What age to leave a child alone for 1/2 hour at night?

snowmaid

We expect our children to make decisions that quite frankly they shouldn't be making, and then we our aghast because someone dares to leave an 11 year old at home by themselves! :rolleyes:

At the age of 12, I was left to babysit my little brother of a year old. My mom and dad went for a meal with friends. I was left a contact number, the neighbors knew we were alone, I knew the police number etc etc. I fed my brother his bottle when it was due, changed his nappy, burped him and put him to bed with no problems!

We are in serious danger of turning our children into little bundles of stress, unable to cope with any situation. Quite frankly little 'woeses'! Then they get into the real world and are expected to cope as adults, however, they have never been given any responsibility as children!

I joined St John's ambulance at the age of 9, where I was taught resus, home nursing etc. Let us prepare our children rather than wrap them in cotton wool, and give them protection where it is really needed e.g. 9 year olds DO NOT need to learn how to put a condom on! :rolleyes:

Justie

NSPCC advice is not to leave children under 13 home alone even for short periods of time. Obviously every child is different and every circumstance is different and there is no legal guidance as to when is suitable. The main thing is to know whether the child would know what to do in an emergency and to trust that s/he won't hit the drinks cabinet or start cooking or anything silly whilst alone.

A cautionary tale from the Torygraph about a 10 year old left alone and the police getting involved... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/01/27/ftnanny27.xml

Lianne656

snowmaid wrote: »

I joined St John's ambulance at the age of 9, where I was taught resus, home nursing etc. Let us prepare our children rather than wrap them in cotton wool, and give them protection where it is really needed e.g. 9 year olds DO NOT need to learn how to put a condom on! :rolleyes:

I agree :T

Savvy_Sue

Justie wrote: »

NSPCC advice is not to leave children under 13 home alone even for short periods of time. Obviously every child is different and every circumstance is different and there is no legal guidance as to when is suitable. The main thing is to know whether the child would know what to do in an emergency and to trust that s/he won't hit the drinks cabinet or start cooking or anything silly whilst alone.

A cautionary tale from the Torygraph about a 10 year old left alone and the police getting involved... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2007/01/27/ftnanny27.xml

That is indeed a cautionary tale, but it is an exceptional one, and so was the situation described by the OP.

Let's refresh our memories: it was an 11 year old (so not covered by the situation described in that newspaper story). He was tired and wanting to put himself to bed (so unlikely to hit the drinks cabinet / start cooking / light a fire / invite all his mates round for a party).

So doing a quick risk assessment: what's the worst thing that might go wrong inside the house? All sorts of dreadful things might happen at home, but very few of them are LIKELY in this situation.

What other risks are there? Someone might come to the house, try to break in, a car might crash into the house, an aeroplane might fall from the sky ... but these are not LIKELY events - although clearly one of them happened, but it wasn't a stranger, it was the boy's father.

What else might go wrong? Yes, the mother MIGHT have had an accident, there might have been gridlock on the streets, the sibling might have been hurt at their activity and needed to be taken to casualty. None of these are particularly LIKELY.

So you start to discuss the 'what ifs' with your child from before they have to face them. BEFORE a child comes home from school alone, you ask 'What if you get home from school and mum's not there?' Once they're of an age where mum might well not be there, you ask 'What if I'm not home by tea-time?'

This reminds me, I was talking to my mum the other day about when my grandma died: I was no more than 11 and I think about 9, so my sister was only 12 or so. Sister was going to grandma's house for tea before going back to school for a concert. When she got there grandma didn't answer the door. So she went to the neighbours (we knew them well, used to live with grandma), who had a key. Neighbours went in, found post on the doormat so realised there was a problem, took my sister back to their house and left her to have tea with their daughter before sending her back to school. Of course they went back in without my sister and found Grandma had died in her sleep, so phoned my mum.

Would we these days be tut-tutting that a young girl was left to go to her grandma's house on her own? I don't know, but at least she knew who to turn to for help in that situation.

anonymousie

ymcas wrote: »

I don't have children but a friend has just come up against this. Younger child was very very tired, but eldest needed picking up from activity. Younger child would normally have gone with my friend to pick up eldest but this time she left him at home to go to bed (at his request). Just wondered what peoples opinions were about what is the "right" age to consider leaving a child. I appreciate it depends a lot on the maturity of the child but would appreciate other peoples experiences/thoughts.

