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

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The laws are the laws, yes, but you need to have common sense too. In MD, the legal age is 8.

So technically, it’s “illegal” to leave a child home alone for 5 minutes the day before they turn eight. The next day, is “legal” to leave them for 8 hours.

There’s laws, and then there’s common sense. If you aren’t breaking a law, and your 6-7 yo (1) has the maturity; (2) knows how to reach you or an adult; and (3) can sit still for 20 minutes watching an iPad or reading a book… yes, I’d be comfortable leaving them.

A 6-7 yr old is not mature enough, period. OP wants to leave for 10-30 min by car. If there is an emergency and they call 991 ( if they even have phone access) and says they are h9me alone, you will be arrested. If go to a neighbors, for an emergency or really anything, you will be relying on the goodness of your neighbor not to report you to CPS (if they are even home, and if they even bother coming to the door). What about if you are in a car accident and can’t get home at all or severely delayed and you can’t reach someone to go help your child? What about if the internet goes out and they no longer able to be planted on the couch with iPad? What about if they want something they can’t reach and climb onto a chair and fall? I really cannot believe people would leave a 6 yr old home alone for 30 min while they drove to go run errands

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The laws are the laws, yes, but you need to have common sense too. In MD, the legal age is 8.

So technically, it’s “illegal” to leave a child home alone for 5 minutes the day before they turn eight. The next day, is “legal” to leave them for 8 hours.

There’s laws, and then there’s common sense. If you aren’t breaking a law, and your 6-7 yo (1) has the maturity; (2) knows how to reach you or an adult; and (3) can sit still for 20 minutes watching an iPad or reading a book… yes, I’d be comfortable leaving them.

A 6-7 yr old is not mature enough, period. OP wants to leave for 10-30 min by car. If there is an emergency and they call 991 ( if they even have phone access) and says they are h9me alone, you will be arrested. If go to a neighbors, for an emergency or really anything, you will be relying on the goodness of your neighbor not to report you to CPS (if they are even home, and if they even bother coming to the door). What about if you are in a car accident and can’t get home at all or severely delayed and you can’t reach someone to go help your child? What about if the internet goes out and they no longer able to be planted on the couch with iPad? What about if they want something they can’t reach and climb onto a chair and fall? I really cannot believe people would leave a 6 yr old home alone for 30 min while they drove to go run errands

The OP says drive her other kids to 'sports close by'. I live in a small town with a 'town center' that is about a 5 minute drive but is 1.8 miles from my house. This is where I would be driving to drop my kids off for 'sports' and have it be 10-20 minutes depending on whether I needed to get out of the car with them.

I would 100% NOT drive the 20 minutes to Target to go shopping nor would I drive even the 10 minutes down to the big grocery store to go shopping. But my god, if I hand my son a Nintendo Switch a literal bomb could go off down the street and he wouldn't investigate it.

I think people are having reactions that are tied to where they physically are, there are some places where this would be a terrible idea, and some places where the claim that this is like, DEADLY NEGLIGENCE is comically off base.

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The laws are the laws, yes, but you need to have common sense too. In MD, the legal age is 8.

So technically, it’s “illegal” to leave a child home alone for 5 minutes the day before they turn eight. The next day, is “legal” to leave them for 8 hours.

There’s laws, and then there’s common sense. If you aren’t breaking a law, and your 6-7 yo (1) has the maturity; (2) knows how to reach you or an adult; and (3) can sit still for 20 minutes watching an iPad or reading a book… yes, I’d be comfortable leaving them.

A 6-7 yr old is not mature enough, period. OP wants to leave for 10-30 min by car. If there is an emergency and they call 991 ( if they even have phone access) and says they are h9me alone, you will be arrested. If go to a neighbors, for an emergency or really anything, you will be relying on the goodness of your neighbor not to report you to CPS (if they are even home, and if they even bother coming to the door). What about if you are in a car accident and can’t get home at all or severely delayed and you can’t reach someone to go help your child? What about if the internet goes out and they no longer able to be planted on the couch with iPad? What about if they want something they can’t reach and climb onto a chair and fall? I really cannot believe people would leave a 6 yr old home alone for 30 min while they drove to go run errands

The OP says drive her other kids to 'sports close by'. I live in a small town with a 'town center' that is about a 5 minute drive but is 1.8 miles from my house. This is where I would be driving to drop my kids off for 'sports' and have it be 10-20 minutes depending on whether I needed to get out of the car with them.

