I have to empathise with the thousands of working parents around the UK who are pulling their hair out over what to do with their children over the school break while they are out at work.  Unless you have been living under a rock today, you can’t have failed to hear or read about calls made today by The Children’s Legal Centre for clarification of the law on leaving children unattended.
Witchling 12 is as you can probably deduce, 12 years old, and her delightful witchling sibling is 10.  Are they too young to be left home alone for 15 minutes while I pop to the local shop? No, I think they are deserving of the trust and responsibility I leave them with.  They know how to get help if anything unexpected happens and they also know that there are strict rules for when there is no grown up around.
•    No cooking!
•    No cutting and gluing or other crazy craft ideas!
•    No using the phone unless it is to call an ambulance/fire engine/police car!
•    No answering of the door!
•    No leaving the house!
Mostly they watch a DVD or play a game for the few minutes I am gone.  But could I leave them for a whole day? Not a chance.  They simply don’t have the emotional maturity to handle being left all alone for hours on end.
The law is extremely vague on this point and states no specific age as a minimum.  The reason being, that children of different ages may be of vastly different maturity levels.  Also there is a world of difference between leaving a 12 year old child alone for 10 minutes while you pop to the shops and leaving a 6 year old child to fend for itself while you are out at work all day.   There should be clear legislation stating how old a child must be before it can be left alone for say up to an hour, then further guidelines for the age at which a child can be left for more than 3 hours etc.  Right up to potentially leaving a 16 year old over night.
As it currently stands, the law states that there is no minimum age at which a child may be left home alone and no stipulation as to how long they may be left. However, if a child is left unsupervised in a situation where it may be subject to unnecessary suffering, neglect or harm, then the parents may be charged with wilful neglect.
Most unhelpfully, the law does nothing to outline what actually constitutes wilful neglect, but if found guilty then the punishment ranges from a fine up to 10 years in prison.  Not a chance I’d like to take for the sake of a quick trip to Asda!
The confusion and stress that this fuzzy law gives parents is compounded by local authorities and childcare providers who seem to have decided themselves what the rules ought to be.  If, like me, you are a parent of a primary school child and a secondary school child you will doubtless have been losing sleep about the next couple of months.
We found a great playscheme for the summer holidays for Witchling 10.  She can go at 8am and we can pick her up at 6pm.  Fantastic! But what about Witchling 12?  Well the playscheme don’t really cater for secondary age children.  In the end we had to plead her case as a highly immature year 7 who was in actual fact in year 6 in the Australian education system that she just left.  Thankfully they took pity and have given her a place.  But what happens next year?  In fact what happens in September when there is no after school club for her (secondary schools just don’t seem to have them) and no childminder will have her as she is too old!?
How can my Witchling 12 be too old to be cared for by a childminder or other childcare body when she’s arguably too young to be letting herself in at home after school and waiting alone for us to get back from work 3 hours later.  If I let her stay home alone after school I run the risk of falling foul of the law, but at the end of the day will I have a choice?

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