4 yr old is probably the worst age to leave a child in a car - old enough to figure out how to open doors, start a car, etc.
D2 was between job and law school for few weeks, so a former colleague asked her to pick up their 3 yr old at school and stayed with her until parents were home, at least that’s what I originally thought. As it turned out, they had 2 kids, a 3 yr old and and a 1 yr old. The parents wanted to give the children their own individual attention that they took turns in picking up the 1 yr old and had D2 focus on the 3 yr old. Those 2 kids had their own adult to be with them.
D2 said to me, “I am not a parent, but I remember you always made us take turns in doing what we wanted. We always had to wait for our turns. I don’t know how those two kids are going to learn to wait if they never shared.” My kids were 5 years apart, but they watched TV together (they had to take turns to pick out a show) and we also played games together. When we traveled we took turns in doing what we wanted, but we did it together.
I was in France for a scientific conference, and had brought my 15-year-old daughter along on the trip because we planned to travel briefly in Europe after the conference was over. The French participants thought I should just let her explore the city (Lyon) on her own. She did not speak French. I could not see doing this (and didn’t), though I am sure that French 15-year-olds would do something similar all the time.
We don’t leave our dog in the car alone for brief trips for coffee, sandwiches, or groceries, even when it is 40 or 50 Fahrenheit out, and the windows are cracked open (and the dog is a perfect gentleman). Too much danger of over-reaction by a stranger. I certainly get that it can heat up in a car if the outside temperature is even in the mid-70’s, and wouldn’t leave him in the car when it’s too cold, but I think it should be okay at 40 or 50–we just don’t do it.
Wow. I would not have left a 4-year-old in a car unless I was within eyesight (like going to an ATM with the car parked on a curb or in the adjacent parking lot row). But I sure as heck leave my dog in the car on a cool day with the window open, and no one has ever given me grief about it.
My kids were free to play outside without direct supervision from 5 or 6 on. They used public transportation themselves starting around age 7 or 8, although much more frequently starting around age 12. In ninth grade, the mother of one of my son’s close friends actually offered to pay my son to teach her son how to use public transportation. The boy was 14 and still completely dependent on his mother to go anywhere, and very anxious about going anywhere on his own. The mother – who had welcomed and encouraged that dependence, of course – realized that was not a good situation for either of them.
I was allowed to wander Paris on my own at night at 17 with my 15 year old sister. I now wonder what my parents were thinking.
They were correctly thinking that you were much safer from violent crime in Paris than in your hometown or the local public school.