I would 100% NOT drive the 20 minutes to Target to go shopping nor would I drive even the 10 minutes down to the big grocery store to go shopping. But my god, if I hand my son a Nintendo Switch a literal bomb could go off down the street and he wouldn't investigate it.

I think people are having reactions that are tied to where they physically are, there are some places where this would be a terrible idea, and some places where the claim that this is like, DEADLY NEGLIGENCE is comically off base.

No. It’s a stupid idea, period. I don’t understand how some of you are so ignorant to child development that you think a 6 year old is an appropriate age to be left home alone. You’re talking about them as though they are 8 or 10 year olds. That is 2-4 years of brain development and learning about the world. I can’t believe this has to be explained. People talking about how this is preparing their SIX year old to be more independent sound like idiots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The laws are the laws, yes, but you need to have common sense too. In MD, the legal age is 8.

So technically, it’s “illegal” to leave a child home alone for 5 minutes the day before they turn eight. The next day, is “legal” to leave them for 8 hours.

There’s laws, and then there’s common sense. If you aren’t breaking a law, and your 6-7 yo (1) has the maturity; (2) knows how to reach you or an adult; and (3) can sit still for 20 minutes watching an iPad or reading a book… yes, I’d be comfortable leaving them.

A 6-7 yr old is not mature enough, period. OP wants to leave for 10-30 min by car. If there is an emergency and they call 991 ( if they even have phone access) and says they are h9me alone, you will be arrested. If go to a neighbors, for an emergency or really anything, you will be relying on the goodness of your neighbor not to report you to CPS (if they are even home, and if they even bother coming to the door). What about if you are in a car accident and can’t get home at all or severely delayed and you can’t reach someone to go help your child? What about if the internet goes out and they no longer able to be planted on the couch with iPad? What about if they want something they can’t reach and climb onto a chair and fall? I really cannot believe people would leave a 6 yr old home alone for 30 min while they drove to go run errands

The OP says drive her other kids to 'sports close by'. I live in a small town with a 'town center' that is about a 5 minute drive but is 1.8 miles from my house. This is where I would be driving to drop my kids off for 'sports' and have it be 10-20 minutes depending on whether I needed to get out of the car with them.

I would 100% NOT drive the 20 minutes to Target to go shopping nor would I drive even the 10 minutes down to the big grocery store to go shopping. But my god, if I hand my son a Nintendo Switch a literal bomb could go off down the street and he wouldn't investigate it.

I think people are having reactions that are tied to where they physically are, there are some places where this would be a terrible idea, and some places where the claim that this is like, DEADLY NEGLIGENCE is comically off base.

No. It’s a stupid idea, period. I don’t understand how some of you are so ignorant to child development that you think a 6 year old is an appropriate age to be left home alone. You’re talking about them as though they are 8 or 10 year olds. That is 2-4 years of brain development and learning about the world. I can’t believe this has to be explained. People talking about how this is preparing their SIX year old to be more independent sound like idiots.

My kids are teens now. If one was sick and I had to take the other two to school, I would leave the sick child at home to do the school run, which took 10 minutes. I did this beginning at age 6. It was really no big deal.

[Anonymous]

You don’t know if you’ll only be gone for 10-30 min. What if you get in a wreck? What if there is an emergency at home? We don’t have a landline (many people don’t now), and a 6 yo doesn’t have a cell phone. They’d have no way to even contact you or 911. Plus a 6 yo is not equipped to deal with an emergency, no matter how mature they seem. Just take the kid with you. Why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t know if you’ll only be gone for 10-30 min. What if you get in a wreck? What if there is an emergency at home? We don’t have a landline (many people don’t now), and a 6 yo doesn’t have a cell phone. They’d have no way to even contact you or 911. Plus a 6 yo is not equipped to deal with an emergency, no matter how mature they seem. Just take the kid with you. Why not?

