A SINGLE working mother who left her nine-year-old daughter home alone for a day was charged and had to appear in court. http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2010/09/01/166971_news.html?utm_source=twitterfeed-sport&utm_medium=twitter

Apparently it is illegal to leave a child under 12 unattended in Queensland! There is no equivalent law in any other state.

How incredibly big-brotherish is this ridiculous law? Why is it apparently illegal to leave a child in the safety of their own home for a day but not to allow your kids to play in the street unsupervised or walk through a shopping centre or walk home from school? Or are all of these things technically illegal as well in Qld?

How on earth are we supposed to know about laws that we would never even suspect existed?

How many obscure laws there are out there, that we could inadvertently infringe, and get caught up in legal strife, at great expense and great embarrassment, and incur a badly damaged level of respect for the law for the rest of our lives?

This woman is by all accounts a good mother who did not realise that she was doing anything illegal. At least the magistrate was sympathetic. But it still stinks, in my opinion.

What do others think?

It's the way of the world

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/06/2945557.htm

DOCS will probably be round at my house once my kids start school.

They'll be walking to school.

I thought it was the law that you can not leave a child alone at home if they are under the age of 14 years. I never questioned this because I thought it was sensible and it is the rule I have applied and quoted to my children when they thought it was okay to be left alone at home for the day when still under 14 years. I don't think that a single-mother leaving her child at home for a day makes her a bad mother, but it is neglecting her responsibility of care for her child. A nine year old child would not generally be equipped to manage in situations of eg. a fire, a break-in, a stranger arriving at the front door, an injury of accident to themselves - sorry, but it's not okay to leave a 9 year old child at home alone for a day. They may have to go with mum to work, stay with friends for a day, be booked into child-care for a short day stay, or mum may need to take a day of carer's leave or sick leave if she has any available.

What dotto said.

Obviously, you haven't had much to do with raising kids. There's any number of things that can happen for which kids of that age are not prepared, nor should they be. Leaving a 9-year old child alone all day is quite a different thing to allowing them to walk to school.

I don't believe in 'helicopter parenting', but I don't believe in neglecting children either. This scenario sounds like the latter to me.

CJ Morgan, I don't quite understand what you have said. Didn't I say something similar to you? And by the way I have had experience raising my own children and did not leave them home alone for a day EVER before they turned 14. For the same kinds of reasons, my children have never walked to school until this year. My son is 14 and he now walks from the train station to school. No experience with children Hmfff! I made the deliberate choice to never even put my children in child-care! - and breast-fed one until she was 3 and the other until he was 4. This is not to say that my methods are best, there are many ways of being a good mother and this was just my way by my own choice, of doing things. But you are quite wrong in your assumption that I have not had experience in raising children CJ Morgan!

Actually, I think CJMorgan's agreeing with you, dotto and his latter remarks were aimed at Ludwig.

I agree with you as well. My kids are very able young people, but up until the last 12 months neither their mother nor I would have left them alone for more than a short while.

It's just demanding too much of them.

Sorry dotto - I obviously didn't express myself very well. I was agreeing with you :)

The part about not having had much to do with raising kids was directed at Ludwig. I should have made that clearer.

Interesting case.
I have similar parenting ideas to dotto and consider myself to be somewhat overprotective of my children (one of whom is still young), although I have misgivings about the way it is for children these days, and wholeheartedly support Houellie's idea of allowing your children at least the freedom of walking to school if it is possible.
This woman's dilemma is something faced by many single parents who are expected to carry the entire load on their own. Many find that the minute something goes awry with school, that they are intimidated by the system to such an extent they they try to cobble together a solution by themselves.
My son, whom I homeschool, is mildly autistic. I spend a fair amount of time on another forum informally counselling parents of diagnosed/undiagnosed children on their options regarding getting assistance with school situations wherein their children are unable to cope. These parents are desperate to find a solution to alleviate the child's distress. Many are totally intimidated, not only by the school, but also by the idea of contacting their state's education department - which is usually my first piece of advice in their direction. I use the autistic example because many children at the high end of the spectrum remain undiagnosed and are prime targets for bullying and manipulation at school.

It's incredibly irresponsible for a parent to leave a nine year old girl alone for a day. Five or ten minutes ok, but the whole day = irresponsible.

Ludwig, leaving a 9 year old child alone for a WHOLE day is NOT the same as allowing the child to go to and from a nearby school alone, or to walk to a nearby friend's place alone or to walk from point A to point B in a shopping centre etc.

At 9 or 10 years of age a child can be given some tiny amount of freedom, but in NO way should they be left alone for the entire day. Ludwig do you have children? I suspect not.

It depends on the child really, and their upbringing. I was left at home during the day at the age of 9, not often but it occasionally had to be done so that my single parent could work. However, we had been raised to be pretty independent and self-sufficient and knew how to contact dad (or others) if we had any problems. I suspect that kids in single-parent families are more likely to be capable of being "older than their age" precisely because there is only so much one parent can do.

Would I let my own kids stay home alone at that age? I think probably no (they are younger at the moment, so hard to say) - they have not had the same upbringing that I had and thus are unlikely to have developed enough "street smarts" by that age.

It is always a judgement call and in order to be resilient, children need to be exposed to calculated risk. However in saying that I know I am telling the good people here how to suck eggs.

The elephant in the room is the lack of support. The parent and child did not have access to the sort of counselling and support that could have prevented this. There is no evidence that any support will be provided even now and certainly not the continuing interest and problem-solving that will prevent the student from falling through the cracks as thousands do very year, eventually being lost to society.

Lateral thinking is required in counselling and student services, because the reactive, "See the counsellor after three red cards" problem fixing doesn't work. Many students would benefit from non-judgemental 'big brother' or 'big sister' support from trained younger counsellors. Others would do well if schooling was more flexible and there are plenty of successful models to choose from.

