Leaving children home alone

[mum71]

Hi, I just wondered what your views were on leaving 2 very sensible children at home alone in the evening for say 3 hours (approx 7.30 - 10.30pm). They are 8 and 11.

They know what do to in an emergency, never answer the door, they say they are happy to be left at home and the eldest has a mobile so we could keep in touch while we were out.

I plan to buy them a movie to watch together and then they would go to bed.

I have left them alone for an hour max before but always at day time, usually because I have chores and they don't want to come with me.

Grateful for any views.

I also let my 11yo take her 8yo brother into town last year.

And most children of secondary school age are supposed to be able to travel all over town alone to get to school, so I would have thought they would be capable of staying in their own home.

A local teenager might well present a greater danger than a responsible 12yo. It is not absolutely unknown for teenage babysitters to either abuse children or have dodgy ideas about health and safety. 12 is often a more sensible age ime.

Nice

mum71, I think you have made the right decision.
fwiw, my LO are older, 13 and 20, so I know how difficult making these types of decisions is.

Yes I do think it is nice when siblings can do things together.

I have an 8 and a 13 year old and I have left them for the evening to put themselves to bed several times.

I think it depends so very much on the child. Mine get on incredibly well, and ds worships the ground his big sister walks on, so I know they won't fall out and he won't play her up.

I have never gone more than a 10 minute drive away, though AND I have primed a friendly neighbour to be available if necessary.

They keep asking me when I'm going to do it again!

cory but my comment was to mum71's comment to me

Agree with posieparker. Why not ask the hotel if they have a small room you could use near the room you are having the meeting in.

Wouldn't leave at home.

Sorry, got distracted half way through writing that and hadn't seen your latest post!

Thanks Shineon, it's good to know.

Cory, I know what you mean about older babysitters. My 45 yr old sister in law with teenage children of her own, looked after my children when they were very young and managed, in a few hours to:

flood my kitchen (she decided to help me by taking out the washing and forced open the door before the cycle finished.)

set off the fire alarms whilst cooking, ran to get a neighbour to help and locked herself out (leaving a baby and 3 yr old on their own inside with alarms going off - luckily said neighbour had a key)

break my vacuum

lose all the channels on the TV.

Also have many stories about when my parents have looked after them.

But everyone who said I shouldn't leave them alone would happily advise me to leave them with one of these adults! MY DC's are so much more sensible!

Sorry Seeker, just read your post. Yes my 2 get on very well too , they never argue and really look out for each other.

I've decided to book a hotel room just in case the client's flight is delayed. We can spend the night there and go straight to school in the morning. Is a gorgeous hotel that I've always wanted to stay in so will be fun I think!

I have definitely been encouraged by some of the posts here. I would consider leaving them in future, maybe for shorter times at first to see how they get on.

I am a bit puzzled why some have said that 3 hours in the day would be ok but not in the night. I would feel safer in the night, nobody calls, the street is quiet, closed curtains give privacy, and our house is like Fort Knox. There's too much activity in the day. People cold calling at the door, on the phone, delivery men, etc. Visitors more likely to nose in through the windows to see if someone is in.

sorry, regardless of whether they would be ok or not, i just had to laugh at the mention of an important client.

you must surely know that sods law will apply and the chances of anything going wrong must increase by 100% if an important client is being entertained.

spend the money on a sitter, concentrate on client, leave kids for a couple of hours to try it out when you are in the local curry house and can be home in 5 mins.

oh, and by the way, we left hours for a few hours in the evening at the ages of 12 and 10 so you are not miles out.

I dont believe children this age should be left alone,you would never forgive yourself if something did happen.

Too young. I am amazed at the number of 11 year olds near me who are 'latch key'. I think 13 and up is OK bu not 8 and 11.

You also have to think about whether the 8 year old could cope if something happened to the 11 year old.

Fab, that's what has bothered me about this situation. While I think it is fine to leave most 11 year olds on their own, and have done with my two, I would be uneasy leaving an 8 year old. 11 is not old enough to have responsibility for the younger one. And 8 is too young to be left on their own, without an adult nearby. Or a sensible teenager.

i agree with fab , 11 & 8 are too young to be left alone at any time weather it be day or night , 13 or 14 is fine , my ds will be 11 next January & i have never left him alone .

those of you who say that the OP would never forgive herself if anything happened, at what age would she forgive herself if she'd left them and something happened? 13? 14? 16? 17? And what if they went to university and had some ghastly accident because they had never been used to being in charge- should she forgive herself then? (as a uni teacher, I see a few who seem to live with their brains permanently switched off).

tbh given teenage hormones, I would consider 12 a safer age than 15, which is why I want my children to start practising independence and acquiring a few basic skills before the irresponsible age kicks in.

Why is it that other Northern countries don't have horrendously high accident rates and that their children seem so much more mature?

I so agree, cory, on the issue of otherwise cerebrally well-endowed children who live with their brains switched off. My DSS1 is not as cerebrally well-endowed as my DSS2, but DSS1's brain is always on, whereas DSS2's brain goes onto pause at the drop of a hat. Their upbringing is just the same: do you have an idea what we can do to help him? (apart from bang on about it all the time!).

whether an 11yo can be in charge of an 8yo is entirely a matter of the relations between those particular children

my 11yo took her 8yo brother into town last year, because they get on very well and it is highly unlikely that he would play her up in any way

I used to look after my little brother for the same reason. Particularly remember one time when he fell ill at a school concert about this age: I took him home in a taxi and looked after him until our parents came come. I don't think I was unusually mature for my age: but it was in Sweden where maturity is expected of preteens.

My God this is the usual near hysterical heightened and skewed risk perception which keeps our poor children indoors with no sense of freedom, of responsibility or trust from grown ups.

What if something were to happen? Let's face it it probably won't. We can't live with this terror all the time. Personally I don't want to spend my entire life avoiding possible death.

Seriously some of you mums really need to chill out and stop planning for worst case scenarios for no apparent reason. Apart from anything else, this over zealous concentration on risk avoidance will be passed on to your poor kids.

If we treat them like idiots, they'll believe us and behave like idiots.

just tell the neighbour what you're doing (and tell the kids that if they need anything, the neighbour is around and they can knock on his/her door)

Mine are 9&11 and I leave them at home alone during the daylight hours, but not at night. Of course bad stuff can happen in daylight but the point is that they don't feel nervous. Whereas during the evening they would (so they tell me).

Mine are good with phones, know all the neighbours by name and Granny lives within walking distance. So I feel fine about leaving them alone for up to two hours or so during the day while I nip out with one to tennis or with the other shopping etc.

Why can't you get a baby sitter?

Anna, I fully accept that one child may naturally be more clued up than another and there may not be a lot you can do about it (except of course gradually work on giving him responsibility where you feel it is safe to do so).

But when the majority of a nation seems to perceive their children as helpless and non-clued up where another nation does not, then it is hard not to come to the conclusion that it is something to do with the way those children are being brought up. And when a nation has gone from an attitude of allowing their children a great deal of independence to protecting them 24 hrs/day in the last 30 years or so, then that does make you wonder. I see no evidence that the British home is a more dangerous place than it was when dh was a child, but the number of parents who wouldn't leave their children in it has risen dramatically, for no very obvious reason.