Leaving tween/teen home over summer

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s about “ surviving” the summer. We know that barring most emergencies tweens/teens can “ survive” being left alone all day every day.
It’s about wanting your kids to do things, and be active, and have experiences and not be on screens all day.
My almost 13yo has a few chores, and had to read every day, play with the dog. But that won’t take more than 2 hours a day at most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it’s about “ surviving” the summer. We know that barring most emergencies tweens/teens can “ survive” being left alone all day every day.
It’s about wanting your kids to do things, and be active, and have experiences and not be on screens all day.
My almost 13yo has a few chores, and had to read every day, play with the dog. But that won’t take more than 2 hours a day at most.

I actually agree with you, but this is on the parents. Kids have an over reliance on screens to entertain themselves. It's hard, but the parents need to figure out the screen time thing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You buy camps like the rest of us. Shame on you

Shame on the OP for not wanting to spend thousands when it's not necessary?

When you want to lean in to your career and have kids, yeah. Either you take care of your kids yourself or you pay someone else to do it. This isn’t new. If you want a job during school hours and to be home when your kids are home, find something temporary and flexible, like Starbucks, setting crafts on Etsy, etc.

I know things are different today, but I had two working parents and had summers like this. A relative or a friends SAHP or older teen sibling looked after us. Eventually we stayed by ourselves. You don't have to do this or maybe you can't, but there are options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it’s about “ surviving” the summer. We know that barring most emergencies tweens/teens can “ survive” being left alone all day every day.
It’s about wanting your kids to do things, and be active, and have experiences and not be on screens all day.
My almost 13yo has a few chores, and had to read every day, play with the dog. But that won’t take more than 2 hours a day at most.

If you can afford it there are a lot of sleepaway programs for kids this age.

[Anonymous]

I'd be the mean mom who would just turn off the wifi, not give devices. Kids need to to just be without being connected all the time.

[Anonymous]

People are saying the question depends on the child’s age but I think your location matters more. My kids don’t have any friends within bike distance, and our pool is our backyard pool. The closest community pool is a good 5 miles away. This is when I miss being somewhere walkable - they would be fine (13 and 11) going to the pool, biking to a friend’s house, etc., going to a but we have no way to get them there. We end up leaving them a week or so every summer but it’s kind of wasted time

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are saying the question depends on the child’s age but I think your location matters more. My kids don’t have any friends within bike distance, and our pool is our backyard pool. The closest community pool is a good 5 miles away. This is when I miss being somewhere walkable - they would be fine (13 and 11) going to the pool, biking to a friend’s house, etc., going to a but we have no way to get them there. We end up leaving them a week or so every summer but it’s kind of wasted time

This is sadly true, I'm very surprised that more kids don't live near friends, there aren't many neighborhood friends situations anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are saying the question depends on the child’s age but I think your location matters more. My kids don’t have any friends within bike distance, and our pool is our backyard pool. The closest community pool is a good 5 miles away. This is when I miss being somewhere walkable - they would be fine (13 and 11) going to the pool, biking to a friend’s house, etc., going to a but we have no way to get them there. We end up leaving them a week or so every summer but it’s kind of wasted time

+1

While we are not isolated, we don’t live somewhere bikeable (small neighborhood off of a busy road with no sidewalks). Fine for elementary kids who you can realistically tell to go play with whoever is available (although not really on a summer weekday); harder for older kids who develop friendships from school based on interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are saying the question depends on the child’s age but I think your location matters more. My kids don’t have any friends within bike distance, and our pool is our backyard pool. The closest community pool is a good 5 miles away. This is when I miss being somewhere walkable - they would be fine (13 and 11) going to the pool, biking to a friend’s house, etc., going to a but we have no way to get them there. We end up leaving them a week or so every summer but it’s kind of wasted time

+1

While we are not isolated, we don’t live somewhere bikeable (small neighborhood off of a busy road with no sidewalks). Fine for elementary kids who you can realistically tell to go play with whoever is available (although not really on a summer weekday); harder for older kids who develop friendships from school based on interests.

Not necessarily harder for older kids,maybe for high school, but alot of kids do stay friends with their neighborhood friends.

[Anonymous]

Of course a kid needs a phone if they are alone all day. Come on.

But OP, if you are talking about one kid without a way to go anywhere, this sounds awful. Who (of any age) wants to be trapped home alone for 10+ hours a day for weeks? If they can see friends, ride a bike somewhere safe, or have a teen sibling, okay. But alone sounds awful.

[Anonymous]

If it is only a few weeks, do you have relatives/friends whom your kid is familiar with? My mom used to send us to her sister or brother in law to see our cousins for a week each summer. Both families had a parent who had the summer off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course a kid needs a phone if they are alone all day. Come on.

But OP, if you are talking about one kid without a way to go anywhere, this sounds awful. Who (of any age) wants to be trapped home alone for 10+ hours a day for weeks? If they can see friends, ride a bike somewhere safe, or have a teen sibling, okay. But alone sounds awful.

Landlines are fine for this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course a kid needs a phone if they are alone all day. Come on.

But OP, if you are talking about one kid without a way to go anywhere, this sounds awful. Who (of any age) wants to be trapped home alone for 10+ hours a day for weeks? If they can see friends, ride a bike somewhere safe, or have a teen sibling, okay. But alone sounds awful.

Landlines are fine for this.

Who still has a landline? We don’t.

[Anonymous]

Are there no gen x people on this forum? Of course leave them home and go to work. Welcome to latchkey kid 2.0.


Also this is a “problem” thousands of working class people across the country have had forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are there no gen x people on this forum? Of course leave them home and go to work. Welcome to latchkey kid 2.0.


Also this is a “problem” thousands of working class people across the country have had forever.

+1older millennial, but i agree. Kids deserve some freedom.