Just curious about how old your child or children were before you left them alone at home without adult supervision for a time longer than it takes to walk the garbage to the curb?
Mine are 9 and 6 and I can’t imagine leaving them for any length of time. They are both great kids and very responsible. Particularly the oldest. I’m sure they’d be fine on their own for a couple of hours but I just don’t see myself being able to leave them on their own for more than a few minutes. Child services guidelines say that a 9 year old can be left alone for an hour or two. I just don’t see that as an option. But then I had the worst time in leaving them with a sitter for the first time many years ago.
Not a parent, but my parents left me home alone for short spells starting at age six. At eight I “babysat” my infant sister for a half hour or so while my mom ran to the market (the baby was always asleep when she left). I think nine is more than old enough to be left home alone for a few hours. As long as the kid is careful enough to not burn the house down he or she should be fine. Of course it also depends on where you live, I might not leave a kid home alone in a city apartment.
I remember the first big thing was that I left them alone (10 and 4) to return a movie at the video store. It was something like a 15 minute walk or two minute drive (each way.) I drove. I was gone about 6 minutes. They were fine.
But I never had too big of a fuss leaving them with a sitter.
WhyKid was about 9 or 10 when I started leaving him home for a short errand. He was given a short list of rules (don’t answer the phone, don’t answer the door, don’t use the stove or microwave) and was fine. He’s now nearly 13 and babysits his infant sister for an hour or two if she’s awake, and a fairly indefinite time if she’s sleeping.
It’s really a decision made on an individual basis, though. So much depends on your kid. And I’m less inclined to leave closely aged siblings alone together - if they get into it, their IQs drop precipitously.
I don’t have kids, but my parents started leaving me alone for short spells probably around age seven or so. (The incident with the broken washing machine was totally not my fault, and didn’t count against me.) I believe I was ten the first time they went out for an evening and left me completely alone. My brother was supposed to be “watching” me, but the whole family knew that meant he could go run around the neighborhood with his friends and check in on me every couple hours.
As usual, I agree with WhyNot, it’s an individual-basis kind of question. I have a friend who left her six-year-old son at home for an afternoon because he was a little sick and she didn’t have any time left off work. She worked two blocks away, and the kid is both smart and responsible enough to know that if he screwed up, he’d have babysitters until he reached majority. He stayed on the couch and watched TV with the outside door locked and instructions to answer nothing. He’s a good boy, he did just fine. Another friend of mine has a 13-year-old son who is under no circumstances left unsupervised for so much as twenty minutes. It all comes down to trusting the kid and trusting his/her judgement. I was the kind of kid that could be handed a Nancy Drew book and trusted not to move until it was finished. It was easy to leave me alone.
Mine are 10, 12 & 14. I could probably leave them alone all day as long as the video games are working, hell they probably wouldn’t notice I’m gone. In reality I can trust my boys to take care of themselves alone. So far the longest period has been about 3 hours during a recent Xmas shopping trip.
My son was 12. That’s THE LAW in Illinois (or at least it was back in the 80s). A lot of people are unobservant of that law due to financial constraints. Also, it depends on the kid. My niece is a regular “goody-two-shoes” and wouldn’t dream of getting into trouble. My son, on the other hand, was the oldest in a three-kid household, and I wasn’t going to leave him alone with my roommate’s younger kids so he could plot with them to fly off the roof or something, so I kept him in after-school care when he was 10 or 11 years old. Contrary to popular belief, when it comes to “after-school idleness”, there is weakness in numbers.
I was babysitting other people’s children when I was 12. I’d personally find it strange to see a child that age that didn’t spend large blocks of time unattended. Unless said child already had a track record, that is.
IANAP, but there was a story on the radio this morning about a couple who left their two young boys (ages 9 and 5) alone over New Year’s weekend while they went to Vegas. The link doesn’t mention this, but the radio announcer said that they managed to arrange for a dogsitter. A woman called in to say that she heard the 5-year-old is autistic (the link refers to “a medical condition”).
