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#21
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How old should children be before being left alone?
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#22
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How old should children be before being left alone?
In article , Jenn says...
In article , "Donna Metler" wrote: looking back, I think 12 is probably a better rule of thumb. our son was reliable at 10 but sometimes his judgment was a bit flawed. we did have very strict rules e.g. he liked to cook, but was not allowed to use blenders or similar devices at that age alone -- he could mix brownies by hand or whatever but not use any power tools, or blenders or boil things on top of the stove. what is heartbreaking is the situation like the recent mother whose sitter didn't come, and who left kids alone while she went to work -- a fire in the apartment building killed them [I think it was a 9 year old watching a 4 year old] Sure it was negligent -- but she faced losing her job if she failed to get to work and welfare reform means that there isn't welfare to fall back on if she did lose her job -- and then she might lose her kids to foster care for losing her apartment/job --- it is a choice that is a loser for her any way you look. of course most mothers pushed into this choice don't have a tragedy --- but now apparently the plan is to lock this hapless women up for a few years for a situation with no way out I think such situations would be judged differently in decades past. It'd be viewed as a tragedy, but not negligence. We had a thread here some time back about a family in a low-income neighborhood where the police, mistakenly at the wrong address, raided starting with bringing in a K-9 dog. There were no adults; the oldest responsible individual in the house at the time was 12, there was also an a autistic older teen. The OP screamed "where was the mother!". Well, leaving her kids with a babysitting-aged daughter. As if families are to be prepared for mistaken police raids involving dogs. Banty |
#23
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How old should children be before being left alone?
Banty wrote:
I think such situations would be judged differently in decades past. It'd be viewed as a tragedy, but not negligence. This is more of the feeling that I had about such situations when I made the original post. Many, if not most, kids in past generations learned that they had to become responsible at an early age. Dickens's workhouse England, American farm families, and the general tenor of living closer to the land prior to the 1960s made kids more aware of consequences, and minimized the number of different ways they could get into life and death situations. More often than not, a child was intimately exposed to the death of a friend or family member, or at least a farm animal, early on in life. Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" explores the nature of being a child just before the 1929 depression. I stumbled across excerpts after writing the original post and found them a useful comparison to the responses here. |
#24
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How old should children be before being left alone?
On Sat, 25 Oct 2003 17:12:55 -0400
127.0.0.1 wrote: snip who elected you god? who the hell made you the arbiter of who deserves life and who doesn't? stick to riding your broom Somewhat of an overreaction, 127. I heard something else in Chloe's post: a profound sense of tragedy over children in a no win situation. -- Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the Universe. --Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) |
#25
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How old should children be before being left alone?
"Banty" wrote in message ... In article , Penny Gaines says... Banty wrote in : Like someone said, what is "being left alone". Is it alright for me to leave the 9yo in the house, while I hang out the washing in the garden? I don't think that would be a problem. Is it alright for me and dh to take our cups of coffee to the end of the garden, and leave the kids inside, or do we insist that they come outside too? And if both of those are OK, why shouldn't I post a letter at the post office: it takes less time then hanging out the washing, and is closer then the end of the garden? It's not just a matter of how long they're left alone, but also how available you are in case they need you. So if you're in the far side of the garden for 30 minutes, they can find you, but leaving them to get milk at the store for 20 minutes may be more of a risk. They can't get your help if they need it. Yeah. One lady near here left her two children at home. The 1 yo was watching tv and the 3 yo was napping. She walked her older child to the bus stop around the corner and got home not 10 minutes later. The house was on fire and her children were dead. It was an electrical fire. If she were in the garden, she would have noticed the fire sooner and probably been able to save her kids. Fires spread quickly. 10 minutes is a long time. |
#26
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How old should children be before being left alone?
On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 03:29:51 GMT, "toypup"
wrote: Yeah. One lady near here left her two children at home. The 1 yo was watching tv and the 3 yo was napping. She walked her older child to the bus stop around the corner and got home not 10 minutes later. The house was on fire and her children were dead. It was an electrical fire. If she were in the garden, she would have noticed the fire sooner and probably been able to save her kids. Fires spread quickly. 10 minutes is a long time. Leaving a one year old and a three year old alone in a house is irresponsible in any case. It may be inconvenient to take them with you, but at this age things can happen in a few seconds so ten minutes is a very long time to leave them alone. -- Dorothy There is no sound, no cry in all the world that can be heard unless someone listens .. The Outer Limits |
#27
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How old should children be before being left alone?
"toypup" wrote in message news:uNBmb.14425$9E1.67911@attbi_s52... "dragonlady" wrote in message ... I think you misread that. If the daughter had NOT been left at home at all, there would have been much more damage. The hose would have broken when no one was there. So, while she might have acted faster, the fact that she was there to act at all saved the house from even worse damage. What I think is, she was lucky it was just a broken hose. If it had been some other emergency, quicker action might have made a more profound difference. When my daughters were 10 and 11 they were home alone for a bit. One made a waffle in the toaster ove. The oven malfunctioned (no her fault) and did not turn off. The toast burned the toaster ove flamed. They ran to a neightbors. No real damager was done but I praised them for doing the right thing...leaving the house imediately |
#28
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How old should children be before being left alone?
"Seth Thomas" wrote in message ... wrote: Never? It's probably not a good idea to leave most children alone together & unsupervised, ever. There's no one to control their bad side, & they can get excited/"high" by doing things (mean stuff, destroying, assaults), & act worse & worse. (an fictional example is in the book: Lord of the Flies) However, there are some individual exceptions. From experience I know, that it's Not a good idea to leave a baby or child (esp. female), alone with a teenaged boy/relative. And that the damage done, lasts. My 16 yr old son works in SACC and has many hours of training. I would rather have him watch children (and he has babysat his sisters many times) than most females I know. |
#29
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How old should children be before being left alone?
I looked her "main water what???"
:-) Well gosh... I guess I'd better not be left alone. I haven't the faintest idea of how to turn off the main water line in our house! Naomi CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator (either remove spamblock or change address to to e-mail reply.) |
#30
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How old should children be before being left alone?
"Seth Thomas" wrote in message ... wrote: I now believe that child molesters & rapists, whether teens or adults, should be shot dead, ... if the legal system fails, & if it refuses to punish or control them. The harm these predators choose to do (over & over), far outweighs any good or productive things, which they might one day choose to do. Susan, Su_Texas my opinions What if they are falsely accused of molestation .... shoot anyway? Should we shot drunk drivers too? They actually KILL people ... even kids! I have no sympathy for drunk drivers who kill people. They choose to drink. They choose to drive. They deserve more punishment than they typically get, which is usually a mere 'vehicular manslaughter'. --angela |
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