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

Carmina_Piranha_3

i can see a difference between 7pm and 9pm. if something happened at 9pm the child would be in the bedroom, wearing PJ's (hopefully lol!) with nothing on their feet. would they actually go outside if they needed to? i don't think my ten year old would, despite knowing 'the rules' for if he is left alone for a short time.

also at 9pm you wouldn't be able to get a neighbour to unbolt their front door in a hurry, and there wouldn't be anyone on the street either.

why couldn't the sleepy 9 year old go with the mum? was she driving, or walking?

my child is in bed at 9pm anyway.

Spendless

Carmina_Piranha wrote: »

why couldn't the sleepy 9 year old go with the mum? was she driving, or walking?

Child isn't 9, he is a few months off 12 and he had come back off holiday earlier that day, in early hours of morning. Post 17 or 18.

Carmina_Piranha_3

it was late and i'm not very clever

if they are nearly twelve then maybe i'd leave mine. a lot depends on what rules there are and how well the child knows them, who is available for him to call on or phone if he needs to and if he knows to get out of the house if there's a fire (and that the smoke alarm is loud and he'll hear if from his room with the door shut). then again if the child is in bed there's probably less chance of a fire than if they are awake :rolleyes:

i leave mine (who is 11 months younger than the child mentioned in the OP) for short periods during the day, i set an alarm and tell him if i'm not back by the time it goes off he has to phone my mum (or other people on the list if she doesn't answer).

so ... the father brought them back at 3am - he should understand how tired the child is. at least the mum sent them to school, many would have let them have the day off. the child missed boys brigade, so is obviously tired and not just putting it on to get some TV time after the watershed.

i think the mum probably has a tough job trying to do her best for children of different ages with different activities, with nobody else to do the ferrying around.

silvercar

When faced with a dilemma you need to make a judgement at the time. Try this one (that did happen to me):

Eldest, nearly 16, out at a concert phones to say that previously planned lift home is not going to happen. He could take the bus home but it would mean changing buses and hanging round alone in "dodgy" area that he doesn't feel happy about. He's the only one of the crowd that lives in our direction and couldn't leave early.

I'm at home with little one, age 12, about to go to bed. No family or friends available to cover. Do I force little one to stay up for a couple of hours and come with me to collect eldest? I asked him and he told me he was going to bed and wouldn't be bothered if I went out (there and back about half an hour) while he was asleep.

So the choice is to let the eldest come home on his own, late, through an area he feels is unsafe or leave little one tucked up in bed.

On the balance of risk I left the little one!

Carmina_Piranha_3

it's a pity the children's father hasn't offered to help out on such occasions, or that their mother feel that she can call him when something like this happens. if he feels very strongly about this (and some parents do - my sister's ex thinks my sister is irresponsible and leaves her children alone at far too young an age) then perhaps he should make it clear that if such an occasion arises again, if one child is ill for example then he will happily do the lift home.

mishmash

There is no legal age limit when children can be left. I do not think it would be possible to define an age. Children mature at differrent times, also there are some children with specific needs.

As a social worker we would often have cases referred of children 'home alone' and would look at the factors. If it were a very young child, somtimes it would be baby's, toddlers or pre school children. we would work with the police and this would clearly be a case of neglect, even this would not neccessarily mean that children were removed from the care of their parents.

However there were lots of calls that may be considered malicous. Often family members, absent parents or neighbours where there had been a dispute.

We would look at the general issues, it is common that parents leave children of a high school age. Childcare funding stops at this time and it can be very difficult to find childcare provision for children of this age. When parents make appropriate provision, so children know what to do in an emergency, if there is a neighbour they can go to, if they have a parents mobile number. All these things reduce the risk of the child coming to harm. I think nipping to the shops or popping to pick another child up is compleetly fine for children of this age.

We need to remeber that our job as parents is not just to wrap children in cotton wool, but to prepare them to be self sufficient and cope in the big wide world. Of course this needs to be done gradually with care, love and support.

My childrens father used regularly to threaten me with contacting social services and the police. When they reached high school they would come home to an empty house ( I would be at work), and they would often be left while I went to the shops as they did not want to come with me.

They did not want to go to their grandparents, but they could always phone me on my mobile, neighbours were around if needed and they had a list of contact numbers for family members.

I think it very unlikely in these circumstances a prosecution for neglect would happen, or that the local social services department would feel it neccessary to innitiate child protection proceedings.

If the posters friends ex does referr the matter to the police or social services I think the most that would happen would be a visit, where they would inform her of the information they had recieved and allow her to give her side of the events. I doubt anything more would come of it.

Mish

Savvy_Sue

mishmash wrote: »

We need to remeber that our job as parents is not just to wrap children in cotton wool, but to prepare them to be self sufficient and cope in the big wide world. Of course this needs to be done gradually with care, love and support.

:T:T:T

mishmash wrote: »

When they reached high school they would come home to an empty house ( I would be at work), and they would often be left while I went to the shops as they did not want to come with me.

Indeed, given a choice between taking 3 under 5s somewhere they didn't want to go, and 3 teenagers, I think I'd choose the under 5s ... :rotfl:

Although I have to say I'm very happy now I don't have to take ANY children shopping with me!

Spendless

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

:T:T:T

Indeed, given a choice between taking 3 under 5s somewhere they didn't want to go, and 3 teenagers, I think I'd choose the under 5s ... :rotfl:

Although I have to say I'm very happy now I don't have to take ANY children shopping with me!

LOL tell me about it.:D I didn't respond to it at the time cos I thought it would take away from the discussion but a previous post you made about how likely is it that a plane will fall on the house etc is exactly what my 7yo son has said to me as justification for him stopping at home whilst I go to Tescos. :rotfl:
He hates shopping. Unfortuantely for him he doesn't get the choice yet.

Carmina_Piranha_3

i'm a bad mum - i leave my ten year old playing on the wii while i go shopping

i got a lot of grief off other mums a month or so ago when i left ten year old at home and took my toddler to mums and tots group. i called him (using our code so he knows it's me) to check he was happy, and some other mums were horrified to realise i'd left him at home :eek:

he's in year 6, going to high school next year. school has rules about vomiting or diarrhoea - they can't go back to school until 24 hours after the last time they are sick etc. so when spud had a tummy bug he had to stay off school for a whole tuesday, having vomited for the final time at 3pm on the monday afternoon :rolleyes: he wasn't ill (he wants me around when he's ill, he would have come out with me or asked me to stay at home if he felt ill).

he wanted to spend time in the living room without his little brother around, and little brother wanted to go out.

i don't think i did anything wrong, but i wouldn't have left him at home the previuos year. the mums who were shocked don't have children as old as ten.

Spendless

Carmina_Piranha wrote: »

the mums who were shocked don't have children as old as ten.

and I think that's an important point. This thread has made me realise I only have 2 role models and 1 is too overprotective and the other too... can't think of right word, neglectful is too strong.

Dare I confess too . My kids were going thru as sickness bug, that no sooner they got over they got again, and it left me really stuck getting the other to school. DH wanted me to nip DD to nursery few mins away whilst he chatted on mobile to DS. I refused and couldn't believe he asked such a thing. I even did a thread about it. Then the same thing happened yet again and this time I was stuck. I either had to do as suggested or DD had to stop home with her sick brother risking get the virus again. So I left him on the phone talking to his Dad whilst I raced to nursery, dropped DD in cloakroom and raced back. He was still chatting to his Dad on phone.