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How old would your kid have to be to be left home alone (1 Viewer)

Righetti

Footballguy
I have a 7 1/2 year old, would leaving her home for 10 minutes be good?  An hour?  An afternoon?

 
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I have a 7 1/2 year old, would leaving her home for 10 minutes be good?  An hour?  An afternoon?
My kids about to turn 9 and we are starting to consider leaving her alone for small periods of time (a half hour).

The problem for us is she doesn't have a cell phone yet and we have no house phone so that's the real bridge here.  She gets a cell phone by the end of the year and I could see 1-2-3 hours.

 
7 1/2 and 9?  Are you guys crazy!  Even with a cell phone.  WAAAAY to young.  This isn't the 70's anymore.

What if something happened to you?  Your kid would probably be home a lot longer than 15 minutes.  And you'll probably get your kid taken away from you anyways, so you could go out for as long as you want then.

I would say at least 12 at the very least.

 
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7 1/2 and 9?  Are you guys crazy!  Even with a cell phone.  WAAAAY to young.  This isn't the 70's anymore.

What if something happened to you?  Your kid would probably be home a lot longer than 15 minutes.  And you'll probably get your kid taken away from you, so you could for out as long as you want then.
:lmao: talk about jumping off the deep end. 

 
I have a 7 1/2 year old, would leaving her home for 10 minutes be good?  An hour?  An afternoon?
i left my 7 year old alone probably for an hour.   she's perfectly fine with.  she's typically just laying in bed watching tv on her kindle.   funny thing is that my 10 year old  is very reluctant to be left alone.   it took a lot of convincing.   

 
7 is way too young. 10 or so I'd feel comfortable leaving them alone while I take a quick trip to the store. My kids are 12 and 10 and an hour is about the longest I leave them alone. And even then, I set the home alarm and tell them not to open the door. 

 
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We let the 11 year old stay home by himself occasionally and not for long - no chance I'm leaving my 9 year old by herself but that's because she would either burn the house down or ride her bike to her friends house without telling us.

 
I was among the original latch key kids. I was getting myself to the bus stop in the morning and being home alone all day after school from the time I was about 7. No one thought anything about it. Of course we also used to stay in the car while parents and or grandparents went shopping. I also disappeared all day every weekend day and didn't come home until dark. No cell phone, no beeper, no leash at all. Personally I think kids today are losing out.

 
I think there laws about it. At least, my wife had convinced me there are.

Also think it varies per kid. Our 9yo.. pretty sure we'll wait until 19 or 40. 5yo daughter, we send to the store for smokes. The store's in the next borough over.

 
10 and 8.. we will leave them together with a phone for an hour ish.

We wouldn't leave either alone.

 
12 seemed to be the right age for our 5 kids.  Although once we accidentally left a then 10 year old at home alone - locked out of the house once.  I was heading up to his brother's baseball game thinking he was going with his older sister to a movie - she thought he was going with me to the baseball game (my wife was at work).  I get home two hours later and find him on the front porch shivering (it was early May). Poor kid was playing in the backyard when everyone left.  He tried to get in the house and found it locked and instead of going to a neighbor's he sat on the front porch waiting for someone to get home.  

 
Not according to this:

"Only three States currently have laws regarding a minimum age for leaving a child home alone. Illinois law requires children to be 14 years old before being left alone; in Maryland, the minimum age is 8, while in Oregon, children must be 10 before being left home alone."

https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/homealone.pdf
WTF Google?  I googled this question and the first link had a list of states that said 12.  I did the search again and it doesn't show up.  

 
Probably depends on the kid.  I'd say around 11 or 12. 

I can't imaging leaving a 7 year old alone.  

 
My daughter was 9 when I would leave her home alone for about 20 minutes on school days while I walked my son to school (my daughter went to a different school). We have a landline in the house and she knows the number to my cell, which I always have with me.

