How old does a child have to be before they can come home to an empty house do you th

Spendless

asking around locally for yr11-13 local students wanted for babysitting duties 3x a week?

What's the reason for the other 2 childminders refusal? If it's just not worthhile monetarywise, could you pay same amount as though they had them from earlier on.

Does school bus stop at your parents home or your best friends place and they could stay there at times you work?

Alikay

Maybe you need to make it clear at work that you WILL be going in time to be home for the boys. I know urgent stuff can came up, but if you make it very clear what the latest is that you'll stay, your employers will get used to it.
Businesses benefit from the maturity, responsibility and multitude of other skills and qualities us mums deliver. They also have to accept that our children must come first. If your agreed working hours fit into the school routine, you have a right to leave on time (obviously its reasonable to allow a few minutes to allow for emergencies).
Maybe you could agree with you employers on a day each week when you'd stay if need be, and that could be the time your husband is responsible for getting home on time? Or agree that if theres a real rush-job, that you'll return to work later: once you've seen to the kids and your husband is home.

consultant31

My children went to a prep school (though many years ago now) and there was always something going on after school hours, clubs, sports, societies etc. I only worked part-time, but two nights I worked till 7pm. On those nights, they all knew that they had to join in with something that was going on at school, since I wouldn't let them come home to an empty house.
At first they hated staying after 4pm but after a few weeks, they actually enjoyed it, and I knew they were being properly supervised. I could pick them up either before or after tea, in fact, anytime up to 9pm.
They had fun and it actually made them more independent and caring as they helped to look after younger children than themselves, who were also staying on after school.
The horror of a fire starting in the home while they were alone, is something you can never anticipate, but these things happen even in the best regulated household.

ruthyjo

I think the childminders just feel that they are too old and also would be turning up just as other children were being picked up to go home.

We have a three tier school system and my elder son would be transferring to middle school if he wasn't going to the new school we've chosen for him. As far as I can gather there isn't really any childcarer in any of the villages served by the middle school who takes children old enough to go there and quite a few local pre-teens are coming home to an empty house. I'm reluctant to try and bribe a childminder into taking them by paying massively over the odds for two reasons - firstly I don't think my boys would be very happy somewhere that wasn't really set up for them and they were only there on sufferance, and secondly because, although both boys have academic scholarships, I'll still be paying fairly hefty school fees for their new school.

It's just unrealistic to try and set boundaries about what time I'll leave work by. I have a reasonably senior job, I've had to work really hard to prove I can do the job as well as someone who isn't responsible for three kids and I'm already pushing things to the limit by being the only person at my level in my company to work part time. I'm sure I can't be the only person in the world who feels like this. Yes - my employer is really good in theory on family friendly policies, but if I tried to get them to adhere to them my career would stall very quickly. The going back later in the evening thing I do already sadly! I don't want to start a working mum/stay at home mum debate as it's been done so many times, but my personal feeling is that I want my children, especially my daughter, to know that it is possible for a woman to have a decent career. If I decided to stay at home for my kids this debate wouldn't be going on for me as there's no way we could afford even the reduced school fees we'll be paying on one salary.

My parents are not on the school bus route and I couldn't ask them to be tied to their house every day. My dad has only recently retired, but still does a lot of consultancy work and my mum works full time anyway. Similarly best friend has 4 children of her own and would have to drive to collect mine off the bus. If there are days when it's clear I'm going to be late or the kids are low I'll get her to go for them to give them a change (will do this even if I get childcare, she does this with out of school club at the moment anyway).

I think I'm going to have to hope there are a lot of after school activities as suggested by consultant31. My kids are real joiners so would be up for anything. I talked to a parent whose son is there at music centre this morning and he said some weeks his son stays behind every night. That would be much the best and if that looks like working out with my boys I could pay the childminder to keep my little girl until 6.00 rather than 5.30 to allow for my boys spending maybe an hour back after school and me collecting them at fiveish (and even end up working even longer days - hurrah!). If I got my husband to be available every possible Wednesday (he's quite often away all week with work though) I could just stay at work 'til every thing was done at the end of my week. Will have to tell boys to join clubs on Monday and Tuesday if possible (even if it's knitting!) and then things might work out so they never come home to an empty house.

