Why can't I go out and leave my 3 year old asleep on his own in the house?

[FrannyandZooey]

Don't worry, I am not about to do this. But I have been musing about risk and safety recently and I am wondering if this really is as terribly unsafe as we all think it is. He doesn't wake up and will be asleep for 90 mins or more. Even if he did, he is a sensible child and is not going to fall down the stairs or drink bleach or anything. He would be worried that I was not there (which is my main reason for not doing it).

I know the argument is "what if there was a fire?"

But there isn't a fire, is there? How many fires start at random when there is no-one in the house but a toddler, fast asleep? I can see there is a small risk here - but it seems tiny to me. How does it compare with taking children out in the car? Crossing the road? Air travel? Being savaged by a dog?

As I say, please don't think I am about to go out and leave him - I'm not. But can someone explain to me why this would be absolutely unacceptable for me to do so, because I'm not getting it.

I wouldn't let a three year old walk up the street to post a letter out of my sight. I would let a six year old. What I struggle with is that a lot of parents wouldn't let a 6 year old and that attitude pervades their whole childhood. I just don't think it's a good thing.

Aargh tamum you have jinxed it now

I like to think it is my aura of calmness and sanity that has pervaded the thread and set a good example for everyone else

I really appreciate the opportunity to discuss this calmly. This seems to be the biggest issue for me as a parent at the moment - not leaving ds in the house alone, I'm not going to do that - I mean issues of safety and risk and freedom and so on. As with most other things that I had made my mind up on before having children, the actual experience of motherhood is changing my views radically. I love it but I find it unsettling.

NQC - My messages are mostly in response to the original post, with the three year old. I agree that as children get older, yes, they can be left alone, but I still feel under ten is young to do so.

sophable - I dont my child growing up scared, I personally feel that she (hopefully) will grow up more secure if she knows I'm there and I dont put her in situations where she's by herself when she's too young / isn't ready. I have memories from when I was three. I wouldn't feel happy having a memory which involved me waking up and finding nobody else in the house.

It was actually a really good idea to start a thread about a theoretical risk like this- it's stopped the worst of the jumping-down-throats stuff.

Whenever these debates come up on MN, one phrase always leaps out at me, "I'd never forgive myself if anything happened" i.e. if anything did happen, it was preventable and therefore somebody's fault. I know my Mum didn't think like this - my oldest sister was sexually assaulted aged 12 but my Mum still allowed us all to roam about freely, she just told us not to go to the place where it happened. I only discovered what had happened when I was an adult . Did she do the right thing?

I don't consider myself remotely overprotective, My dds, 3 and 20 months are allowed to help me chop vegetables, I let them wander off and out of sight in our local (fenced) park, DD2 eats mud and drinks bathwater on a regular basis, but I can't help agreeing with the advice from the NSPCC The thought of being out of earshot of my children if they were to wake up is quite upsetting, and I can't imagine what my 3YO would say if I told her I was going to leave her alone in the house, I'm sure she'd be distraught.

I dont think I'd let a six year old go post a letter out of my sight. I agree with 'running ahead' which I used to do as a kid / do with my cousins etc. (Did anybody read the Daily Mail article about the little girl (eight years) who got hit by a car and the driver drove off and about SIX other cars drove past her / manovered around her and left her crying in the middle of the road?)

Anyway, this might explain my opinions... when I was about six I went to collect my older sister from around the corner, literally five houses down from ours as we lived on the corner. Like I said, I lived in a small nice village. Kids played on the street til late and we went on group bike rides without parents etc. Anyway, somebody tried to get me in their car. I dont remember all the details, I remember running home, crying, telling my mum that my sister had scared me and never telling them what had happened. Years later, I did tell my mum. She believes that it may have been my biological father (who I hadnt seen since I was about five). But what if it wasn't? I was frightened for a long time after that. I wouldn't want that for my daughter.

I know that isn't the same as leaving her on her own in the house, it's a different issue, but I want to keep my daughter safe, and I wont be chucking her in the deep end until I'm 100% sure she is!

I think it's really interesting. I also think it depends on the child. I have very, very clear memories of being very, very young (less than two) and the way I felt and thought about things at that age (I have memories of things I could not have been told about or seen in photos and can remember what I was wearing, where I was when I first heard certain phrases, how other people reacted to things, and so on).

