Would you leave a nine year old home alone?

plumpmouse

Yes, from choice

I also think the poll is deeply flawed and not thought out at all.

There is huge difference between leaving a 9 year old for 10 minutes and leaving them for 8 hours while you are out working.

I would imagine that most of the people saying they are happy to leave their children only do so for short periods of time but I may be wrong.

Kayalana99

lostinrates wrote: »

I do not miss the point, I take it and agree, no one wants children suffering crime alone, (well, at all) but my point is that I am interested in how statistically likely it is that children are at home alone or anywhere with their parents at the time of crime. I genuinely do not know, and feel unable to make a real decision on how I feel about your post and the point made with no perspective given to the number of google searches on one aspect of the who.e picture iykwim.

But it IS missing the point because obvouisly crime with the parents in the house is going to be higher because most parents dont leave thier kids and go out...so what does it matter if you no the statics of whether the parents are thier or not?

I can't really comment about your orignal post as I don't know the inns and outs of what happened so please don't think I am just ignoring it.

Yes thier is a story to every picture but my point is that it DOES happen, not whether the outlook is good or bad but you walk out the door leaving your children unsupervised thinking 'It will never happen to me' Then bam...as my prevouis post your car gets hit by another car and you regret the decision of leaving your child for the rest of your life. (Or fire/burgulary) & even you agree no one wants the child suffering alone....so yes knowing the statics of parents being at home is irrelvant to this topic.

plumpmouse

Yes, from choice

Kayalana99 wrote: »

A quick google of 'burgulars and 10 year olds left alone' comes up with many hits & news stories and even one of the burglar knocking on the door (to check no one is home) before trying to enter the house.

Most reports seem to be in US from what I can see. (Edited to add that most seem to be about one girl also not lots of individual cases)

Can you provide a link to the number that occur in the UK?

Gillyx

Depends entirely on the child and circumstances. Some kids are airy fairy at 9 and others are very responsible.

I'm 24 with a child of my own and I can safely say in the event of an electrical fire or flooding Id be like a headless chicken.

ash28

This is a very emotive subject isn't it?

The law states there is no minimum age for leaving a child alone - as long as the child isn't put a risk.

We have a grandson (11) living with us - he started to go school on his own in year 5 - the school wasn't all that far away but had 2 busy (only at school start and end) roads to cross and only one of them had a school crossing patrol.

Year 5 was when we started letting him go to the local shop on his own - he still had to cross one of the roads that he had to cross to get to school.

We showed him the best places to cross the road without the crossing patrol - where he would have best visibility for traffic - and the traffic could be a pain - there's not a lot worse than the school run for poor driving - they always seem to be mums on a mission often with very little awareness of what's going on around them.

That's the year we would leave him to go to our local shop - no longer than 10 to 15 minutes away from the house.

He knew not to answer the door.
He had our mobile numbers
He could call the emergency services
If I said I'd be 15 minutes - I was 15 minutes and no longer - in case he thought I'd had an accident or something.
If something happened he knew who to go to
He had our son's and our daughters' mobile numbers and house numbers
We always asked how he was when we got back and if anything had happened or anyone had come to the door.

He was always very keen to be left on his own I think he thought he was quite grown up.

It seemed to be the age when a lot of his friends started to go to and from school on their own and to be left for short periods.

Our own children by the time they were 13 (early 30s now) had stopped going to a childminder - the eldest asked when he was 12 if he could have a key and go straight home - he was on his own for about and hour and a half - but he could always go the childminder if wanted or had forgotten his key - which was more than once.

The other 2 were a similar age when they stopped going to the childminder.

We had 2 rules - no friends in the house and no cooking - they could make a sandwich and have a soft drink but no more and not following the rules meant they had their keys taken from them and would go back to the childminder.

At 13 they all had Saturday/weekend jobs - one worked for a butcher, one worked in a food court preparing and cooking food and the other worked at the local cricket and hockey club preparing after match food - sometimes sandwiches and sometimes cooked food which she prepared and cooked - she went on to be a chef.

