Would you let your fifteen-year-old spend a night at home alone?

[Anonymous]

I have a 15yo. Wonderful very mature kid. No, I wouldn't let him stay alone overnight. Double for staying alone with a friend - that's actually more invitation to trouble.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a good, quiet respectful kid. At 15 I had my boyfriend over after school when my parents were not home. I don’t think they knew I had boyfriend. Are you going to watch her on the security cameras 24/7 and does she know where they are? No way would I let her stay home alone unless grandma promised to do pop in surprise visits and you tell her that. Probably still wouldn’t.

Following up on my own post and responding to others. My friends and I were quiet and nerdy kids. We still were having sex and definitely drinking our parents alcohol. No on suspected us. My mother still talks about when she caught my brother drinking. Of course they suspected the boys would get into trouble. Watch the girls, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Instead of having a friend over why doesn’t she sleep at a friend’s one of the nights? Or both?

This. And I would not let her stay alone. Too young.

[Anonymous]

Of course I would. Even better with a friend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was a good, quiet respectful kid. At 15 I had my boyfriend over after school when my parents were not home. I don’t think they knew I had boyfriend. Are you going to watch her on the security cameras 24/7 and does she know where they are? No way would I let her stay home alone unless grandma promised to do pop in surprise visits and you tell her that. Probably still wouldn’t.

Your posts shows why the boyfriend aspect isn't really an issue. You were sleeping with your boyfriend and your parents didn't leave you alone at night. There are security cameras and OP seems to trust her child. If OP's child wants to sleep with her boyfriend, there are many more opportunities than this one night. At that age if my parents showed me they were placing trust in me, I'd go out of my way to not abuse the trust. OP needs to emphasize the trust component and let her DD stay home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol I was the friend in this scenario when I was 15 and I was a good kid. So was the girl I was staying with.

We were so drunk in the evening that we still were drunk in the am when we went to school no one suspected because we were straight A students and leaders at our HS.

Good luck OP!!

It was fun!

I LOL hard at the we did x,y,z.. and we were the good kids. Clearly you weren't the good kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a good, quiet respectful kid. At 15 I had my boyfriend over after school when my parents were not home. I don’t think they knew I had boyfriend. Are you going to watch her on the security cameras 24/7 and does she know where they are? No way would I let her stay home alone unless grandma promised to do pop in surprise visits and you tell her that. Probably still wouldn’t.

Your posts shows why the boyfriend aspect isn't really an issue. You were sleeping with your boyfriend and your parents didn't leave you alone at night. There are security cameras and OP seems to trust her child. If OP's child wants to sleep with her boyfriend, there are many more opportunities than this one night. At that age if my parents showed me they were placing trust in me, I'd go out of my way to not abuse the trust. OP needs to emphasize the trust component and let her DD stay home.

Um, no. Kids will always find opportunities to do things they shouldn’t. Parents do not have to make it easy. Overnights alone are asking for trouble. Reread the other post where the police were called.

[Anonymous]

Have her watch the educational and cautionary tale, "House Party". Have her take notes, and quiz her on what went wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a good, quiet respectful kid. At 15 I had my boyfriend over after school when my parents were not home. I don’t think they knew I had boyfriend. Are you going to watch her on the security cameras 24/7 and does she know where they are? No way would I let her stay home alone unless grandma promised to do pop in surprise visits and you tell her that. Probably still wouldn’t.

Following up on my own post and responding to others. My friends and I were quiet and nerdy kids. We still were having sex and definitely drinking our parents alcohol. No on suspected us. My mother still talks about when she caught my brother drinking. Of course they suspected the boys would get into trouble. Watch the girls, too.

I remember one of my friends in high school hung out with the goody two shoes (or so we thought) crowd a couple times. The nerds were doing stuff most of us never dreamed of. There's no way any parents suspected them.

[Anonymous]

Forget the boyfriend. Teenagers sleep very soundly--they won't ear a smoke alarm or someone breaking into the house. I would be okay with her in the house during the day. Can't you have one of your friends spend the night?

[Anonymous]

Yes, I did for a weekend at that age. My parents informed a good friend who checked in on me. That was pre cell-phone.

Just make sure you trust her not to have more than one friend over at a time, no boys, and no parties.

Alternatively, find a friend she can stay with.

[Anonymous]

Typically, yes... but obviously depends on the teen.

[Anonymous]

I typically am overprotective but in this case, I"d probably say yes to one night. The first night alone, she probably won't push limits (after a night, I would be worried that she'd feel more relaxed and break rules, start to ignore safety concerns, etc. Particularly if grandma is just a mile away. (When you say grandma isn't very mobile, she could get there in a pinch, right?)

[Anonymous]

I would say no. It seems a little suspicious to me that she’s so eager to have a friend stay over alone. Yes, I know that maybe she just wants to have an old fashioned BFF sleepover but I think it’s too young.

[Anonymous]

with her best female friend sleeping over

Sleeping at your house? No. Absolutely not. That's worse. Those two together, no adult. If they are such close friends, can you ask the other Mom if they can stay at her house. But, most important .. if this issue is ever going to come up again ... she's 15 ... you have 3 more years until she is 18, I would NOT break the routine of requiring her to stay at Grandma's and especially not break the routine of requiring she stay where there is an adult in the house.

Now if this were a true emergency and she stayed alone, I'm sure it's fine-enough. But you have 3 years ahead of her being a teenager/ You have got to have arrangements in mind and not have it be a big surprise as to how to deal with this.