I am the person who left a sick 6-year-old at home for 10 minutes to do the school run. We have a landline and I taught my kids how to use the phone. They also knew to walk next door to the neighbors (who were retired and always home) in case of emergency. If I got into a wreck I would just ask the neighbor or another school mom to go check on my son. That is what communities are for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t know if you’ll only be gone for 10-30 min. What if you get in a wreck? What if there is an emergency at home? We don’t have a landline (many people don’t now), and a 6 yo doesn’t have a cell phone. They’d have no way to even contact you or 911. Plus a 6 yo is not equipped to deal with an emergency, no matter how mature they seem. Just take the kid with you. Why not?

I am the person who left a sick 6-year-old at home for 10 minutes to do the school run. We have a landline and I taught my kids how to use the phone. They also knew to walk next door to the neighbors (who were retired and always home) in case of emergency. If I got into a wreck I would just ask the neighbor or another school mom to go check on my son. That is what communities are for.

I'm another pp who left a 6yo for 10 mins to do a school walk, and ditto to the above. My DD knew she could walk downstairs in our building to any of our three neighboring apartments, or next door to other neighbors. Heck, she could even have walked to my son's preschool to intercept us. She was proud of having my trust (eg she wasn't scared to be home, as some pps remembered being in their own experiences). She in fact just watched half an episode of Daniel tiger before I was home again.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely no.

[Anonymous]

Wtf, NO.

6 yo?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t know if you’ll only be gone for 10-30 min. What if you get in a wreck? What if there is an emergency at home? We don’t have a landline (many people don’t now), and a 6 yo doesn’t have a cell phone. They’d have no way to even contact you or 911. Plus a 6 yo is not equipped to deal with an emergency, no matter how mature they seem. Just take the kid with you. Why not?

I am the person who left a sick 6-year-old at home for 10 minutes to do the school run. We have a landline and I taught my kids how to use the phone. They also knew to walk next door to the neighbors (who were retired and always home) in case of emergency. If I got into a wreck I would just ask the neighbor or another school mom to go check on my son. That is what communities are for.

I'm another pp who left a 6yo for 10 mins to do a school walk, and ditto to the above. My DD knew she could walk downstairs in our building to any of our three neighboring apartments, or next door to other neighbors. Heck, she could even have walked to my son's preschool to intercept us. She was proud of having my trust (eg she wasn't scared to be home, as some pps remembered being in their own experiences). She in fact just watched half an episode of Daniel tiger before I was home again.

+1, we have neighbors across the street who are friends and who work from home. And again this is 10-15 minutes, not like an ERRAND. I am shocked that so many people are convinced the world would fall apart in 10 minutes. I will say I am a lot more comfortable with the 10 minute side of this than the 30 minute side of this. But in all honesty my personal 6 year old could almost certainly fend for himself for multiple hours and not have it be an issue. I wouldn't DO that, but he could. Kevin in Home Alone is 8! Kind of a joke but like, kids really are a lot more capable than you think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The laws are the laws, yes, but you need to have common sense too. In MD, the legal age is 8.

So technically, it’s “illegal” to leave a child home alone for 5 minutes the day before they turn eight. The next day, is “legal” to leave them for 8 hours.

There’s laws, and then there’s common sense. If you aren’t breaking a law, and your 6-7 yo (1) has the maturity; (2) knows how to reach you or an adult; and (3) can sit still for 20 minutes watching an iPad or reading a book… yes, I’d be comfortable leaving them.

A 6-7 yr old is not mature enough, period. OP wants to leave for 10-30 min by car. If there is an emergency and they call 991 ( if they even have phone access) and says they are h9me alone, you will be arrested. If go to a neighbors, for an emergency or really anything, you will be relying on the goodness of your neighbor not to report you to CPS (if they are even home, and if they even bother coming to the door). What about if you are in a car accident and can’t get home at all or severely delayed and you can’t reach someone to go help your child? What about if the internet goes out and they no longer able to be planted on the couch with iPad? What about if they want something they can’t reach and climb onto a chair and fall? I really cannot believe people would leave a 6 yr old home alone for 30 min while they drove to go run errands

The OP says drive her other kids to 'sports close by'. I live in a small town with a 'town center' that is about a 5 minute drive but is 1.8 miles from my house. This is where I would be driving to drop my kids off for 'sports' and have it be 10-20 minutes depending on whether I needed to get out of the car with them.

I would 100% NOT drive the 20 minutes to Target to go shopping nor would I drive even the 10 minutes down to the big grocery store to go shopping. But my god, if I hand my son a Nintendo Switch a literal bomb could go off down the street and he wouldn't investigate it.

