This morning the girls and I went out to the library, and, as I often do I asked them if they wanted to come with me to do a bit of shopping or stay in the library. We have done this frequently before, and indeed the girls occasionally go on their own to the library, and nobody has ever said anything before. I have never asked permission or said anything to the librarians; it's never occurred to me to do so. I am not expecting them to keep an eye on the girls, since I wouldn't be leaving them to stay on their own if I didn't think they were ready for that.
Today, however, one of the librarians, an older man we've not seen very often, overheard me talking to K about her staying there and came over and said that he didn't think that was allowed and that he would check. He checked with one of the women at the desk, who didn't know either, but who knew us and agreed that she could stay today, although they both seemed concerned that the library was closing 40 minutes later and I wouldn't be back before it closed, even though the shops are only a 2 minute walk away. They said that they would check with the manager who was coming in later that day. The thing that really surprised me though, was that they both thought that the lower age limit for leaving a child alone at the library was 14!!
Clearly the age at which children are ready to go out on their own or be left alone, whether at home or somewhere like a library will vary. I asked for people's thoughts on this on Facebook, among both HE and school families and there was, understandably, quite a range of responses to the question about what age they would leave a child for a short time at the library alone. The vast majority said somewhere between 7 and 11, which seems reasonable to me. I also asked what lower age limit for being left alone they thought a library would be likely to have. In Oxfordshire libraries they say 8 years old is the youngest a child can be left alone, and a few others agreed, while quite a few more said that they thought secondary age would be reasonable. I really hope that the librarians today were mistaken in their thought that children have to be at least 14 years old to be left on their own in the library, although I'm not planning on changing what we do to be honest. Whether my girls will still be comfortable staying on their own at the library now, if their age limit is 14, though remains to be seen, as sometimes they can be real sticklers for rules.
I am feeling more and more strongly that children need some freedom at a relatively young age, and it seems to be a lot harder to allow them that freedom and for them to get it than when I was a child. I grew up in a rural area, on the edge of a small town and had a lot of freedom to disappear off with one or both of my brothers for, not all day as some people my age and older talk about, but certainly a couple of hours at a time, at the age my girls are now, 8 & 10. My girls are allowed to the shops, the library or the park on their own or as a pair, my main safety concern is traffic and those places are accessible with just a few very quiet roads to cross or a zebra crossing. I can't help but think that children who have little or no freedom until they are teenagers, when there surely inevitably must come a point that they fairly suddenly have an awful lot of it, will find it much more difficult to handle that freedom, than those who have gradually have got used to being responsible for themselves at a younger age. Society seems to have become so risk averse regarding children, that for those of us trying to give our children what they want and need (expressly and vocally so in the case of my younger daughter just under a year ago), it can be really quite tricky, whether due to restrictions imposed by places they may wish to go, by our concerns about what others may think or due to increased concerns about the dangers younger children face when out and about alone, whether those concerns are real or perceived. I for one, however, think that the welfare of my children is about much more than protecting them from risks, I think it is about helping them learn how to deal with these risks on their own and allowing them the opportunity to do so.
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