Leaving children 'home alone' - what do you think?

[KateMumsnet]

Hello all

A parent is arrested for leaving their child alone every day, according to new research.

The law doesn't currently specify the age at which children can be left on their own - and charges in the last three months of last year involved children between the ages of three months and 14 years.

What do you think? How old were your DC when you left them 'home alone' - and would you like to see the age at which a child can be left unsupervised defined in law?

Naomi....you thought it through,assessed the risks, gave him all the info he needed and supervised the busy road bit. He will be better equipped for life the more opportunities he gets like that. I think people spend too much time worrying about the miniscule possibilities of what dreadful things might happen. The point is,these things are so unlikely,and the more responsibility you give your kids, the more likely they are to cope in a difficult situation if it does arise. My (then)11 year old witnessed me break my leg badly last summer. We were on a remote Scottish Island. She had to help me phone for help, run off to locate her dad who had walked ahead with her 2 younger siblings, then look after them whilst DH ran to find help. She coped amazingly because she has always been encouraged to do as much as she is able to. I was was very proud of her.

I personally think leaving an 8 and 6 year old home alone is quite shocking (sorry Naomi but that's my opinion). Those children are far too young. Again I would have waited until the youngest woke up and not sent an 8 year old to the shop alone or planned ahead so that the food was bought before she fell asleep. In my view, if you are so concerned that you need to ring ahead to the shop then you know that that child is too young.
I am intrigued by the comments that school allows kids to walk home alone, or the swimming pool allows it etc. YOU are the parent- no one else! It's not the responsibility of the school (after hours) or the swimming pool management to tell you when your children are safe to be alone! (And of course they wouldn't be alone in a pool- they would be supervised constantly by lifeguards). I imagine that most people would expect their children to be supervised during the day at school. I imagine that if a child got hurt/bullied at playtime at the age of 8 you would want to know where the teachers were??!! During the day your children WILL be supervised at school. Even at secondary school, duty staff supervise breaktimes. They are rarely alone. At the end of the school day you are responsible for them- not the school.
And for the record, not wishing my child (at 8) to walk to school alone or spend time at home alone does not make her some kind of couch potato! She walks to school with a parent every day, she goes to the park/dancing lessons/swimming lessons every night of the week. The TV is hardly ever on in our house because her day is busy and filled with activities. I am shocked appalled at the insinuation that wanting to look after your child responsibly equates to lazy parenting. In my opinion the opposite is true.

We live one mile from the school and just over a mile from the village shop. Last summer when DD was 9 I let her and her friend (who was 10) go to the shop alone for the first time. She loved having the responsibility, got to buy sweets with her own money and came back happy. Her friend has lived in the village all her life and has been doing that journey alone since she was 7.

I'd let her walk home from school if she needed to, but she doesn't because DH is a SAHD. Only in the summer though because the road is busy and there are no street lights.

I don't see why other posters feel the need to be 'shocked' or 'appalled'. Fair enough if you wouldn't do it, but what is the impact on you if someone else does it? None.

I think that depends Eve on whether you live your life not caring for the welfare of anyone else! I was shocked and appalled when the McCann's left their daughter alone and she went missing. I was astounded that they said "everyone does it". I remember shouting at the TV- "no they don't!". Clearly more do than I thought!

Excellent use of the Passive Agressive there

I prefer to remain happy with my choice of parenting 'standards' no matter what other parents do. I don't think that what other parents choose to do with their children is necessarily wrong, just not what I'd do. I don't get het up about other people's parenting choices because they don't have any bearing on mine. Being 'shocked and appalled' is a waste of energy when it doesn't impact on me at all.

I have more respect for a parent/friend who actually listens to another viewpoint. Who makes choices based on experience, attitudes, assessments of the situation/danger and the people involved than those who go "Oh my God that's so wrong, I'd never do that, that's a bad parent, there is no excuse" without looking any deeper into it.

Sometimes though Eve it is a bad choice. Would you stand silently by while a parent advocated smacking their child excessively? Or not feeding them if they'd been naughty? It is difficult (especially given my job) to see parents put their children at risk and not to have a view on it. And let's face it, this is a discussion and so having a view is kind of the point!
I am reminded of the well known phrase- bad things happen when good people do nothing. Perhaps overly dramatic but I am not the sort of person who is able/willing to hear stories of 4+ year olds being left alone and nod and smile as though that's fine.

no-one said you couldn't have a view, but your use of over emotive flowery language, strawman arguements and passive agressive comments rather dilute it as a sensible viewpoint.

My eldest DS is almost 9 and I've left him to go to the post office and the butchers but taken the other two (6&3) with me.

There is no way I would leave a 4 or 5 year old on their own even for 10 minutes, they don't have the intellectual capacity to understand risk properly.