Like I said, I’m no parent, but I think that 9 is too young to be left alone for more than an hour or two – and definitely too young to be left in charge of a younger sibling for that long.
Another vote for, “it depends on the kids.” My niece is a very mature 10—more like 10 going on 30. She can be trusted to stay home alone for several hours with no problems. She can also baby-sit her 3-year-old sister for a few hours if needed. My 10-year-old nephew, on the other hand, I don’t think I’d trust alone for more than an hour or two. He’s a tad bit reckless.
I’m pretty sure I was about 10 when my parents started leaving me home for extended periods of time, such as an evening out for the two of them. I remember it being so fun at that age. I’d usually get to pick out an evening’s worth of treats at the store and there was nothing better than having the TV to myself. By 12, I was baby-sitting for money for the neighbors’ kids.
My roommate used to leave her 8 year old in charge of the 5 year old. No fucking way. It came back to bite her in the ass when the police were called because the older one thought someone was breaking in and took all the butcher knives and ran down the street screaming bloody murder. The cops gave her a pass that time, but told her she’d be arrested if it ever happened again.
The oldest is nine, and she can be left alone for a little while – 15 minutes, a half an hour, maybe. That’s by herself, or maybe with her eight-year-old sister – not with the baby. Of course, we could actually leave them home alone all weekend and nothing would happen, but that’s one of those things that’s just not done.
By the way, we shouldn’t compare what people are doing now with we experienced growing up. When I was a kid in the '60s and '70s, we’d play outside by ourselves from about four years old on. That was normal then, but it’s probably a crime today.
I think if I were ten years old today, I could still be trusted as much, but laws and general guidelines usually cater to the lowest intellectual denominator (“See Lisa? Because of Daddy, they put a warning on here!”). On the other hand, I grew up in a world where my mother told me to leave the house at 9 a.m. during summer vacation and not come back until dinner unless I was injured.
My youngest is now 7 and 1/2. Husband is advocating that kidlet be left for short periods, such as running to the video store or going to pick up another child.
Nuh-uh.
I am not worried that the house will be trashed or anything like that. I worry about a fire starting and kidlet not knowing what to do–that sort of thing. I think age 9 is the way to go for us.
IMO, if a kid cannot be left unattended by age 13 for a short period of time, something is wrong. Either that kid needs more attention or discipline/socialization or something medically is wrong with the kid.
Is s/he ever to be left alone? What happens when they go away to college later or move out and live alone?
I should probably mention that the kid I was talking about earlier is a) now 14, once I think about what year it is, and b) both autistic and schizophrenic. He’s a sweetheart when he’s lucid, but not exactly trustworthy.
I’m the youngest but when my brother was around 11 (me 8) he was in charge for a couple hours after school till my mom got home. At 13 he was left in charge of me for the evening as needed.
At 12 I was babysitting other children in the afternoons and evenings.
By the time I was 15 (brother gone to college) my parents were leaving me alone for a couple days on business trips with $50 and a note that said “be good, see ya wednesday.” (I was very rule & law abiding back then so it all worked out, I went to school, hung out with friends, came home, etc, no parties or whatnot) Bear in mind this was before cell phones so other than their hotel I didn’t have a way to reach them.
I became a latch-key kid at the age of 9 (this would have been '84) when I started taking the bus home from school. Mom was a single parent, so…
I was fine. I grew up an only child and didn’t have any issues between doing my homework, reading, or taking a nap. The only bad thing that ever happened to me was that I got jumped once by some neighborhood kids while walking home from the bus stop.
Currently, my sister-in-law leaves her 10 year-old son at home by himself. He’s a smart kid, knows what he needs to know for safety, and, like me, is plenty fine entertaining himself. And we aren’t talking about being home alone overnight or anything. A few hours here and there.
That makes all the difference.
IMO, it also depends on the relationship the siblings have with one another. My kids get along fine–no real infighting etc, so they were ok to leave alone (I have two older kids). My youngest is more like an only, and as such, I think he needs to be older to be left for short periods.