On another note, we watched the movie "ET" with our kids not too long ago. There's a scene in the movie where Elliott's mom, who's single, leaves a 5-year-old Gertie at home when the school calls the mom to come down to get Elliott, who got in trouble. It's funny when you watch that movie as a kid and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that scene, but as an adult parent, I'm yelling at the TV, "YOU CAN'T LEAVE HER ALONE! SHE'S 5!"

I would argue that with the amount of communications technology now, it would be way safer for me to leave my kids alone at a much younger age than my parents did when I was little. And yet, I don't, even though my kids know all our neighbors, most of whom have my cell number and could reach me at any time. 

 
I don't have any kids that I know of, but if I did I would imagine he would be like Stewie Griffin - more intelligent than anyone on the planet and with a head shaped like a football.  I think it would be ok to leave him alone at 2 years old. 1 year old if I had a dog to hang out with him.

 
I was among the original latch key kids. I was getting myself to the bus stop in the morning and being home alone all day after school from the time I was about 7. No one thought anything about it. Of course we also used to stay in the car while parents and or grandparents went shopping. I also disappeared all day every weekend day and didn't come home until dark. No cell phone, no beeper, no leash at all. Personally I think kids today are losing out.
:goodposting:

How old are kids in first grade?  7?  I walked the mile home from school and was unsupervised 'til 5:30 or 6. In 2nd grade I started making Kraft mac n cheese all the time after school...imagine the sh#tstorm a parent would take now letting their 8 year old cook in a house alone. :lmao:

But then again I was the youngest of 7 kids so I think as long as I was breathing, my parents considered that a win.

 
I have 2 daughters and we left them alone for the 1st time when the oldest was 12. When we got home, after a few hours, we did an inspection and everything looked great. An hour or so later, I was I making something to eat, and when I put a pot on the stove a small cloud of ashes flew up. It seems my oldest was playing with the stove, light a paper towel on fire, lost control, and threw it into the sink. She was shocked that she missed some ashes during the cleanup.

We didn't leave her alone again for about 6 months.

 
My kids about to turn 9 and we are starting to consider leaving her alone for small periods of time (a half hour).

The problem for us is she doesn't have a cell phone yet and we have no house phone so that's the real bridge here.  She gets a cell phone by the end of the year and I could see 1-2-3 hours.
Just give her one of your old ones and put on Google Hangouts, snapchst, Skype, or one of the other free calling services.

 
12 is the magic number for me - will give my daughter a cell phone (she's been asking for four years), and we will allow her to be home alone.

won't be long now before the boys start showing up   :unsure:

:cry:

:violin:

 
12 for us.  Our 14yo will watch his brothers most often but we'll leave the 12yo when his older brother is out or has to be with us. 

14yo has a phone.

12yo has email. 

 
12 and 10 year old. Been leaving them for at most 1 hour to run some errands starting about 6 months ago. Lots of stipulations such as them having a phone to call in case of emergency and no going anywhere with friends. I have allowed for some of their friends to come over, though. My youngest was allowed to be left alone just recently for no more than 1/2 hour. He was playing Xbox and he did fine. I sduppose it matters how trustworthy they are. I also make it abundantly clear that this is a test run and should they do something they are not supposed to, like eating a bunch of candy, the experiment will be over.

 
There is a single mom down the street with a sketchy past. Has twins that are 9. All summer long 9 to 5 they are on their own. 

 
I have 2 daughters and we left them alone for the 1st time when the oldest was 12. When we got home, after a few hours, we did an inspection and everything looked great. An hour or so later, I was I making something to eat, and when I put a pot on the stove a small cloud of ashes flew up. It seems my oldest was playing with the stove, light a paper towel on fire, lost control, and threw it into the sink. She was shocked that she missed some ashes during the cleanup.

We didn't leave her alone again for about 6 months.
 Wow that's scary. Thanks for sharing

 
I was among the original latch key kids. I was getting myself to the bus stop in the morning and being home alone all day after school from the time I was about 7. No one thought anything about it. Of course we also used to stay in the car while parents and or grandparents went shopping. I also disappeared all day every weekend day and didn't come home until dark. No cell phone, no beeper, no leash at all. Personally I think kids today are losing out.
Excellent post.  

