Youngest age to stay home alone
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Anonymous
+1 Take your child along. |
Anonymous
| This is really kid dependant. I started taking short dog walks when dd was 6, within sight of house. 8 she could be left an hour. 10, two hours with a movie. She is the kind of kid who looks out for others, helps and has high awareness. She also asks to stay home alone as much as possible but I rarely let her. I was latchkey at 7 so although the guidelines posted seem fair to me, its a bit laughable compared to kids in the 70s/80s. |
Anonymous
| Take them with you! I know an early elementary teacher who called CPS because a 6 year old student was left alone on Zoom. |
Anonymous
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Both of my kids would have been fine for 20 minutes at six, but I would not have left them at home at that age.
Also, the 20 minutes matters. Is it 20 minutes to walk the dog around the neighborhood? Or are you going out and back 10 minutes each way to pick something up? |
Anonymous
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This is why I'm glad I live where I do: we send the kids out to play by themselves (my youngest is 8). They ride bikes around the neighborhood and can go to the corner store and the playground. And yes, if my six year-old was mature and felt comfortable, and knew some ground rules, I would.
Ground rules are 'who do you open the door for?' and answer is NO ONE. Not grandma, not the neighbor. Literally NO ONE. 'what do you do if there is a fire' and you come up with your own answer. Our kids are instructed to leave the house ASAP and have an order of neighbors to run to and they can call the fire department from the neighbors house, not ours They know our phone numbers, how to call 9-1-1 (this is one of the reasons we have an Ooma landline - so there are more phones around the house for kids to use in an urgent situation) It's super good for them to have some moments to be trusted, so they build confidence. We may err too far that way in our house, but I don't want super protected helicopter-raised kids :/ |