Leaving a 12 year old in charge?

[ghengis]

Is it okay to leave a 12 year old in charge of a 3 year old for a short period, e.g.while popping to local shop? Are there 'rules' about such things?

There aren't any rules but if something unfortunate happened the adult who made the decision to leave them would be considered responsible. I believe.

But given a sensible 12-yr-old and a reasonably well-behaved 3-yr-old it should be fine. Lots of people leave younger children than that in charge, or let them take little ones to the park etc. DD1 is 11 years older than DS2, with 2 others in between, and I used to leave her with one or more of them occasionally when they were smaller.

HTH!

Cheers JanH. That's what I thought (common sense) but I didn't know if Social Services had some guidelines we are all supposed to know about!

I've left my 12 year old with my 7 year old for short periods.

U think it is only ever judged by law if something goes wrong...
Bizarrely there is no age in the eyes of the law, its all about sensible judgement and expectation of the situation.
I'd leave my 10yr old say listening out for my 21 mth old dd while she was sleeping, while I ran to the shop we live above for a loaf of bread, but I would not leave him with her awake and crawling around IYSWIM
It's all relative I think on how well you know your kids...