Is it OK to leave my kids alone in the morning?

[Londonmum67]

I have to leave the house for work at 7.15. I have always been at home to get the kids up and out to school. The oldest will soon be 16 and I wonder if it's OK to trust him to get his 13 and 11 year old sibs to school. What do you think? He is quite responsible but I'm worried that I won't be there at a crucial part of the day. Any advice gratefully received.

Sounds fine to me. How does he feel about it?

At 13 and 11 your younger two are capable of getting up and ready. Have they all got to et to the same school?

*get

I agree with Ruby. The onus is on each of them to get ready and go.

Will they all be awake and out of bed before you leave? I was just thinking if one of them was ill, they would have to make a decision about if they go to school or not without your input.

I'm going to have to do this with my 12 year old from September, so I know how you feel!

It's perfectly ok and legal but you just need to be confident that they a responsible! I'd phone them 10 minutes before they need to get out the door to check they are ready and aware it's time to go. If they are regularly late for school don't forget the onus will then be on you as far as the local authority is concerned. Also, is this likely to be ongoing as the 16 year old presumably will be off to college soon so the younger two will need to be able to get themselves sorted out.

Thanks so much for your thoughts. I think it's really helpful to think about each one of them being responsible for themselves rather than putting it all onto the oldest. I thought that worries about childcare would get easiet once they got older, but clearly not.

It does get easier - but just because you allow them to look after themselves and older ones can be "in charge".

In my house they know who is "in charge" but this means things like: will get everyone out if there is a fire, will call 999 if necessary, decides whether to open the door to callers (take in the post).

"If they are regularly late for school don't forget the onus will then be on you as far as the local authority is concerned." Well actually around here it is mainly on the young person once they are at secondary - because everyone knows that often they leave home with plenty of time but are still late. The first line of punishment is detentions etc.

If there are problems then I'm sure you can come up with horrible consequences (like them having to get up/leave earlier to be dropped at a child minder).