Would you have left your kids alone?

[Fjool]

I agree that 4 and 2 are too young. I also believe that 20 is (usually) old enough. The problem is that the space in between varies enormously from person-to-person and situation-to-situation.

 

I disagree that it is any of parliament's business though. They couldn't organise a sit-down in a chair factory, let alone decide on sensible and useful parameters for something as complex as this issue.

[moorit]

^

 

I don't think there is much problem with deciding on the age element. The problem is how do you define 'left alone' ?

 

As I said earlier, leaving your kids inside whilst having a barbecue in the garden may be acceptable in some instances and not in others.

[hellsbells]

to the sit down in a chair factory comment but too many things have happened to children in this country and abroad not to have something done about age guidelines.

[Para Handy]

I'm not a parent, but if I was there is one thing for sure. I would not have left kids there age alone in my own house. Never mind going to the pub to get pissed and in a foreign country. It seems to me that kids there age would have to come before your own social life. It's about time the basic responsibility of family life should be teached at school before religion or football ect. How about some self defence classes, that mite help the young keep fit. How about Satellite Tracking up to the age of 13. That could be switched on and traced if things happened for the worst

[Pleepsie]

^

 

 

As I said earlier, leaving your kids inside whilst having a barbecue in the garden may be acceptable in some instances and not in others.

 

The thing with having a BBQ in your back garden is that your front door would be locked and any person would have to walk past you to enter your house by the back door, and you would see them. The real problem is not so much having fun in your own back yard, but leaving toddlers alone in an unlocked room in a foreign country. Most parents reach a time when the kids are aged 10-12 when you can give them responsibility and freedom, at this age they are on the verge of growing up and can cope with it. Babies and toddlers simply can't.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

We recently left our 5 year old under the supervision of our 13 year old while we went a run up the shop for five minutes. This was the first time we had done so and judged the situation as a test on the responsibility of both, I still found it uneasy but trusted the elder could cope, Last year it would be a firm no, It's just like hells bells says, it's just common sense and leaving 3 year olds looking after 2 year olds just isn't.

 

P.S we didn't use this as a template for further abandonment, it was just a tester for them.

 

moorit wrote:

Are you saying I could be arrested if I sleep in a different part of the house from my 13 year old kid ?

I think your not getting to grips with the points of this.

[Fjool]

^ Moorit is only employing a reductio absurdum argument. Nothing wrong with this; the point he's making is 'where to draw the line?'

 

All well and good talking about 'common sense' but, really, there's no such thing. Every situation is different; for each which you'd deem suitable, one could arguably modify in some small way to make it unsuitable.

 

Age of children, responsibility of children, location, time of day, distance of parents, and so on. All these factors are important and no set of law is going to make children completely safe all the time.

 

A child's parents should be automatically and enthusiastically thinking of their child's well-being. Failures such as in Madeline's case are not going to stop because of a couple of stronger laws. There are already laws against kidnapping, but this didn't prevent the abductor from carrying out their nefarious actions.

[hellsbells]

Fjool, I agree that no set laws would deter certain people, but if there was a law stating that it was illegal to leave children under a certain age then surely most people would take note that they might be in trouble if they did't abide by the rules.

[Fjool]

Thing is, hellsbells, most parents already and automatically have the best interests of their children at heart. I fear for our validity as a species if we need to rely on parliamentary edicts to stop parents from wantonly abandoning their children.

 

It seems to me that the type of parent who respects this law will already be the type of parent who looks after their children sensibly using their own good judgement anyway.

 

Little point, say I, of creating new laws to deter fools and incompetents since they'll just as likely break or misunderstand them. These cases are going to be rare already.

 

To put it another way: if the risk of loosing your children or having them come to harm is not an incentive to remain vigilant, why would a hard-to-enforce law carry any weight?

 

Ultimately, we agree that protecting children is the correct thing to do but I don't think that creating new laws is the easy solution. It's a knee-jerk reaction that we see far too often. X happens, so a campaign springs up to introduce laws to ban some circumstances which may produce X.

 

Additional laws aren't automatically a good thing, nor a solution. We have many laws which deal with neglect, and other aspects of parental responsibility without further complicating the issue with something so difficult to define.

[hellsbells]

I agree entirely with you Fjool,but I also only have the interests of bairns at heart and although a parliamentary ruling might not be worth the paper it's written on at least it would be there, when the next poor bairn is abducted.

[Fjool]

I realise you're probably not meaning it this way but, from the above, it sounds like you want the law in place so that the parents can be punished if something goes wrong.

[hellsbells]

Any one neglecting bairns I would like to see be punished not just parents. But what I really mean is if a law is in place with strict guidelines in it then maybe more people would take notice and not be so relaxed over their childcare arrangements.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Fjool wrote:

I fear for our validity as a species if we need to rely on parliamentary edicts to stop parents from wantonly abandoning their children.

 

Personally whether it exists or not I would call for common sense anyway, although leaving toddlers alone is a wilful endangerment of others, be they charged or not.

 

requote from page 3:

"It is not enough to absolve you of responsibility that you left the dog with instructions that it should not be left inside the house."

Simpson's mother, 46-year-old Jacqueline Simpson, has been charged with Ellie's manslaughter. A trial will take place later this year.

 

"Validity of species compromised without any outcry"

I would like to hear what scale the powers that be use to define which mistake will have you sent down for years and which will get you an audience with the pope.

This grey area appears to be very black and white when the working class gets put in the spotlight.

[BigMouth]

The simple answer is that they balanced their decision on the value of their children against the perceived risk of any harm coming to them against their desire to eat out.

 

I think that we all do that but we make different choices.

 

How was dinner by the way?

[Styles]

I think there could be argued there is a duty of care, so i for one think they should be prosecuted as if it wasent for them the child wouldent have gone. (Check the way I dont say aubducted as thats never proven). Make an example of them so it does not happen again.