Really? So you don't think it's sensible to argue that 4 year olds shouldn't be left alone? That 6/7 year olds are too young? Honestly?
Look. I know that dragging an 8 year old to the supermarket is hard work. I get that they don't want to go. I understand that telling them 20 times to put their shoes on because it's time to go is a bit annoying. However, personally I do that when I have to because for me, that's actually a life lesson for an 8 year old. Sometimes we all have to do stuff we don't want to do for the good of us all (ie we don't shop we don't eat!). Reading so many people on here saying that they leave their young kids (and I'm sorry but 8 is a young kid) at home because they don't want to go and seeing that as helping them become independent.... Well, personally I think it's justifying taking the easy option. I just hope that they continue to get away with it. Again I'll repeat, they will get away with it unless something goes wrong when potentially they could be charged with neglect. That isn't something that I will ever expose myself to being accused of.

I agree with that point about not just leaving them home because they don't want to go. If you think as an adult sometimes I don't want to go to the shop and Dh will tell me to just stay home. But majority of the time I have to just do whatever it is. So every now and again let your kid chill out at home but to always leave them just because they don't fancy whatever you're doing is as much of a parenting fail as not teaching them to be independent on their own at home.

Flowergirlmum - I think we're all aware of your viewpoint by now. You really don't need to tell every new person that posts on the thread that you think they're an appalling parent for not parenting like you do. We get it.

For a lot of parents I imagine the issue is childcare....in that Primary schools often offer wraparound care (my dc go/went from 7.30 Breakfast club, then I pick up between 5.30-6.00 from after school club because I work 4 full days a week).

But this all changes suddenly at Secondary school when there is nothing. The government pushed very hard for Primary wrap around childcare, but presumably they, and the secondary schools themselves, don't feel it is necessary for children aged 11 and over. There are clubs after school - lots of them if you are lucky, but these aren't childcare, and if you work you have very little choice but to have latchkey kids because the support system set up for a Primary children simply disappears.

So from September next year my two (dd 12 ds 11) will be 'home alone' - from 7.45ish til they leave to walk to school, then from 3.30 - 5.30 until I get home. Dd has been doing it this year and has been fine. I am going to encourage both to go to homework club a couple of times (as dd does now) and any other clubs they fancy.
I can't stop working, just to provide pre and post school childcare for two fairly sensible pre-teens, and that would be the only other solution.

You can't really make laws to dictate this as it depends on so many factors. Each child is different, areas, homes etc.

With my own children I have let them be left alone at different ages. Because they were ready for it at dictates. I can let ds1 (15) babysit and have done for a year or so now.

It's not about leaving my kids because they don't want to come with me or because I can't be bothered to take them. It's about helping them learn responsibility and life skills. This includes being left alone, cycling to school alone or nipping to the shop or library or playing out. For the elder two trips to town, cinema or on trains etc to go visit relatives.

For the younger two it's playing in the front garden or cul De sac with me keeping an eye.

I realise that others will make different choices depending on their child and circumstances. Doesn't mean one of us is wrong it's about what us right for each individual family, like so many other parenting choices

Flower girl makes me laugh. Bless her!!!

There is a reason why no laws currently exist on this issue. I would be very surprised if a law was soon about to be passed.

I hope that society has the common sense not to accuse parents of neglect willy-nilly.

Laws do exist actually.

Not in relation to age they don't. I think laws would be worse for children because if, say, it was legal to leave a 12 year old and someone left a 12 year old who wasn't ready and something awful happened - that parent presumably couldn't be prosecuted.. People would stop relying on common sense and good parenting.

Guidance exists courtesy of the NSPCC but prosecutions are rare because there is no law. You should know that.

From the NSPCC:

What the law says

Strange as it may seem, there’s no set age for leaving children home alone. The law simply says that you shouldn’t leave a child alone if they’ll be at risk.

There’s such a wide variation in the rate that children mature that it would be almost impossible to come up with a “one size fits all” law. Instead, the choice is left to parents. They know their children best and can use their own judgement.

Eve- you stopped before the next bit-

children under 12 are rarely mature enough to be left alone for a long period of time
children under 16 shouldn’t be left alone overnight
babies, toddlers and very young children should never be left alone

Parents can be prosecuted if they leave a child unsupervised ‘in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health’.

Therefore if your 4,5,6,7,8 year old comes to any harm (or even cries and alerts a neighbour) while you are out then you could be charged with neglect (as I said previously).

What law then Flower?

NSPCC guidance is not a law.

Can't wait to be shown the LAW

Do you actually know what the definition of neglect is?

some people seem to move from
'i think'
to
'therefore it is//should be the law'