Although I'd thought about emergencies I am quite thoroughly scared now at the thought of a house fire or maybe someone noticing them letting themselves in on a night and trying to take advantage. We live in quite an isolated rural location so this isn't very likely to happen, but if it did less people around for them to turn to.

Husband has chipped in that he doesn't want them to come home to an empty house - I guess he'll now take over and come up with another arrangement (not!).

Queenie

ruthyjo wrote:

.....

Although I'd thought about emergencies I am quite thoroughly scared now at the thought of a house fire or maybe someone noticing them letting themselves in on a night and trying to take advantage. We live in quite an isolated rural location so this isn't very likely to happen, but if it did less people around for them to turn to.

Husband has chipped in that he doesn't want them to come home to an empty house - I guess he'll now take over and come up with another arrangement (not!).

Ok, on this point, I feel I must come back and state that I was not trying to scare you. What I *was* trying to say, is that you can think of many aspects and make contingency plans; it's the one's you *don't* think of which throw the spanner in the works.
Actually, by voicing those issues which you may not have thought of, could be seen in a more positive way, ie., now you can discuss them and come up with a plan of action that best suits your circumstances.

It's a shame (from your comments) that dh isn't giving you the full support and compromise, the situation seems to require. Maybe that is really at the nub of your dilema? If it is, are you able to put into words precisely what it is that you *do* expect of him/his work commitments that would/could make this transition less anxious? Is it practicable?

I can only reiterate: Only *you* can decide. I wish you well in your decision.

Doodles

I was very interested in your post because I am going to be in the same situation come September next year when my son goes to secondary school. I have the same dialemma except it would mean my son be alone for about 2 hours until I get home.

I'm not really happy about it but I am not sure what else I can do. As I'm a single parent I cannot afford to reduce my hours down to part-time working. I am hoping that the secondary school I get him into may have an after school club or activities, and that will solve my problem. I will read all the posts in this thread with interest to see if there are other solutions.

But do you know what I find really strange - why is it that if a 10 year child walks to/from school alone, with all the possible dangers of crossing roads, being mugged, getting pulled into cars by paedophiles, people generally think that is acceptable, however if that same child is on their own in the safety of their own house for half-hour, then many people think that's really awful and that you're an irresponsible parent? I just don't get that

silvercar

Ideally you need a local sixth former, or one who is at their school and coming home on the bus with them. How about getting a cleaner for a couple of afternoons; she could be on hand for the children and you'd come home to a clean house.

Queenie

Doodles wrote:

....

But do you know what I find really strange - why is it that if a 10 year child walks to/from school alone, with all the possible dangers of crossing roads, being mugged, getting pulled into cars by paedophiles, people generally think that is acceptable, however if that same child is on their own in the safety of their own house for half-hour, then many people think that's really awful and that you're an irresponsible parent? I just don't get that

Did I miss that bit?

ruthyjo

Thanks Queenie. I was not thinking of it as scare mongering but am grateful people pointed out scenarios I hadn't considered and took the time to consider my question seriously.

OH definitely sees childcare decisions as my thing and it would be good not to always have to sort everything out, but really I need to know every detail of any arrangements that are made for my children, whilst he is happy to trust someone else most of the time (usually me!). I do only work three days a week and he sees my two days at home as ample to run our finances, house, garden, laundry, shopping and manage most things to do with the children etc etc. Whne I worked fulltime he still expected I would sort all this out so I don't hold out much hope for a change at this stage.

To be fair OH has a similarly uncertain job. Neither of us can make definite commitments because of travel, project work etc and have to hope that really mad periods won't hit us both at once. He works flexi time too and if I dictate to him for an individual day he will stick to it e.g. I've told him to leave work by 4.30 on Monday as I need him home for something and he will do it, but he could never commit to every Monday for the year or anything like that because work is too unpredictable.

It's always worked out for us before but the new school thing and the kids getting older just seems to be making things hard. Ironic as you'd expect things to get easier as your kids got older and were out for a longer day!

ruthyjo

Silvercar - like the cleaner idea!