At what age would you leave children alone ?

anxious_mum

I wouldn't leave my 17 year old alone in my house....I might not have a house to come back to!

And to Tulip, I am so sorry for what happened to you! Thank god you were all OK x

Tulip09

Thanks anxious mum we were very lucky and insured

But just to add into this - my kids are really sensible and have kept me alive, phoned for ambulance etc and been my carers for a few years. They are not daft kids by any standards and they knew the rules and didn't think of them in that few minutes trying to do something nice for me.

My son is now 12 nearly 13 and very independant and stayed at his dads the other night 5 hours away. (He is away for 4 nights) anyway his dad got called into work at 10pm until 6am and had to go. Son was sleeping so ex left him a note for when he woke up. Son woke up at his usual 2am 'check mum time' and obviously no adult in the house. He managed on his own playing the PS3 -couldn't go back to sleep as he was scared, never got a drink as he didn't want people to hear him in case they knew he was alone (people living next door) and he said the whole experience was horrid and not one to be repeated until he is at least 20:D

anxious_mum

Ah, bless him! I love that 2:00am check mum time! my youngest does that too! Shame that he was alone in the house and scared though.....but, he sounds like a boy who can take care of himself x

patchwork_cat

All I can say is some people obviously have a lot more support than we had when our children were little. For a start you child proof your house - talk about cotton wool kids!

JBD

patchwork_cat wrote: »

All I can say is some people obviously have a lot more support than we had when our children were little. For a start you child proof your house - talk about cotton wool kids!

Why wouldn't a parent childproof their house? What should they do, leave sharp knives lying around? My 1st child was born 22 years ago and everyone made their houses as safe as possible then.No support here, either.
I left both my boys indoors around age 10. I agree, I wouldn't go to bed and leave them at a young age, I have put a DVD on and laid on the sofa from when they are about 3. I have to say even when I was quite ill with flu I could still hear them even though I was dozing. I suppose it's a '6th sense' sort of thing.

patchwork_cat

JBD wrote: »

Why wouldn't a parent childproof their house? What should they do, leave sharp knives lying around? My 1st child was born 22 years ago and everyone made their houses as safe as possible then.No support here, either.
I left both my boys indoors around age 10. I agree, I wouldn't go to bed and leave them at a young age, I have put a DVD on and laid on the sofa from when they are about 3. I have to say even when I was quite ill with flu I could still hear them even though I was dozing. I suppose it's a '6th sense' sort of thing.

I don't know why they wouldn't, but obviously some people don't, sufficently, if they did there would never be a case of a child taking tablets, would there?

Having said that to the OP if you are needing to sleep on a regular basis with children of such a young age awake, it is not fair on you or the children. Even neglecting that something bad might happen to them, they will be bored, unstimulated and you will likely not get good sleep as they will be popping in every 5 minutes!

JC9297

kindofagilr wrote: »

I dont understand the shower issue?

I go in the bath when E goes to bed at 6pm therefore dont need to leave him as such

Presumably in a cot so you know he can't go anywhere. It is slightly different if you have e.g a 3 and a 5 year old who are up in the morning and you need to shower before getting ready for work or whatever.

I don't want to appear patronising but it is relatively easy to do things when you can put the child into a cot/pushchair/highchair etc, but can be more problematic when you have an older child or more than one, as you may find in the future.

PolishBigSpender

FBaby wrote: »

I am amazed as over protective some parents are in this country.

Me too! I was left alone for short periods of time from the age of 5. At the age of 8 I was coming back home from school by myself, opening the door with my own key and waiting for my parents to come back home. I just wasn't allowed to open the door to anyone or use a gas cooker. I can't imagine not being able to leave a healthy 10 year old alone for few hours!

At my grandmother's I was allowed to run around a really vast garden & orchard completely unsupervised from the age of 4 - the garden was fenced off so no danger of me getting out, but so big that you could only see a little bit of it from each of the windows.

And to think that my mum was really overprotective!

skintchick

JC9297 wrote: »

Presumably in a cot so you know he can't go anywhere. It is slightly different if you have e.g a 3 and a 5 year old who are up in the morning and you need to shower before getting ready for work or whatever.

I don't want to appear patronising but it is relatively easy to do things when you can put the child into a cot/pushchair/highchair etc, but can be more problematic when you have an older child or more than one, as you may find in the future.

Too late for that I reckon.

I have a 17 month old who is, shall we say, spirited, and into everything, and I am happy to leave her while I shower. THe stairgate is on (although we are working on her stairsense so I can remove them soon and I would trust her on the stairs it is just me who panics) and she just wanders around upstairs until I'm done. Often she pops in to see me.

downstairs, same applies, I will take bins out, do cooking and hoovering, and she potters around too.

Outside, she will walk round hte garden while I'm out there and she could get onto the front road if she walked out there, but she knows not to and I don;t leave her out there alone (will do when she is a bit older and we get a gate though).

I also let her walk into town with me with no reins and not holding my hand (except for crossing roads).

Am I a bad mum? I think I'm just letting her have enough responsibility for herself.

However, I wouldn;t go for a proper sleep leaving her on her own.

On a side note it saddens me to hear people calls their children 'terrors'. Some children are more intelligent and spirited than others and need more stimulation. It's up to us as parents to provide the stimulation they need. That's our job. Not to label them with horrible names.

littteminky

This thread takes me back to when my daughter was around 2 years old. I left her watching television downstairs, (she was very sensible for her age, and quite grown up) whilst I went in the shower. I must have only been in for a matter of minutes, and kept popping my head down the stairs whilst getting ready afterwards. All was fine, until I noticed a large box next to the door...... I did virgin vie at the time, and DD told me that the the delivery guy had knocked at the door, DD unlocked the door, (keys were in the lock) told the man I was in the shower, so he'd put the parcel on the floor, DD locked the door again and thought she'd been a very good girl. Took me about 4 hours to calm down, and another 4 years for me to leave her downstairs whilst I'm in the shower!!