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.

Fand Z, I haven't read everything, but what you are asking is actually quite interesting. My dh and fil have both studied and worked in risk and know quite a lot about it. they both say that the way we behave in lots of areas - and the risks we take/don't take with kids is probably a very good example - is basically not rational. measured against true risk a lot of behaviour makes no sense. and a lot of people have very basic misunderstandings about what risk is. so I think the answer to your question lies not in rational assessment of risk (and those who think it does are kdding themselves) but in something much more fundamental about human behaviour - possibly the instinct that to be near is to protect and must be good.

how many of you leave your lo's to amuse themselves whilst you mn, or whilst you peel a barrow full of potatoes?

anyone?

I agree with NQC. It is inexcusable to take risks with other people's children, you just don't do it. When I was a nanny I was a much more conscientious and protective carer than I am to my own ds.

I am not sure, hat, I think a lot of it is cultural. I think the stories we have heard from Germany etc show that in other countries it is acceptable, even normal. Also when I find myself questioning the sense of something (like this) I believe it is usually because it is some socially constructed bollocks that I have been brainwashed into believing, not something genetic / instinctive.

zippi, I think you mean someone else - wasn't there a recent thread where an MNr got home to discover her 3yo ds on his own, awake and upset, while daddy had gone across the road to a neighbours?

Me and dh equally to blame for both nipping out to the shop without checking the other one was still in the house. V stupid.

I think we are far too protective in this country nowadays and our children are the losers. They have very little freedom and are not gaining the lifeskills that they will need to assess risk for themselves in their teenage years, or know what to do in an emergency. How many of your 4+ year olds would have known what to do in the Christmas presents situation i.e. Mum lying dead upstairs from a fairly typical household accident? Letting them stay in the house with instructions while you pop to the postbox two minutes down the road is a valuable life lesson IMO.

I think I agree with you there, englandflag. This is all now tying in with another thread I started about Milly Molly Mandy cooking dinner by herself age 5. I think where children are given an appropriate amount of freedom and taught the skills they need to be able to deal with it, they can surprise us all. I think this cult of childhood innocence has gone too far and we are now doing our children a disservice by keeping them away from the real world.

My tv inexplicably burst into flames while I slept one night (had I not woken up when I did the firemen say I would have died) so having first hand experience of how quickly fires can start I could never leave dd alone. Obviously there's no gaurantee I could save her if I was there but I would rather die trying or die with her.

Oh interesting idea that people would break into my house because my home alone children didn't answer the phone/ door. I suppose I take the view (probably completely falsely but nonetheless) that if someone was coming knocking at the door with a view to burgling it if no-one answers, and my children answer and it becomes apparent that they are home alone, then the burglar might also consider that small kids weren't going to stop him doing a job and he could easily push past them and get on with it. But, if my childen just stay behind locked doors and don't respond, there would have to be a delay factor before the burglary could take place.

I think the thing about burglars phoning and not getting an answer and then coming round to burgle you is just getting into flights of fantasy now. I agree young children at home on their own should not answer the phone IMO. It is easy for a phone call to turn confusing / upsetting for a child, and introduces an unknown quantity into the whole equation.

Exactly, F&Z. If my 4 year old makes her sandwiches, cuts them with a sharp knife and cuts herself, she will learn the important lesson that knives are to be treated with respect. If she is never given that opportunity, how will she ever learn the lesson?

I still don't think the thing about the fires and burglars makes total sense, because we happily expose our children to other risks all the time. I do respect it if it is your own personal feeling - obviously everyone must do what makes them feel comfortable - but I don't think it should be used as a rule for everyone.

Not sure if I agree with you on that one englandflag, but hey, I feel agreeing with someone once a day is good enough for me

I have to say, my children spend great swathes of time unsupervised by me in the house or in the garden. They could be doing pretty much anything but I don't consider myself to be a bad Mother (sure some of you do though ). Good grief, were your parents this "in your face"? I would have hated it!

For me I think its more a case of not how likely something is to happen, but the consequences of it if it did happen (i.e fire- not that I'm paranoid or anything!). But agree it is probably far safer than driving them anywhere!

.

But when would you let them cut their own sarnies? 5? 6? 10? I'm not talking about me leafing through Hello in the other room while they're doing it btw, I'm talking about standing next to them but not doing it for them.

Even Milly Molly Mandy was not allowed to use the bread knife

and she went off for whole days by herself talking to tinkers, fishing, cooking onions and even minding a shop.

Ds has serious respect for the bread knife since reading MMM

People really suck at dealing with statistics and risk. The one area that I think we are way too overcautious (although I certainly follow the herd on this one) is car seats. All children must always be buckled up and in a car seat for all car journeys. Even a three-minute trip. Always. But they rattle around loose in planes and trains and buses, all the time!

We become practically hysterical about seeing random other children riding around loose in cars (which I see in my neighbourhood, all the time), but the actual death rate is really quite low, from what I know.

Hmm, couldn't find stats, did find this article, which makes some rather alarming points about how seatbelts actually cost lives, particularly the lives of pedestrians and cyclists. Because drivers feel safer, and drive more recklessly, with seatbelts. (I read a lovely proposal that all steering wheels should have giant metal spikes in the middle. To encourage more cautious driving ...)

Becasue the if something did happen while you were out you would never, ever forgive yourself that's why. You know if you stepped out to the corner shop for 5 mins and in that time your sleeping toddler woke up and came looking for you and something happened, he/she fell down stairs and brike his or her neck yu woud walk in to find your child in a heap at the bottom of the stairs and never, ever forgiv yourself. How would you tell his father, his grandparents he fell while he was alone in the house?

The risk of something happening may be tiny but it's just not soemthing any of us would be prepapred to take for the sake of a pint of milk / pack of fags / aa letter posted etc.

But NQC, when a bus for example gets hit it doesn't crumple like a car does. That's my way of rationalising it, anyway.

Hmm, not sure buses don't crumple. But they don't stop quite so sharply. If a bus hits a car, the car will stop sharply, and passengers will go out the front windscreen. The bus will keep going. It's the sharp decelerations that really make the difference.

But still, why is a 3-minute car journey not ok, while a 3-hour bus journey is fine?

(I really like the idea of big metal spikes, thinking about it.)

But Thomcat, what if your child died while you were driving the car? What if they died while you were crossing a road? You would blame yourself, yes, but the thought of that doesn't stop us doing either one because we feel they are acceptable risks.

I presume in cultures where they do leave children in the house, people would say "it wasn't your fault, it was one of those freak things" if there was an accident while you were out. Nobody would seriously say "Well you shouldn't have been in the car with your child, you must have known what could happen", would they?

Yes that's the one, NQC (I did ask DP once and he explained it to me but I had forgotten it was the sudden decceleration)

Hasn't there been a troll on this thread calling you wicked and evil yet, TTGS? How odd. MN not up to its usual standard.

(I agree, btw - I can't see why you can't do it, I just know I couldn't.

if you have an accident, then you understand why car seats are so important!