Would you leave your 5 years old all alone for all morning under the pretex you have to go food shopping...

[Ploufplouf]

and taking him would make things difficult ? My Sil did it, he didnt want to come, so he became stroppy resulting in My Sil leaving my nephew behind..for 3 hours playing with the wii..Just a rant, I know nobody in their right mind whowould do that.

and I was worried about leaving DS1 for 40 minutes and he is 10!!!

I have a 5 yr old dd and I am confident that she would be fine on her own in the house. I know she would watch telly, play on the PC or with her toys. She is sensible enough not to touch anything like the cooker etc and she knows how to use the phone and where to get my parents etc number from.

But I would still feel uncomfortable going to the bottom of my street and leaving her alone for 5 minutes - just in case.

I definitely agree that leaving a 5 year old for 3 hours is wrong. I am pretty sure that as someone else said above, there are no set ages for things, but you can be prosecuted for getting it wrong.
I found things happened without forward planning with my two. When the oldest was about 9 and ill in bed, but not very ill, it seemed to make more sense to leave him at home while I took the younger one to school. Then one day we had to go back for something for the younger one on the school run and let the older one finish going to school on his own.

I was left on my own regularly from I don't know what age,maybe 7, including evenings out when parents were in a different town. No physical harm came to me but psychologically it was a very bad outcome. not least because I learned to stuff myself with all food in the house (including the bargain waste chocs from the nearby choc factory) leading to severe overweight, consequential bullying, later bulimia (what was I using food to compensate for, I wonder...)and, being an advanced reader, reading entirely unsuitable paperbacks that had no place being in reach of a child.
Not saying this would happen to every child but just because "nothing visibly bad has happened" it doesn't mean the child is OK.

MM was ONE little girl.
it does not mean that every child out of sight of their parents for even a second from now till eternity will disappear and have a sticky end.
it simply does not.
GET A GRIP.

tho 3 hours for a 5yo does feel wrong to me too.

Good grief, unbelievable! I would NEVER EVER leave a 5yr old child alone, I wouldn't even leave a 10yr old alone, that is shocking and just pure laziness, negligence, stupidity and ignorance, like a previous poster suggested, madeline mccann springs to mind

I have to agree that 3 hrs for a 5 yr old seems wrong, however I think half the country is now gripped with paranoia over leaving their kids following Madelaine McCann.

I have just got back from holiday, and am pissed off with all the comments we received when we were downstairs in our hotel listening into our baby monitor (DC asleep, door locked, monitor in range.)

agree bluesky.
reactionary bollocks imo.

Rubbish, utter crap, no one, mother, adult, with any sense would leave a 5 YO unattended. never. It's just not right. Far too many "what if's", that could and can happen. If I ever found out this had happened, I'd certainly inform folk that need to know a child isn't safe.

i do agree the 5yo being left is wrong.
i DONT think M Mccann has anything to do with the dangers. the dangers are plenty... being snatched is pretty f'ing unlikely tho.

ellideb on Sun 13-Apr-08 22:50:10
"I wouldn't even leave a 10yr old alone, that is shocking and just pure laziness, negligence, stupidity and ignorance, like a previous poster suggested, madeline mccann springs to mind"

So if leaving a 10year-old alone is shocking and negligence, at what age are you going to start preparing them for independence? Do you mean that when they hit the teens they will go straight into clubbing without any experience of coping on their own? Or will leaving home be the first time they do anything on their own? And how safe will they be then?

I think we all agree about the 5 year-old, but a 10 year old is a totally different kettle of fish. IMO helping them to gradually become more independent is not laziness, but doing a parent's job. The lazy ones are the ones whose kids turn up at uni unable to even boil a kettle.

Yes, Madeleine McCann disappeared and I for one would not have done what her parents did, precisely because she was too little, but that is very different from a 10 year-old.

Of course, there are dangers to older children too (let's face it, 18 year-olds get abducted!), but there comes an age where we have to let them learn independence because they need it. And IMO 10 is a good age to start.

I was very impressed by my 11yo the other day when her brother had an accident. I was there, so she didn't have to do any of the biggies, such as phoning the hospital, but the calm competence with which she set about packing his hospital bag (unprompted) and reassuring him seemed to suggest that she could have coped in a real emergency.

cory although I agree that a 5yr old and a 10 yr old are a different kettle of fish, a 10yr old is still a child.

Nothing annoys me more then an older teen/young adult who doesn't have a clue how to take care of themselves because their parents have probably molly coddled them and not allowed them to learn anything for themselves, but there are many other ways in which to teach a child autonomy, independance and responsibility other than leaving them to fend for themselves alone at home. I feel the dangers are too great, not least of all a stranger coming to the door, fires and accidents.

In my opinion, until they are at least in secondary school I really don't believe any child under the age of 10yrs should be left without a responsible adult/older teen to care for them.

at least in secondary school. good grief!
i was left alone from the age of 7 every single day. i was a latch-key child and so was most children in my street. this was in the 70s,, but surely peoples homes are no more dangerous these days? I do think this is a cultural thing. i would never discuss when i leave my children home alone with my british friends and family. most of my foreign friends,however, have similar views as myself depending on each individual child of course.

