, the considerable benefit of free play outdoors, vs. the small risk of fall/choke etc. If we didn't make those assessments we would never get out of bed, much less set foot in a car!

I don't see the benefit to the child of leaving your 6 year old in charge of a baby or leaving a 7 year old alone whilst you're at the supermarket.

In that case I would bundle them all in the car and take them, even if it meant waking the baby. Although I would leave a 7 yr old for a few minutes, I wouldn't leave them with any responsibility for other DCs. Getting a neighbour around to fill the gap would be best.
You have to weigh the risk and,although I agree that nothing would probably happen on the end of the phone to dad, it would be too much risk for me. I chose times when I didn't have to do it, with one DC who knew the rules.

It all shows the advantage of the gradual approach-starting with 5 minutes, when you don't have to do it, and there is no stress.

I would not have left the 6yo with the 4yo: mine would certainly have woken up and would have been upset.

But I wouldn't have done it anyway: I would want a child to be much older before I saddled them with the responsibility for another child. I'd leave a child alone before I left him with a younger child.

Cory, based on yr wording, i think you missed the fact that that it was a 6yo, a 4yo AND a sleeping baby!!

Well, I wouldn't have left the sleeping baby either: but my point (badly expressed though it was) is that even if the sleeping baby had been out of the equation, I would still not have done this.

I know, me neither! But the sleeping baby made it an even more ridiculous scenario!

I've only got the one ds, so responsibility for others has never been something I have had to factor it.

However, the way MuminNWLondon described it - a "difficult to get" appointment (and she doesn't need to tell us why - but it could have been something that was seriously worrying her) and a husband that she knew was within striking distance is why I said that I would probably, in the same circumstances, have doen the same thing. There may also have been good reasons why taking all 3 kids with her to the GPs was not feasible.

I'm not sure I'd have thought about the "keeping an open channel" with the kids as an extra safeguard - but then, I come from a generation which doesn't automtically think ot use their mobile. If the kids thought of it as a game, then they would never have even realised that they were "responsible" for their sleeping sibling (I don't see it that way). In ds' case, once he was asleep, that was him for at least an hour (during the day) (he also slept through the night from an early age ), so that could also explain AMuminNWLondon's confidence - if her child is also a "sleeper".

Now the GP situation I def wouldn't have done, though I am v. relaxed about leaving my kids, that to me was too dodgy. I've done may an appt with 3 or even 4 kids in tow. I got the impression the GP was very close max 10 mins away from the wording, so I'd have taken the kids with me and got dh to come and get them from me at the surgery, chances are she'd still have been waiting anyway, so dh gets the kids and she gets the appt in peace

My mum was always the cotton-wool, overly-cautious type. I grew up in a very rural area and she was the only mum who would come looking for the kids and know exactly where we were at all times. I was allowed to walk ten minutes to the 'high street' (very rural so barely a town centre) when I was 10. I thought I was so cool and sophisticated! Mum, of course, was trailing me in her car! I was allowed to stay in the house alone at that point too. I'm almost 30 now, and for my peers in that locality, 10 was the point when you got some 'freedom'. She was/is still ridiculously worried about me. I moved to the big city at 17 and I don't think mum has ever recovered from the worry, even though I'm a married woman! So, in my head and experience, 10 works.

My mother actually told me that she would like to wrap me in cotton wool so that I couldn't get hurt-I was 37yrs old at the time!! I can see why, but it is irritating!
Parents have to curb it and give independence. 7yrs may be young, but they really need to start letting go at 10yrs, if they haven't been brave enough earlier.

Doesn't come under the umbrella of negligence. I must admit I thought children shouldn't be left alone under the age of 13.

Doesnt IT come under the umbrella...........

MumNWLondon - could you not have waited another 5/10 minutes for your DH and just got to the GP's a little late? Seems like a hell of a risk to take just to make sure you got to the appt on time.