Quote Originally Posted by martymonty View Post
After raising three of our own, I think, and this is just my opinion, that children that are 13 should not require care, I agree don't leave them alone for hours, but at 13 our own girls were babysitting for neighbours and having no problems at all. They took a first aid babysitting course and were very good at taking care of younger children for a few hours. Geesh, my husband got his first job in a restaurant at 12, lol....I think children are babied far to much these days and this is why there are issues with leaving them alone...this is going to create a huge back log of none spaces for children ages 12 & 13.....
I think different kids need different kinds of care. My son is 12 and babysits. My daughter is 14 and far more mature. She was babysitting up to 8 hour days at age 12 during the summer of that year. My son did the babysitting course at age 10 and at 9 the Home alone, Stranger safety course. Granted he had an older sister at home with him at that age and we didn't leave them for very long, but I think you'll find that a huge portion of tweens and teens with or without this course are not in any kind of childcare setting....most likely if anything, an after school club.

Think about the summers and how full time parents go on. Regardless of being home alone at age 13, does the average parent really want to leave their child for 40 hours a week at home alone? Likely not. I however don't think this age group will be an issue at all to home daycare providers and I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I don't think it will impact the industry at all. Day camps for this age group are generally cheaper than full time care. My kids are doing a 1 week day camp with early drop off and late pick up and it is costing $315 for the pair of them. That is $135 less than what I charge for full time care without any extended care. Parents don't use home daycare for this age group now at large anyway, so the bill isn't going to change that. I actually think the majority of tweens and teens don't require care and actually already are staying home alone.