Message withdrawn

I think independance and responsibility is like a coming of age and trust needs to be earned rather than given freely with regards to being home alone.
5yrs- No way
10yrs- Most probably not
11yrs+ Mature responsible child then yes
14yrs+ No way (face book, parties, invite the whole county)

--You need to tell her to STOP right now doing that. I am a child protection SW and it is 100% illegal to leave your child alone at that age. The child could be put on the child protection register (if known to be happening often) and the parent charged, quite rightly, with neglect.
Serious business and tell her that.

Just for information, and whilst you are here sailingduo, what is a legal age for a child to be left alone and then left alone to be responsible for another child e.g babysitting?

You mean if you have a 15 year old, you wouldn't be able to pop down the shops for a pint of milk without taking them? That sounds like a weird life to me. And what happens when they turn 18? Do they magically turn trustworthy overnight again?

And how do you explain that yes, I trusted you yesterday when you were 13 but now you're 14 I can't trust you any more? Not because of anything you've done, but because I have settled ideas about what different ages are like.

I agree that trust needs to be earned. But so does distrust. I wouldn't dream of distrusting somebody just because they were 14+. If they prove that they can't be trusted, that's different: I know 50-year-olds whom I wouldn't trust alone in my house for an evening.

But if my children were so untrustworthy at 14 or 15 that I can't even go out shopping, then I'd worry what would happen in a few years' time when they go to uni.

When I was 16, I stayed alone in a hotel in a foreign country for a long weekend. I understood about the dangers and I understood about not letting my parents down. I see no reason to believe that my daughter will be less able to understand these matters- assuming that I teach her as well as my parents taught me.

Oh, and regards your earlier post, can I just point out that some secondary school children are only just over 10? My dd will be nearly 12 when she goes up, but lots of her friends will only just have turned 11.

cory how is a '15yr old popping down to the shops for a pint of milk' comparable to leaving a child under 10yrs alone at home and responsible for himself?

That 14 yr old comment was meant humourously due to the stories in the newspaper and on telly recently regarding teens having wild parties whilst parents have been away etc! I would expect a 14yr old to behave maturely when home alone and besides a lot of teens are responsible for younger children through babysitting jobs.

different strokes for different folks as they say- i personally would not let my 16yr old daughter stay alone in a foreign country, maybe you were exceptionally mature and streetwise, but 16 is such a vulnerable and naive age and people can take advantage of that, that would be my concern there.

I said 11 as a rule of thumb, when kids get to secondary school they usually mature pretty quickly and are no longer 'children' due to the influence of being amongst older children and many more peers of the same age to mix with.

Ellideb, what I said about the 15 year-old was not in comparison to leaving a 5yo alone (which I agreed is wrong), but because you mentioned the age of 14+. I should have realised your comment was tongue in cheek- but you can't know for sure when you don't know a poster (you do get some weird ones on MN ).

I think I probably was mature but not streetwise at age 16 iyswim. In other words, I stuck to the guidelines agreed with my parents, which meant noone got much of a chance to take advantage of any gullibility I may have possessed.

Besides, it was only two years later, at 18, that I and everybody else I knew had to move from home to the big city to get jobs or go to uni. In Sweden, where I grew up, universities do not provide the same cosseting environment with halls and tutors as English unis do, so everybody knows that once you go to college you have be an adult: teenagers are encouraged to be independent with this in mind.

Even younger children are much more independent there. I used to take a boat out on my own from age 11 or thereabouts and probably knew as much about judging the weather and the wind as my father did. We went out skiing alone and knew how to look out for signs of hypothermia etc. This is something that hasn't changed in the intervening 35 years: Swedish children still do these things. I find the greatest aid to my children's maturing has been us spending time in Scandinavia.

As for the scenario mentioned by several posters of someone coming to the door, tbh I think my kids are a lot safer if I'm not there: then the door stays locked. Whereas I would almost certainly open it (at least in daytime) - and if there happened to be a gun-toting lunatic on the other side, what could I do to protect them? Not a lot.

OMFG thats child neglect leavin a 5yr old alone dont do it social services would have a feild day even at the fact ur thinking of doin it

i am shocked that any parent would even think about leaving a child home alone even for 5 mins

nspcc - springs to mind -- ring them now and dont feel guilty you will be protecting that little child and you dont have to tell them who you are say - " concerned neighbour if you want to protect yourself" this is a seroius matter, if anyone not so "nice" and with indecent thoughts got to know they leave child on there own ---- then it does not bear thinking about,,,,,,,,,,,

That is very odd. I wouldn't leave my 5yo alone.

At weekends we do sometimes snooze while dd watches a dvd in the morning after having got up and given her breakfast, set up dvd etc

In theory I guess she could bang her head and we might not hear or something.

But then when I am downstairs and she is up in her room playing the same could happen

It's age 14 in NZ to leave a kid alone, and mysteriously 14 is also the babysitting age.

I know plenty of 13 year olds who were trained to say their mum was in the bathroom and would ring the caller back - and then ring them at work.

I remember using time in the house alone to have a good nosey around - and I was older than 5.