Children Home Alone (From Bucks Free Press)
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The perfect wife and mother, Rebecca runs a home, a village magazine and is working on her novel. She does not visit the gym or jog but is in amazingly good shape. She enjoys photography, playing the piano and arguing with the TV. She lives in Amersham with her husband and youngest child (aged nine). Her eldest, now 26, lives and works in Buckinghamshire.
Children Home Alone
8:03pm Monday 8th August 2011
When is it OK to leave your child at home alone?
There is no legal lower limit. It’s up to the parents. The language surrounding this topic is vague and open to every sort of interpretation. I’m horrified.
I know of one family which considers leaving their eight-year old child alone looking after a younger sibling acceptable. I know of another who has locked their (seven year old) child out of the house because they were going out.
Mothers of newborn babies receive a goodie bag in the hospital. Usually it will contain a sample number of nappies, baby food, a first book, leaflets of breastfeeding or similar stuff. Marketing for big companies.
Why, why, why does it not contain anything on basic parental responsibility?
We’re told a hundred other things we have to do as parents – when to name our babies, how educate them, when to use a car seat, not to shake or hit babies, what to feed them, to keep them away from alcohol, to look after ourselves, to sing, talk, read, bath them and (for the ambitious lot) play Mozart at every opportunity. God, it’s endless.
Later, there are ages of consent governing everything from which films we can watch to sex.
But when it comes to something as momentous as what age we can leave them alone at, all organisations and the government decide to leave it up to us. Why draw the line there?
The NSPCC guidelines I find wholly insufficient. ‘Make sure that your child is happy about the arrangements and confident about being left.’ And ‘Tell them not to answer the door to strangers.’ What?
And on another page from the NSPCC site, it points out that: ‘Child sex abusers… are usually known to the child – they may be a family member or a family friend.’ It could well be the stranger at the door who could save them from Uncle Tom and Aunty Joan, the paedophiles.
And then the cynic in me asks, ‘Is no one suggesting an actual age at which it’s safe to leave a child because it might mean some adult miss whole days off work? If the age is set, say, at 10, would a million parents be off work the entire summer holidays?’ What a terrible thing to suggest.
Are these organisation assuming all parents know? That all parents have good judgment? How can this be when we have so many obese children in the country? Surely those two items don’t co-exist?
Would it be wrong to set an age? If it were set at twelve, would it be so terrible? Would it really mean that most children in the UK would need an adult around when the children were in fact fully capable of looking after themselves? And the house? And maybe a younger sibling? And is that so bad anyway?
Is it worse than having no age set resulting in possibly thousands of too young children being left alone inappropriately?
The BBC news story highlights the confusion and ambiguity surrounding this.
Social services intervened a 14-year-old was found in charge of younger members while the parents were on holiday.
Can we have it all ways? Should you caution a mother who leaves her teenager in charge of a toddler when there are no clear guidelines?
And are we just talking about the physical dangers? How will a child feel being left alone? Parents can be persuasive if it means they have an hour away from the pressures of parenthood.
And if the child has overbearing parents anyway, isn’t the child going to say they ‘are happy with the arrangements’?
I feel the agencies responsible for children’s welfare are washing their hands of this monumental issue. It’s too difficult to approach and will have some parents screeching in horror at being told when they can legitimately abandon their young ones.
Seems like we still don’t know what a child is or when a child is responsible.
If they can be left alone, can’t they be sent to work? To the shops? Pop out to visit their friends in the car as long as their feet reach the pedals?
Couldn’t that also be at the discretion of us, the ever responsible, all-knowing, always wise parents? And if not, why not?
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/help-and-advice/for-parents-and-carers/positive-parenting/leaving-children-home-alone/leaving-children-home-alone_wda72908.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14402689 http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Yourchildshealthandsafety/Yourchildssafetyinthehome/DG_070594
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The perfect wife and mother, Rebecca runs a home, a bad temper and is working on her novel. She enjoys photography, playing the piano and likes almost anything that's out of fashion and uncool. She lives in Amersham with her husband and youngest child (aged ten). Her eldest, now 27, lives and works in Buckinghamshire.
NicM says...
10:10pm Mon 8 Aug 11
However after that it becomes very much a matter of judgement. I would have left one of mine for a few hours at 13 or 14, but would not have risked leaving both together.
Children are different and mature at different rates. However, as parents we need to remember that they are children for longer than they think is the case!