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 think it depends on the children and circumstances. But with a Neighbour next door who they can ask for help from yes I would.

It's 20mins, the odds of something going wrong is pretty remote, inc a fire or either children suddenly being sick, and the other parent will be back soon.

And just thinking about the remote prospects of the sudden vomit 🤢 just think how much worse that could be if the child throws up in the car while the parent is driving, distracting the driver causing a smash.

Initially I was going to say yes, but having seen some of the replies I’m now not sure.

This is a great suggestion though. Get the 11 year old used to it so you can in future.

At 11, none of mine would probably even have noticed if I was out for 20 mins TBH, but the addition of a younger one changes things a bit (as does the current thinking - decades ago I was a paid babysitter, at night, by 13…)

I apologise about my implication that leaving 11 year old children at home alone is lazy. That is not what I meant and I genuinely don't believe that. I don't remember the context of the message that I responded to, but I meant no judgement. It is an individual choice, and I was asking for advice for my own situation, not looking to judge anyone else's.

I do think we ‘baby’ kids these days much more than happened in the past. My mum’s now 80 and she remembers being 8 and having to take her 2 year old brother to the play park with her. She said back then every girl from about age 8 used to go out to the park with younger siblings in tow and if you didn’t have younger siblings you were often asked by a neighbour to take their younger child out.

When she was 11 her mum had to go to hospital for a whole day while her dad was at work and so her mum left her in charge of a 9 year old, 5 year old and 6 week old baby. For about 8 hours. She said the neighbour was aware and did stick her head over the fence when they were in the garden to check on them but they were all fine. In those days 11 year old girls were expected to be sensible and kind to younger siblings.

So really, a sensible 11 year old being in the same house as a sleeping 4 year old for a period of 20 minutes should be just fine.

That's such a lovely post. I'm thinking whatever you do, your kid will be fine, you sound very kind and considerate. 💝