Expert QA

Unsupervised children

Diane Levy gives advice to a mum who worries her daughter is not properly supervised at friends house

Dear Diane, Recently my 10-year-old daughter went to play with a friend and I only discovered later that the parents had gone out and a 14-year-old brother was “in charge”. I know that’s the age you can leave a teenager babysitting, but apparently the boy was in his bedroom on the computer, so wasn’t really taking any interest in the girls and they could’ve got up to any kind of mischief. I feel that it was wrong for the parents to do this – especially as they didn’t call, or get my daughter to check that it was okay with me. Should I ring the mother and say something, or simply ban my daughter from going there again?

Julie, by email

I absolutely agree with you that it’s wrong for the parents not to have checked with you. While you are right that it is technically legal, it very much depends on what sort of 14-year-old and 10-year-olds they are. Let’s start by giving the parents the benefit of the doubt. He’s a responsible teenager – almost 15 – who’s often left in charge of his sensible ten-year-old sister for short periods of time. It never occurred to the mother that there was a problem. In this scenario, think about what outcome you want. Do you want it never to happen again? Is it okay if it is brief? Would you rather be informed? Was your daughter comfortable with the situation? It’s also important not to wreck play dates for your daughter. If you’re still uncomfortable, then it’s worth a gentle discussion. Take responsibility for being surprised because your daughter doesn’t have older siblings and it hadn’t occurred to you that this might happen. Express willingness for their daughter to be at your place if they need to get out. At the other extreme, the 14–year-old is quite irresponsible and both 10-year-olds tend to get out-of-hand if not closely supervised. In this case, I’d just “wiggle the situation” so that play dates happen only at your place.

Diane Levy provides expert answers to your parenting queries. Send your questions to: [email protected].

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