Wouldn't it be good if the independents of the hung parliament could demand such improved counselling and support? It would be great for their future election prospects too. Ahem, no Julia these kids don't vote Labor either - too young of course - but what about the savings from health alone from fewer young people dropping out to turn to drugs, crime, violence and other 'solutions' for their sad lives?

Thanks Antiseptic, yes now I see that CJ Morgan was actually agreeing with me, not Ludwig.

The issue here is that this woman was trying to fulfill her expected duty and hold down a job, while at the same time confronting a dilemma in which she perceived a need to protect the welfare of her daughter.. She has my complete sympathy, notwithstanding the fact that I would not have left my nine year-old home alone.
The fact that she was so desperate to attempt a solution of this nature indicates to me that her daughter's plight had gone on for some time and was not addressed by school authorities.
It is all very well to set up institutions in which we are expected to deposit our children for their education and lessons in conformity, however, when these same institutions fail to provide duty of care and preside over a child's misery, we should be asking some very searching questions.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear, we cannot expose our children to any sort of risk can we? We simply cannot trust people to make parenting decisions for themselves. God help them if they ever need to go to work.

Cornflower

"Wouldn't it be good if the independents of the hung parliament could demand such improved counselling and support?"

In an ideal world.... which is why I suggested to Antiseptic that this is the perfect time to lobby our pollies. Somehow Katter doesn't strike me as all that concerned about single parents.

As for the mother who left her daughter at home, I don't know enough about this case to presume anything, however, I had to care for my 7 year old sister when I was nine for about 10 hours, after an accident meant my father had to take my mother to hospital - finances were such that an ambulance was out of the question. I never felt like I was abandoned, rather that I was being treated as very responsible. I don't think one rule applies to all situations. However, my daughter gets driven everywhere - but then I am not the custodial parent.

The world wouldn't have to be ideal, what I am suggesting for youth support is perfectly easy to do.

There needs to be direct involvement of the community in education. It is not good enough that policy is made by professionals who claim to know best what the community wants and will work. I am not talking about the farce of focus groups.

CJ asserts:

<< Obviously, you haven't had much to do with raising kids. >>

And TZ asks:

<< Ludwig do you have children? >>

Hells bells fellas, what’s having kids or not having kids got to do with the price of eggs? Does a person really have to have had kids to be interested in parenting, child welfare, the rule of law, blah blah?

Of course they don’t.

It is irrelevant to this thread, but I’m pleased to have not had any kids thus far and I have no intention of ever having any.

-

Houlley, I love Boris Johnson’s quote – “taking the sword of common sense to the great, bloated encephalopathic sacred cow of elf [sic] and safety” (in the article to which you supplied the link).

Hahahahaaa!

Well…it would be funny if the situation wasn’t so stuuupid!

I mean, OF COURSE parents should be allowed to let their kids ride to school and OF COURSE parents should be allowed to let their kids stay at home unsupervised sometimes!

Laws against such things are just legal madness!!

<< I don't think that a single-mother leaving her child at home for a day makes her a bad mother, but it is neglecting her responsibility of care for her child. >>

Dotto, this statement would appear to be a tad contradictory, as neglect for one’s motherly responsibilities would make her a bad mother, at least in that instance.

.
<< Leaving a 9-year old child alone all day is quite a different thing to allowing them to walk to school. >>

I can’t see that CJ. Why is it so different? There are dangers in both. I’d be inclined to think that there are less dangers in the home, especially if a parent lays down strict ground rules to a child that is being left at home for the day, on the odd occasion, and stays in regular phone contact, etc.

.
<< Ludwig, leaving a 9 year old child alone for a WHOLE day is NOT the same as allowing the child to go to and from a nearby school alone, or to walk to a nearby friend's place alone or to walk from point A to point B in a shopping centre etc >>

TZ, I respect your strongly held view, but I don’t see leaving a child at home as being any significantly more hazardous than the other things that you mentioned.

continued

<< The issue here is that this woman was trying to fulfil her expected duty and hold down a job, while at the same time confronting a dilemma in which she perceived a need to protect the welfare of her daughter.. She has my complete sympathy, notwithstanding the fact that I would not have left my nine year-old home alone.… >>

Yes Poirot, this woman was trying to manage a difficult situation and be a responsible parent in doing so. In the circumstances, I respect her decision to let her child stay home alone for the day, and I don’t think that the law should have a part to play here.

It is interesting to note that Queensland alone in this country has deemed it necessary to introduce this sort of law. So parental responsibility prevails elsewhere…. and by all accounts that seems to work just fine.

.
<< …we cannot expose our children to any sort of risk can we? We simply cannot trust people to make parenting decisions for themselves. >>

Yes Bugsy, here we have a classic case of lawful overprotectiveness and therefore overintrusivenss.

C’mon Qld, dump this silly law come in line with the rest of the country!

Clearly, it demonstrates gross negligence, excuses notwithstanding. Punish it sternly lest the inch become a mile.

Leaving any child at any age ( under 15 or to law imho) is gross negligence. I agree with some of the posts, thanks to the link, in which the neighbour that is so concerned, and lets not forget society and the old ways of how the past neighbour-hoods used to be a collective situation, where we all helped each other and share with trust as it used to be, but in this day and age it seems like everyone just helps themselves and to hell with giving a hand to our fellow human beings. ( paranoid old world, isn't it? )- the more humans you have, the more problems you get.

I feel that this mother had other alternatives to access other than the one that she has chosen. The police were right to engage in this matter and I can only imagine the neighbour hood that she lives in must have other issues concerning the neighbours, hence why she could not seek that alternative.

I would of thought an educated woman would of had more sence.

TTM