I know that I was a "sensible" child and could be trusted not to touch things, not to break things, etc. I'm quite sure that if I had woken up in a house alone, I would just have stayed in bed (or in my room). In fact, my parents often found me sitting by my door in the mornings, having got up, but not left my room because I knew I shouldn't wake them up - this when I was less than three (must have freaked them out!).

I think that risk for this sort of thing has to be assessed knowing the child and the area. For instance, I will cheerfully put DS1 into his car seat, then make sure I have everything, nip to the loo for one last time and then take DS2 and put him in the car and go out. I leave the front door open, I leave the driver's car door open, but no keys in the car - our house is small and we have no hallway, just a lobby, our drive is tiny, our road is quiet - this will probably sound appalling to some of you who have bigger properties (if I had to go to the east wing for my final wee, I think I'd rethink it!).

Scary memories aren't necessarily all bad though, are they Elf? I remember as a child (less than 5 and living in London, shock horror! but it was the 1960s) I was always out without my mother but with my sister and brother. All children, even in London, used to play out then and my memeory of our road was that it was always full of children playing on the pavements and calling on other children - most of them used to meet in our garage IIRC.

Anyway, once a gang of us went to the parallel street and wandered on to a piece of wasteland. i dond't remember what we were doing but I suddenly got very scared by the tall fir trees at the far end of the waste land - I knw it sounds silly, but I was really scared and my sister had to take me home.

Now I was obviously out of my depth at that moment, and it was a moment that so scared me I have never forgotten it, but was it really wrong of my mother to let me loose and have that scary experience? I think a bit of fear occasionally as children is what helps to prepare us for the events of life.

On another level, what about fair ground rides? They scare people rigid, but adults and children alike still opt to have that scare (mad in my opinion) I am not syaing let's deliberately abandon our childen for an hour just to toughen them up or anything daft like that, but I do think you have a an overprotective view of how your children should regard their childhoods. A bit of fear is good.

Hunker, if you had an east wing you'd probably have a wide range of toilets to choose from though, eh?

True. And I could get one of the butlers to keep an eye on DS1 while I weed

Or to wee for you?

I don't think it is a good idea to leave a 3 year old at home alone and I am certainly not going to do it, but this is because ds could wake up and be scared, not because I believe it is necessarily a dangerous (in the sense of unacceptably dangerous) thing to do.

I am wondering what else I have perhaps been brainwashed into believing is too risky for him to do. This is at ds's instigation, btw, he constantly asks to do things and go places that I have been taught are not safe. He is exploring his limits and finding them sadly restricting at the moment

You could say "I am just orf to water the horses", too.

DumbledoresGirl - I take you wrote your post after my last one?
Anyway - fair rides, dont you build the children up to the scary scary ones? You wouldn't just chuck 'em on the egg roller. Its about a gradual increase.

I have to say taht I think that it is important for children occasionally to get a little bit out of there depth. It is how you learn to cope when things go wrong. You need to sample small panics in order to get an idea how to cope with the big ones IYSWIM.

However I do mean small steps... so I wuld be happy for my 3yo to wake up and not know where I am and forme to pop up from eg the garden and comfort them - I was in the graden silly - so that next time they have a little knowledge of what happens and how to deal....

HC, ds regularly sits outside 'driving' the car, with keys in so he can hear the stereo, with us in the house out of sight. I tell him to beep the horn when he wants to come out. I hadn't really considered that this would be seen as dangerous by other people, tbh.

In response to your post of 9:48.

shall join the conversation in a bit, really must put some washing on now, been faffing since half eight!

Oops, meant HUNKER

HC just pops up where she's not wanted like that, doesn't she?

Well I personally wouldn't let my children anywhere near the fairground rides but that is because I wouldn't want to mop up the resultant vomit - thankfully they have no desire to go on them - but that aside, I do believe a bit of fear is important for children to grow up rounded capable individuals.

I wouldn't leave the keys in because DS1 is fascinated by them and I'd be worried he'd start the car. But that's my DS1 - and obviously I know him better than I know your DS, so I know what's right for him, as I know you know what's right for yours.