At what age would you let your child/teen...

onlyroz

...do the following things?


- Wear nail polish
- Wear make-up
- Shave their legs
- Walk to/from school alone
- Stay at home alone for 30 mins
- Stay at home alone for a few hours
- Stay at home alone overnight
- Go out (to the park/shops/cinema etc) unsupervised in a group
- Go out unsupervised alone
- Travel on a bus/train alone
- Watch a 12-rated film
- Watch a 15-rated film
- Watch an 18-rated film
- Have a few sips of an alcoholic drink
- Have a weak alcoholic drink (e.g. shandy, spritzer)
- Have a strong alcoholic drink (e.g. beer, wine)
- Choose their own clothes
- Have a mobile phone
- Have a TV/computer/console in their room
- Have unsupervised internet access
- Have a social media account


Just curious, being the parent of 8 and 12-year-olds who are keen to get on with "growing up".

Malthusian

- Wear nail polish
- Wear make-up
- Shave their legs

At the point body hair becomes an issue I think he'll be old enough to make his own decisions.

The answer to the rest of them is "when I think they're ready and have shown me they can understand the consequences". And I wouldn't take the slightest notice of what people on an Internet forum who'd never met them thought.

System

Wear nail polish - No rules but it must be taken off for school
Wear make-up - No rules but not to be worn for school and look natural
Shave their legs - No rules, its up to them
Walk to/from school alone - Depends on roads/streets. Mine started at 11 when they started high school
Stay at home alone for 30 mins - Depending on the maturity of the child.
Stay at home alone for a few hours - Depending on the maturity of the child.
Stay at home alone overnight - I had palpitations when i left my 17 year old. Still do now he's 21 but because i know he has his friends round.
Go out (to the park/shops/cinema etc) unsupervised in a group - Depends on the maturity of the child and the group of friends he is with.
Go out unsupervised alone - Depends on the maturity of the child.
Travel on a bus/train alone - Depends on how far.
Watch a 12-rated film - 12 (in my presence anyway)
Watch a 15-rated film - 15 (in my presence anyway)
Watch an 18-rated film - 16. Same with games.
Have a few sips of an alcoholic drink - Few sips? No rules
Have a weak alcoholic drink (e.g. shandy, spritzer) Depending on how weak. No rules if it was very weak
Have a strong alcoholic drink (e.g. beer, wine) -16 or thereabouts
Choose their own clothes - Kids get their own personal flair quite early on. Unless its extreme i would just go with it. Anything extreme they would have to buy themselves.
Have a mobile phone - 11 when they start high school. No contract though.
Have a TV/computer/console in their room - No rules
Have unsupervised internet access - Even at the age of 21 my Son gets reminded that Virgin Media can see everything he is viewing and its my name on the bill.
Have a social media account - My Son used mine at 9 to play the games. His own, when he went to high school though i had his login. He changed his log in at 14 but i didnt ask for it.

I think a lot of it is down to the individual child and my views on parenting are a bit outdated now my kids are adults.

kathrynha

I'm the parent of an 11 year old girl


- Wear nail polish - for special occasions 8, for every day (non-school) 11
- Wear make-up - for special occasions 8, for every day (non-school) I will discourage for as long as possible as it's bad for the skin
- Shave their legs - when she becomes self conscious about it
- Walk to/from school alone - 9
- Stay at home alone for 30 mins - 10
- Stay at home alone for a few hours - 11
- Stay at home alone overnight - not for a number of years yet
- Go out (to the park/shops/cinema etc) unsupervised in a group - local streets 9, park (big roads to cross) 12, shops and cinema, 11 if an adult takes them, 12/13 if they are going by public transport
- Go out unsupervised alone - depends where to, but she goes to friends houses on her own and has done for a couple of years
- Travel on a bus/train alone - 11, going to do this for the first time in 2 weeks, but I will see her on to the bus, and grandparents will meet her off it. If she needed the bus for school, I would have been getting her practiced for the last 6 months
- Watch a 12-rated film - 11, where she had read the book first
- Watch a 15-rated film - 15
- Watch an 18-rated film - 18
- Have a few sips of an alcoholic drink - 5
- Have a weak alcoholic drink (e.g. shandy, spritzer) - 10
- Have a strong alcoholic drink (e.g. beer, wine) - 15
- Choose their own clothes - she has had her say since she was 4/5ish. Initially it was a choice of what I had already chosen, but now she choses everything, although it all has to be approved by me.
- Have a mobile phone - 10
- Have a TV/computer/console in their room - 10
- Have unsupervised internet access - 10
- Have a social media account - depends on the rules of the site.

onlyroz

For those saying "depends on the maturity of the child" - I'm asking about *your* child, and presumably you have an opinion about how mature they are.