Intersting question. I have children aged 14.11 and 8. Generally we have started to leave them individually from age 10 or so as they are all very reliable and independent. He now leave the younger 1 with the eldest for up to an hour and with the middle one for 5mins or so at a time. BUT I would feel more reluctant, rather than less so if they were tired or it was late in the evening TBH. THey will not have their "rational hat on" so well if anything happened and they were half asleep.
I would NEVER leave a sleeping child in the house alone till they were 14-15 or so.
We are thinking of letting DD1 babysit the other 2 next year when we go out of an evening BUT we do not think of it as "babysitting" IYSWIM. THey are all aware they are responsible for their own behaviour and staying safe individually as well as collectively- DD1 isn't responsible for them all in the way you might expect an adult babysitter to be- does that make sense?

Jet

I've just found out that one of my son's friends who has just turned 9 last month is being left at home in the mornings for nearly an hour, being allowed to lock up the house, bike to school (it gets very busy and there have been several serious accidents in the last few years) and then he is allowed to bike home again after school, let himself into an empty house and look after himself for 1 - 2 hours. The parents are at work at least an hours drive away from him. The mother works in a school setting herself responsible for children. :eek:

It makes me feel sick. I wouldn't mind but I have been looking after this little boy in the mornings before school and he was at a registered childminders in the afternoon (although this stopped a while ago) so it's not as if the parents have no choice regards childcare. I'm just waiting to "officially" be told that I'm no longer needed.

anonymousie

Spendless wrote: »

It is bordering on being a bit late IMO, and def late if you mean leaving at 9 coming in for 9.30. Having said that from 11 (nearly 12) I was left babysitting my siter from 9-11.30 and she was 4 almost 5 at the time. :eek: , and a recent conversation with my nan had me shocked when she revealed that he'd been left on his own at 12 whilst she and Grandad went on holiday. Though her words were, he wasn't on his own Barry came to stay(another 12 year old:rolleyes: ).

So I do think we are more cautious, over-protective than in previous generations, whether that's with good cause I don't know.

IMHO we are much more overprotective than previous generations, without real evidence that we need to be (after all "big bad" things are probably less likely to happen- we have smoke alarms and do not have open fires so it is, I put it, less likely the house will burn down etc) You have to get the cotton wool vs indepenence balance right and that varies for every child.

Be shot for this I guess but yesterday at 5.15 pm I saw my eldest and youngest together onto a train to go 4 stops home (15 mins)- DH picked them up at the station and they were fine. Yes, "bad things" could happen, but the train was busy and DD1 has a phone and is aware that she can pull the cord if she has trouble on a train (she travels often on public transport). The "new" bit was her sister joining her- but DD2, despite being only 8 isn't going to jump off the train after all!

nickyhutch

Why does it make a difference with it being 9pm or earlier? Not arguing, just asking why some posters think it's ok earlier, but wouldn't dream of it later?

Spendless

nickyhutch wrote: »

Why does it make a difference with it being 9pm or earlier? Not arguing, just asking why some posters think it's ok earlier, but wouldn't dream of it later?

I don't know, I can't explain. I feel more comfortable with someone saying they left their child at at 7pm say than 9, strange. I suppose I think 7pm at the min is lighter more people about, in event of an emergency whereas at 9 it's dark. Though the OP has explained what happened since my prev post and I now think the dad was over-reacting.

This thread has made me think and the only two peer 'role' models I have with children of over that age, 1 is over-protective (that's the one my son claimed wasn't allowed to walk to and from school by self aged 16) and the other is very come day, go day and slap dash, so I probably haven't got anyone 'sensible' whose ideas I could go along with.

Savvy_Sue

anonymousie wrote: »

We are thinking of letting DD1 babysit the other 2 next year when we go out of an evening BUT we do not think of it as "babysitting" IYSWIM. THey are all aware they are responsible for their own behaviour and staying safe individually as well as collectively- DD1 isn't responsible for them all in the way you might expect an adult babysitter to be- does that make sense?

I understand that perfectly! It's exactly what I've done. DS1 'telling' either of the others what to do is a red rag to a bull, but ALL of them being told what's expected before we go out works fine, because I remind them all that it won't be THEM in trouble if the others do what they shouldn't.

So it was no use saying "He didn't ..." - OK I can see he didn't, but you didn't either, so YOU'RE in trouble, because it's not HIS fault YOU didn't do what you should have done.