Would you leave an 11 year old at home with a sleeping 4 year old for 20 minutes?

[Sadhappiness]

A very out of the ordinary situation has come up where I will be out, my 8 year old will be at Brownies and my eldest (11) will be at home (I'm usually ferrying her). Usually my husband takes our 4 year old to collect the middle one from Brownies, but on the odd occasion our 4 year old has been asleep our neighbour has come to sit in the house while he goes to collect her (we have very good neighbours). If he were to be asleep this week, would it be too absurd to leave him at home with his sister (with her knowing she can knock next door for help)? She hasn't spent any time at home on her own previously. She does love and trust our neighbour so i think she'd be fine about approaching them for help. And we would give our neighbour the heads up about all of this.

Ultimately, do you think that would be acceptable?

I suppose context is always key. We live in a close where everyone looks out for one another. Our neighbour who we would ask to be vigilant has grandchildren of a similar age. They'd probably be hovering by our front door just in case!

I probably would if the 11yo was responsible and the 4yo not too much of a handful. I think we put off any sort of responsibility or development now in case of some once in never event occuring in the very short period you're out (and that is reliant on it being a genuinely short period and not an hour or two).

The worst case is a fire breaking out and so they would have instructions not to cook anything and would have to know how to get themselves and their sibling out of the house safely.

If a fire breaks out get her and lo out the house. And get someone else to call fire brigade.

4 min and a house can be fully a blaze.

Decades ago I worked somewhere that had a What to do in event of fire notice with about 12 points on it....added at the bottom...
Run like fuck.

That has absolutely stuck with me. Especially in a house fire.

Depends on the child. My daughter is 8 and very sensible, so I can imagine at 11, it would be fine. I regularly go to the local shops and leave her at home, she has a phone available and call me if anything happens. All been fine.

An 11 year old on her own? Absolutely.

With a 4 year old? No. Especially with someone who has never even being left alone, that's going from 0-100.

To be completely clear, my suggestion of leaving a 4 year old with an 11 year old was only if the 4 year old was asleep. He would be very unlikely to wake up, but if he did his sister would be a comfort to him. If he woke up properly they would play together. If she felt out of her depth she would definitely call the neighbour.

No

I wouldn’t leave my 12 year old with one of his younger siblings because he has ADHD and takes silly risks. He does have to be home alone for an hour or so most days because he gets home from school before i finish work.
your situation sounds different and if you were pretty sure the 4yo wouldn’t wake or would be happy and you have next door to come if needed i’d say it would be ok x

Where are you getting 4 minutes from? A room can be fully engulfed by smoke in seconds. Completely irresponsible to leave a 4 year old home alone. Just wake them up and take them with you.

I'd probably leave an 11 year old 'in charge' of the sleeping 4 year old if I had to pop to a neighbours house a few doors away for 5 minutes.

For 20 minutes, a car rides distance away...no.

Rubbish. You’re making excuses. There’s no way your neighbour could be randomly hovering outside your door and using psychic powers to know you’ve been so lazy as to leave your children sleeping and unaccompanied

I definitely left 11 year old with her brother aged 4 . She was very sensible and brother was usually asleep. They all need to grow up at some stage.

I'd ask myself what would the police or a social worker say if they had to enter the house. They'd say no to finding a 11yr old caring for a 4 Yr old.

I don't want to reply directly, but I am not a lazy parent, the fact my 11 year old has never been left home alone is testament to that.

So why are you considering making them responsible for a sleeping 4 year old?

I would have but it depends on the kids

With kindness, by the time the police or a social worker would be there my neighbour would be, my husband would be, and I would be.

Nope
To much responsibility for the 11 year old if something went wrong

My niece watched my 3 year old when she was 14 for 20 mins every so often, now she’s 16 she’s a pro baby sitter. I really do think it depends on the kids. My nephew is 14 and I wouldn’t let him look after a dog for an extended period of time because he has the attention span of a gold fish. People on mumsnet will say you shouldn’t leave anyone under 16 alone, but that’s not real life.

Are you just trolling? To answer your question, because she wouldn't ultimately be responsible, she would have our neighbour to go to who would have accepted the respibility to look out for them.

A Chief of Strathclyde Fire Brigade who said it in a fire safety talk many moons ago. It stuck with me along with the sign at work.

I also googled it recently and 4 mins is still the time.
So my advice is don't bother faffing with fire extinguishers just get to heck out the place. Or use a fire extinguisher to clear your path out.

No, I definitely wouldn't.

Given there is no law on it they probably wouldn't say very much.

And the reasons there is no law is because every child is different and every circumstance is different.

Many kids start secondary at 11yo. There's little to no wrap around care for secondary aged kids.
So it must be pretty much acceptable to have 11yos home alone at least for a short time.

No, especially when you have willing neighbours.

Why not just ask your neighbour to come in and sit with 11 year old if they don't mind for 20 minutes? Why take a risk with your kids? Anything could happen, you could be involved in an accident and not be just 20 minutes.