They all more than coped. It seemed silly bearing in mind that they were all doing some sort of responsible paid work to say they couldn't be left on their own at home.

Part of parents job (IMHO) is to prepare their children for an independent life and allowing them to take some responsibility, walking to school, being left for short periods, going to the shop etc, are all steps on the road to independence.

Don't forget at 16 you can leave home without parental consent.
At 16 you can consent to your own medical treatment.

By the age of 14 I would certainly hope any normal young person would be able to be left on their own for periods of time.

Kayalana99

plumpmouse wrote: »

Most reports seem to be in US from what I can see. (Edited to add that most seem to be about one girl also not lots of individual cases)

Can you provide a link to the number that occur in the UK?

To be quite honest no, without even trying to find that again it all depends what is counted as 'underage' yes I did see that girl is all over the place but if you change what your googling slightly more stories do pop up and that is just 10 year olds & burlgery

Start putting in fires etc and you'll see 2/4kids died max age 7 that were left alone but again I would see this as off topic as I *hope* you would all agree 7 is again, to young to be left (esp with other kids! ><)

All I am saying is that the worst does happen - I am not trying to prove how likey it is etc because my point is even if thier is just one case a year I wouldnt want to take that risk

I'm obvouisly no expert so I can't pull up all police reports on how often its happens but it wasnt my point anyway of how likey the event may be...

Toto

No, not unless it was a dire emergency

peachyprice wrote: »

But you did, you left your 14yo child alone, and she didn't cope. So at what age do you wish you had left it until before leaving her alone. At what age your you think your daughter specifically would have coped?

I didn't. I was home when the incident occurred thankfully

Dunroamin

Yes, from choice

moomoomama27 wrote: »

But could they cope with an intruder? An electrical fire? Flooding? How about if they fell, hit their head, something fell on them?
.

I'm amazed that I've managed to live to over 60 with none of these things ever happening to me, even when I've been home alone!;)

Seriously, this is a really unhealthy way to look at life regardless of the original question.

jellyhead

I think kids should be taught where to go if something happens, regardless of whether you're going to leave them on their own. That way, if an emergency happens you'll already have talked through all the things that might happen, taught them various phone numbers, etc.

They don't have to be on their own for something to happen. I'm such a clumsy mare that they're probably in more danger with me than without me. But if I fell down the stairs, for example, I'd want them to know which neighbours to call on.

lostinrates

Kayalana99 wrote: »

But it IS missing the point because obvouisly crime with the parents in the house is going to be higher because most parents dont leave thier kids and go out...so what does it matter if you no the statics of whether the parents are thier or not?

I can't really comment about your orignal post as I don't know the inns and outs of what happened so please don't think I am just ignoring it.

Yes thier is a story to every picture but my point is that it DOES happen, not whether the outlook is good or bad but you walk out the door leaving your children unsupervised thinking 'It will never happen to me' Then bam...as my prevouis post your car gets hit by another car and you regret the decision of leaving your child for the rest of your life. (Or fire/burgulary) & even you agree no one wants the child suffering alone....so yes knowing the statics of parents being at home is irrelvant to this topic.

. It's worth pointing out competent statisticians have formulae for just this sort of comparison as i understand it. I am not a good statistician and when I was a researching scientist I always asked someone else to check, check and double check...or, um, just do my stat analysis. . (Despite two modules of stats at undergrad level, its never been something i 'feel') It's also fair to say you can get stats to suggest most things, if you present them poorly enough.

I think that the exact same thing you think 'I' am suggesting (it will never happen to me) is what a lot of parents are thinking when they won't foster independence in their (ready) children. I think the parents are forgetting they are vulnerable too and emergencies can and do happen when they are with their children that incapacitate them and render them useless to their children.

I am not for one second arguing children should be left for long periods of time to watch tv routinely, or cook for a household or sweep the chimney fwiw. Things seem extremely polarised between the two camps here. It's a bit unpleasant really. One of the things I have thought while reading this has been if I had children there are a lot of people on mse I would not leave them with for half an hour with.