 
That's nuts
Yup. Dad isn't known and assumed dead. She moved into a house for rent that promptly burned to the ground.

Local builder is letting her rent cheap a house he has for sale for lot value. 

There is a public pool about 2 clicks away that they walk to in the morning and stay all day. They dont get fed much so the area takes turns feeding them.l but the mom gets really mad if she finds out the kids have been given charity so it has to be low profile. (I.e. we "sell" them their bikes and backpacks) 

 
For us we are very lucky to be in an area where everyone knows what kids go with what parents and all that.  It's something out of a movie.  Our kids go out the back door and we might not see them for 2+hours or even have an idea of where they might be and then they just appear again.  Kids show up and stay awhile, nobody calls frantically looking for them, lunch comes around we just feed them nbd.  Only neighborhood rule is need a parent outside if there is swimming involved somewhere, otherwise whatever goes. 

So for us jetting off for an hour here or there is nothing.  We have keypad entry locks that the kids can let themselves in at will.  

Kids are 8 and 10.  

 
Yup. Dad isn't known and assumed dead. She moved into a house for rent that promptly burned to the ground.

Local builder is letting her rent cheap a house he has for sale for lot value. 

There is a public pool about 2 clicks away that they walk to in the morning and stay all day. They dont get fed much so the area takes turns feeding them.l but the mom gets really mad if she finds out the kids have been given charity so it has to be low profile. (I.e. we "sell" them their bikes and backpacks) 
Very loving of you guys. Sometimes humans aren't the suck.

 
I have 2 daughters and we left them alone for the 1st time when the oldest was 12. When we got home, after a few hours, we did an inspection and everything looked great. An hour or so later, I was I making something to eat, and when I put a pot on the stove a small cloud of ashes flew up. It seems my oldest was playing with the stove, light a paper towel on fire, lost control, and threw it into the sink. She was shocked that she missed some ashes during the cleanup.

We didn't leave her alone again for about 6 months.
When I think of all the crap I burned/spilled/smashed/broke at various times and then cleaned up when I was a kid, I'm not sure I'll ever want to leave my son alone.

Sometimes when I'm visiting my brother he'll just stop and say something like "Did we really think we could swing on that?" and we'll drink to surviving our stupidity.

 
My son is almost 10 and I'll leave him home for 30 minutes for a quick trip to the grocery store.  Longer than an hour and he's coming with me.  

 
Most states say 12 is the youngest.
don't think this is correct at all.  I think the definition here is whether they are provided with reasonable accommodations.  This has a really broad definition and is there to protect against gross neglect.

I honestly don't think there is a lower limit on leaving a kid in a home alone and running to the store, for example.  

We did some background research on the twin situation I talked about and that is basically what we came back with, that it was in fact quite totally legal to just leave kids alone all day long.

 
12 is where we started to run errands with him in charge of his bros (10 and 6 at the time). 14 is where we started trusting him as a "babysitter"
I started babysitting when I was 11. Our next door neighbors had 3 kids and I would watch them for about 5-6 hours one weekend night every week so they could go out. Dude paid well. We are talking 30.00 in 1974 dollars. Combined with my lawn mowing business I would make about 60 a week. Making it rain at 7/11.

 
There is a single mom down the street with a sketchy past. Has twins that are 9. All summer long 9 to 5 they are on their own. 
About 15 years ago my wife had an extended stay at the Cleveland Clinic (open heart surgery). I would stay pretty late before heading back to my parents place out in the burbs. The hospital is pretty much surrounded by low income neighborhoods and government provided housing. I would drive through those neighborhoods at 10:30-11pm and I was shocked how many little kids (5-8 years old) that were runnning around with what appeared to be no supervision of any kind. I always wondered where their parents were.

 

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