I have a 9 year old who I leave home for short spurts of time. For back to school night, I just hired a babysitter.

Anonymous wrote:The library is too open to the public for me to be comfortable with this.

+1. It is not a child care facility. They are not setup to supervise.

Single mom here and thank goodness our school did it via zoom (and provided recordings and office hours if unable to attend entire presentation) with different time frames for different grades.

Considering that public school is really just daycare, it’s a bit rich for the school to tell you that you can’t bring the kids along to the teacher interviews.

I have a 9 year old and told him he was staying in the library on his own for 1.5 hours. I had him use the restroom beforehand, he had work to do, and I gave him clear instructions (he had a study room in the children's section) on how to manage. I just never actually left the library. I wanted to see how he would respond to the situation and circumstances.

All of that to say, he did a great job. Did exactly as he was supposed to, but despite how well he did (and I expected him to), I would not be comfortable doing that. It's less about anyone calling police. It may not be likely, but what if there was an evacuation of the library or some other emergency? My 9 year old does not have a phone and he wouldn't know what to do in that kind of emergency.

If I really wanted to go to the back to school night, I would just bring him no matter what the school said about children being allowed.

Libraries frequently have a lot of shady people in them, yes, even “nice, suburban” libraries. Also it’s not a librarians job to supervise your kid. I’d either skip BTS night or bring your kid w you.

Can they read in the school library?

With all the homeless that I see in our libraries, no effing way.

No way. Just bring the kid with you. There are always a few people who do this.

Just don’t go and ask the teachers to share any slides or papers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wouldn’t you just leave them at your home

It’s 30 minutes each way. Can I leave a 9 year old home alone for 2+ hours?

.

No

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why wouldn’t you just leave them at your home

It’s 30 minutes each way. Can I leave a 9 year old home alone for 2+ hours?

That was about the age I started to leave my kids home alone. I would let my neighbor across the street know, and my kids knew they could go to her if they had any issues. They were quiet kids, and if it was going to be longer than 30 minutes or so, I’d set them up with a movie before I left the house.

This is the best approach—have a trusted neighbor they can go to. By the way, If I am going to be home anyway, I have no problem being an emergency go-to person for a kid in the neighborhood.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My public library says no children allowed can be without a supervising adult under the age of 15 which I think is crazy. A 9th grader can’t go to the library? I have neighbors who have their 4th graders bike through traffic to the 7 11 store alone which is way more full of weirdos (plus the danger of traffic) than our library.

That is crazy. 14 year olds are allowed to be hired as camp counselors and swim instructors where I live. If they can be entrusted to watch a group of 3 year olds in the pool, they can sit in a library by themselves.

The library is probably worried that a group of 14 year olds hanging out together would get loud.

When I was kid, there was a whole group of kids who went to the library as a form of free after school care. Some kids went to the library and other kids went to Jelleff. And some went to the official after school care. Most of the library crowd was first gen. Jelleff was a mix.

Anyway, there are sketchy people at libraries. I wouldn't do it. She'd be safer at home alone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s fine to bring them-especially an older kid like this. Our back to school night was yesterday. Several parents had their kid with them, but not out of necessity-both parents were in attendance so one of them could have stayed home with the kid. It’s because the people who bring their kids to our back to school night just feel like the information doesn’t apply to them about bringing children. It’s those parents I judge-not the ones who clearly didn’t have a choice.

How do you know that the reason both parents were in attendance wasn't because they have more than one kid and needed to go to multiple classrooms? Our school has two sessions within the night, which is nice, but I have a few friends with three kids in ES -- so both parents need to be there or they miss one kid's classroom.

And what does a single parent do in that situation with multiple classes? They figure it out. One family brought their 2 younger elementary kids with them to BTS last night and they were running all around and crinkling water bottles during the presentation. It was rude and obnoxious. So yes in that situation I judge that both parents came instead of keeping the kids home with one parent.