On Sunday we decided to try an experiment. Could we leave the girl home alone in the house for a few minutes while we popped to the shop?
She's 6½ now, so being unsupervised for a short period is perfectly reasonable. Well, for a 20th century child. For a 21st century child... Well, that remains to be seen.
By the time I was her age, I'd been wandering the neighbourhood unsupervised for some time. Though that was the suburbs, so it's not entirely a fair comparison. I'd also been left with my brother in a car waiting for my mum to do quick shopping. And how different is that from going with L to the shops that are 200 meters from the house to pick up a few items for dinner?
We were a bit hesitant to try this out, Last year, L left R alone in the house while she gave a package to one of our neighbours. She'd agreed with R in advance that she was just going to be gone for 5 minutes. But, when she got back home, R was panicking, putting on her shoes and readying herself to go outside looking for L. She wouldn't talk about it for ages, but eventually she'd told me that she didn't realise L had left, so when she found out she was alone in the house, she wasn't ready for it. Hence the panic.
At least we knew what we needed to avoid this time. R was hesitant when we first brought it up, but then I pointed out all she'd need to do is Skype us from her iPad if she needed us. That turns out was the 21st century solution to the 21st century problem of being alone. She was now perfectly fine staying at home since we'd be at her electronic beck and call. I just needed to test that she was signed in and could make a call. After much cajoling, she finally made a test call to my phone and all was ready. Just some final goodbyes and we'd be on our way.
Ok. We're going to head out now. Skype is working. Just call or send us a message if you need anything.
Playing on iPad Ok. Bye.
And if you get hungry, there's rice cakes on the counter.
If I get hungry, I'll just heat up some pasta.
Wait... No... No. You're not to use the oven or microwave by yourself, and definitely not when you've alone in the house.
Of course I won't turn on the oven by myself.
Remembering when she burnt a rice cake in the microwave And the microwave. Don't use the microwave. You must not use the microwave.
but I know how to use the microwave.
Immaterial. You're missing the point. Just don't use the microwave when we're not in the room with you...
Actually – Just. Don't. Use. The. Microwave.
You had to mention food, didn't you?
And so on.
We did get out of the house and make a quick trip to the shop. While in the check out queue, I decided to check up on her and sent her a message. No response, of course. Since Skype is now terrible at actually sending notifications, I figured it was nothing. But since my job is to worry, I just kept thinking of the worst possible situations. I send message after message, and kept thinking of more and more horrible mishaps. By the time we were on our way back, I was practically expecting smoke coming up from over the hill.
In the end, no, the house wasn't on fire. She just decided that she'd Skype her grandparents and was ignoring any messages that were showing up.
The experiment was a success. We did find a way to comfortably leave her unsupervised for short periods of time and managed to get dinner. I also learned that What could possibly happen?
is just an expression, not an invitation to brainstorm.
