Is it OK to leave kids in the car park while you shop in the supermarket?

[spidermama]

The kids are 8, 6 and 4.

I wouldn't but it's probably a case of know your kids, isn't it?

I have done this - only for a very quick shop in small supermarket (they are 6, 3 and 12 weeks )

In a car?

A locked car?

With or without windows open?

Or just wandering around?

This'll kick off you know sm!!!

The Inferiorettes would kick off, but they are drama queens of the first order.

unlocked car
windows closed

Would leave them for a couple of mins in view ie petrol station, but ds1 is 3 and ds2 is 2 and can both undo belts which almost led to a very nasty handbrake incident.

for a v quick shop with kids old enough to understand, yes. car would have to be unlocked.

I wouldn't having left DD & DS (7 &2) in the car outside the post office where I could see them from the door. Queue was longer than I thought and I came back to find two really distressed children who thought something terrible had happened to me and I was never coming back.

I've just phoned dh on his mobile and this is what he has done. It's not a small shop but a big supermarket.

His intewntions are good. He has given them some sort of picnic dinner to eat in the car and then gone off to do the shopping.

I've told him I strongly dissaprove.

Not only will they spill food all over the campervan but they're highly likely to start messing about with the handbrake and pressing buttons (and the horn) on the dashboard.

I'm amazed he thinks this is OK.

They were already brewing ruby. Sadly this may well be his botched attempt to avoid a row and earn points by getting the shopping in.

I feel for him in a way. But his previous misdemeanor is far more serious.

Which was...?

no, it's not OK

Oh MI how indiscrete.

Ah well, since you asked....

It all started the day before yesterday when he got a phone call to offer ...

Whoops! They're home. Got to fly. I have a row to instigate.

I wouldn't do it. Neither would DH.

But I do only have one child so it is pretty easy for me to take DD into shops, petrol stations, etc with me.

I might leave kids of that age, but only if it was a small shop, I was parked right next it, and only buying one or two items.

The blazing hot weather is another factor - cars heat up very quickly.

I leave ds (nearly 4) in the car,singing away to his tape, if I need to pop into the post office.If there's a queue I go back and get him ,much to his annoyance.

No I wouldn't do it for a supermarket shop (however small) - my kids are 9, 7 and 1 (nearly). I do leave them in the car whilst popping in to our local shop though - park right outside the door and the shop door left open.

It's not them being kidnapped that worries me, it's the handbrake/windows/horn etc scenario or if something happened to me when I was away.

No.

Another no here too. Kick his arse! ha ha

Would love to say no, but am guilty of nipping into local shop with dd's 6,3 & 7mths in car

Never my 4 year old can release the handbrake.

It depends on the kids I guess. My two are nearly-2 and nearly-5, and wouldn't be safe, at all.

Yes, but not in this heat I'd say......