Would you leave a 6-7yo home alone for 10-30 min?

[Anonymous]

What is “close by”? I left my kids home for 10-15 minutes starting at that age but I was less than 5 minutes away by car.

They knew what to do in case of an emergency, and knew to never answer the door, even it was me or DH. We told them we’d find another way to get in.

[Anonymous]

Isn’t this illegal? No way would I drive away and leave my 6 or 7 year old home alone. You all are out of your mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've left my 6yo at home when she's been home sick to go pick up my son from preschool. It's 15 minute walking round trip. She was on the couch watching TV the whole time. I felt totally fine with it (we live in a small apartment building, she could get a neighbor if she needed). That said, I can't imagine letting my son do the same at her age. Very different kids.

This is fairly common in my neighborhood, at least among people I've confessed this to. Lots of dogs being walked around the block, quick trips to the corner store, etc while 6-7yo are content at home. I'd say 20 mins would be my maximum comfort level, and no driving involved, but that may just be bc I'm in a city and driving feels risky vs walking.

What kind of lazy kids are these. The 6-7yo should be helping to walk the dog and make the corner store runs.

[Anonymous]

I said it was okay earlier, but agree that if it’s illegal where you live, it’s not worth risking a CPS visit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t this illegal? No way would I drive away and leave my 6 or 7 year old home alone. You all are out of your mind.

Agree
Lazy and negligent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t this illegal? No way would I drive away and leave my 6 or 7 year old home alone. You all are out of your mind.

Agree
Lazy and negligent

If your 7yo would literally be in immediate physical danger if you left them unsupervised that is entirely on you and your poor parenting/unsafe home. You’re failing your kids if you aren’t equipping them to handle even mildly difficult life situations. My 7 and 9 yo get themselves to school on the subway every day and your 7yo needs to be in your direct line of sight at all times or something terrible will happen? You probably need anxiety meds, sorry

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Isn’t this illegal? No way would I drive away and leave my 6 or 7 year old home alone. You all are out of your mind.

Agree
Lazy and negligent

If your 7yo would literally be in immediate physical danger if you left them unsupervised that is entirely on you and your poor parenting/unsafe home. You’re failing your kids if you aren’t equipping them to handle even mildly difficult life situations. My 7 and 9 yo get themselves to school on the subway every day and your 7yo needs to be in your direct line of sight at all times or something terrible will happen? You probably need anxiety meds, sorry

A fire could happen, choking, medical emergency, a robbery....sorry you are lazy.

I valued my kids and never cut corners. My kids are older now.

Subway?? How lazy are you? I drove my kids to and from school especially at that age. You kinda suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Not worth the risk even though the risk is minuscule that something happens. Could you live with yourself if something happened?

Parents today with adult children who freak out upon entering the world alone do not look back and wonder if they can live with themselves for never giving their children a sense of independence.

Nothing will happen in 10 minutes with the average child (and of course this does depend on the kid I know some 6 year olds where this is a hard no and some, like my rule follower son, who would have no problems). If something did happen I think it would genuinely likely be a relatively freak event. My kid spends two hours after school every day occupying himself, sure he checks in with me to ask questions but there are plenty of 10 minutes that are no contact and virtually never something of urgency. Never anything life threatening.

Yes, of course a child will never gain independence if not left unattended at age six. 🙄

No, OP, you don’t leave a 6 yo home alone.

[Anonymous]

Yes

[Anonymous]

Seems fine.

[Anonymous]

In a true emergency maybe but if the impetus is that the child doesn’t want to come with you for sibling sports drop offs, which is what you say in the OP, no.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t for mine.

But that’s my kid.

Besides legal restrictions, some states specify, some don’t.

Can you predict what your child will do
-for fun for those 30 minutes
-if someone came to the door
-if someone aggressively knocking came to the door
-if a friend wants to come inside

If you can’t basically predict those answers..like for my kid I can’t predict what he would do for fun for 30m; he’s pretty erratic. I don’t feel comfortable.

[Anonymous]

Third and subsequent kids really get the short end of the parenting stick. I’ve seen too many examples of this and stopped after two kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Third and subsequent kids really get the short end of the parenting stick. I’ve seen too many examples of this and stopped after two kids.

They also tend to be the ones with more cavities, broken bones, and ER visits. Shocking, right?

[Anonymous]

I waited until my kids were eight years old. While my kids were mature at six, I had the thought what if something unexpected happened? At eight, I started with short trips like you describe. May be a little longer. Which then involved to letting them come home from school alone. Although that last scenario was not regular because I did have them enrolled in after school care. It was just about once a week or so they wanted to come home and chill out at home rather than doing after school care and I would allow it. Although now that I think about it, that did not happen till they were about 10. When they started asking for that.