System

ok

Wear nail polish - Whenever my girls they wanted to but it must be taken off for school
Wear make-up - Whenever my girls wanted but not to be worn for school and look natural
Shave their legs - I didnt set down any rules
Walk to/from school alone - Mine started at 11 when they started high school
Stay at home alone for 30 mins - 10.
Stay at home alone for a few hours - 11.
Stay at home alone overnight - 17.
Go out (to the park/shops/cinema etc) unsupervised alone - 10 but i had to know where they were going and who with.
Travel on a bus/train alone - The school run. 11.
Watch a 12-rated film - 12 (in my presence anyway)
Watch a 15-rated film - 15 (in my presence anyway)
Watch an 18-rated film - 16. Same with games.
Have a few sips of an alcoholic drink - Few sips? No rules
Have a weak alcoholic drink (e.g. shandy, spritzer) Depending on how weak. No rules if it was very weak
Have a strong alcoholic drink (e.g. beer, wine) -16 or thereabouts
Choose their own clothes - Kids get their own personal flair quite early on. Unless its extreme i would just go with it. Anything extreme they would have to buy themselves.
Have a mobile phone - 11 when they start high school. No contract though.
Have a TV/computer/console in their room - No rules
Have unsupervised internet access - Even at the age of 21 my Son gets reminded that Virgin Media can see everything he is viewing and its my name on the bill.
Have a social media account - My Son used mine at 9 to play the games. His own, when he went to high school though i had his login. He changed his log in at 14 but i didnt ask for it.

For those saying "depends on the maturity of the child" - I'm asking about *your* child, and presumably you have an opinion about how mature they are.

My answers are based on my own decisions with my own children.

beautiful_ravens

Ive got 3 DDs age 17, 13 and 12

Wear nail polish - Non issue
- Wear make-up - so far none of them care about wearing make up, even though they own loads of it!
- Shave their legs - non issue
- Walk to/from school alone - cant be done, they get bus
- Stay at home alone for 30 mins - roughly age 12 onwards, but theres 3 of them, so all different depends on who else is in, or when younger ones were left with old one.
- Stay at home alone for a few hours - as above
- Stay at home alone overnight - err...hasnt happened yet.
- Go out (to the park/shops/cinema etc) unsupervised in a group 11- 14
- Go out unsupervised alone - 11-14
- Travel on a bus/train alone - 13-15
- Watch a 12-rated film -10
- Watch a 15-rated film- 12
- Watch an 18-rated film - 15- 17
- Have a few sips of an alcoholic drink - will not encourage
- Have a weak alcoholic drink (e.g. shandy, spritzer) - will not encourage
- Have a strong alcoholic drink (e.g. beer, wine) - will not encourage
- Choose their own clothes - 9 onwards
- Have a mobile phone -9 onwards
- Have a TV/computer/console in their room - 13-16
- Have unsupervised internet access - 10-13 [phones]
- Have a social media account - 13+

* I gave up drinking which is why I will not encourage anyone to start drinking.
*We live rurally with no buses or people, so they are older when starting doing things like buses, trains, going out alone. They go for walks at home, not quite the same as its just fields.
*Not keen on kids hiding away upstairs on computers, so xbox/internet computers are mostly downstairs. They do have phones though. They have some non-internet desktops upstairs for homework - photoshop, word, powerpoint etc.

Baby_Angel

My daughter is 10 years old.

From the list, she is not allowed ANY of those yet and hasn't actually shown ANY interest in most of it either.

Since we now live in Germany, I see much younger children going to school alone, but then it is fairly smaller town than London. For the time being Daddy walks her to school and she has no problem with that.

She has a tablet since the age of 7 (doesn't like watching movies at all and allowed very limited internet time anyway) and a phone we recently got for her to get used to, during the holidays, in case she needs to go alone walking to school. She is a very creative girl more interested in reading, painting, colouring and art stuff. She uses her tablet mostly to look up images to draw or paint.

badmemory

I used to leave my son at home alone for 30-45 mins once a week from 10. However, if he had a sibling I would not have left them alone until they were both into their teens. But this is because I can remember how horrible it was being left alone with my younger sister. It damaged our relationship to the extent that we are just about getting past it now both our parents are gone and we have both waved 60 a long goodbye.

jamiehelsinki

My daughter wore make up and nail varnish from a very young age I never had a problem with it. ( not to school)
Going out very locally she was about 9/10 with her friends in the immediate streets to our house.
Started catching a school bus at 11.
When I split from her mum she started using public transport to get back and fore but would be met the other end.
I tend to be very protective where boys are concerned but I doubt that will ever change.

onlyroz

badmemory wrote: »

I used to leave my son at home alone for 30-45 mins once a week from 10. However, if he had a sibling I would not have left them alone until they were both into their teens. But this is because I can remember how horrible it was being left alone with my younger sister. It damaged our relationship to the extent that we are just about getting past it now both our parents are gone and we have both waved 60 a long goodbye.

So what was the issue with being left alone with your sister? Was it the extra responsibility? Or did your sister play up and you got the blame?