I think people are having reactions that are tied to where they physically are, there are some places where this would be a terrible idea, and some places where the claim that this is like, DEADLY NEGLIGENCE is comically off base.

No. It’s a stupid idea, period. I don’t understand how some of you are so ignorant to child development that you think a 6 year old is an appropriate age to be left home alone. You’re talking about them as though they are 8 or 10 year olds. That is 2-4 years of brain development and learning about the world. I can’t believe this has to be explained. People talking about how this is preparing their SIX year old to be more independent sound like idiots.

My kids are teens now. If one was sick and I had to take the other two to school, I would leave the sick child at home to do the school run, which took 10 minutes. I did this beginning at age 6. It was really no big deal.

No, it’s illegal. That is a big deal. There are reasons why it is illegal; clearly plenty of parents with no common sense

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The laws are the laws, yes, but you need to have common sense too. In MD, the legal age is 8.

So technically, it’s “illegal” to leave a child home alone for 5 minutes the day before they turn eight. The next day, is “legal” to leave them for 8 hours.

There’s laws, and then there’s common sense. If you aren’t breaking a law, and your 6-7 yo (1) has the maturity; (2) knows how to reach you or an adult; and (3) can sit still for 20 minutes watching an iPad or reading a book… yes, I’d be comfortable leaving them.

A 6-7 yr old is not mature enough, period. OP wants to leave for 10-30 min by car. If there is an emergency and they call 991 ( if they even have phone access) and says they are h9me alone, you will be arrested. If go to a neighbors, for an emergency or really anything, you will be relying on the goodness of your neighbor not to report you to CPS (if they are even home, and if they even bother coming to the door). What about if you are in a car accident and can’t get home at all or severely delayed and you can’t reach someone to go help your child? What about if the internet goes out and they no longer able to be planted on the couch with iPad? What about if they want something they can’t reach and climb onto a chair and fall? I really cannot believe people would leave a 6 yr old home alone for 30 min while they drove to go run errands

The OP says drive her other kids to 'sports close by'. I live in a small town with a 'town center' that is about a 5 minute drive but is 1.8 miles from my house. This is where I would be driving to drop my kids off for 'sports' and have it be 10-20 minutes depending on whether I needed to get out of the car with them.

I would 100% NOT drive the 20 minutes to Target to go shopping nor would I drive even the 10 minutes down to the big grocery store to go shopping. But my god, if I hand my son a Nintendo Switch a literal bomb could go off down the street and he wouldn't investigate it.

I think people are having reactions that are tied to where they physically are, there are some places where this would be a terrible idea, and some places where the claim that this is like, DEADLY NEGLIGENCE is comically off base.

OP says “drive.”

When you get in your car to go someplace- your child is unable to reach you and the potentially for you to be delayed is much higher. Accidents happen, hang ups happen. Traffic happens.

And citing the example of a bomb going off and your kid not doing anything bc they are playing Nintendo- that is kind of the point. If a toaster that plugged in catches fire and the alarm starts going off, are they going to care and immediately evacuate? Or will they sit there and continue playing until they notice smoke and then can’t get out? Nintendo and iPad are not resources to enable to leave your 6 yr old home alone. Cannot believe it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The laws are the laws, yes, but you need to have common sense too. In MD, the legal age is 8.

So technically, it’s “illegal” to leave a child home alone for 5 minutes the day before they turn eight. The next day, is “legal” to leave them for 8 hours.

There’s laws, and then there’s common sense. If you aren’t breaking a law, and your 6-7 yo (1) has the maturity; (2) knows how to reach you or an adult; and (3) can sit still for 20 minutes watching an iPad or reading a book… yes, I’d be comfortable leaving them.

A 6-7 yr old is not mature enough, period. OP wants to leave for 10-30 min by car. If there is an emergency and they call 991 ( if they even have phone access) and says they are h9me alone, you will be arrested. If go to a neighbors, for an emergency or really anything, you will be relying on the goodness of your neighbor not to report you to CPS (if they are even home, and if they even bother coming to the door). What about if you are in a car accident and can’t get home at all or severely delayed and you can’t reach someone to go help your child? What about if the internet goes out and they no longer able to be planted on the couch with iPad? What about if they want something they can’t reach and climb onto a chair and fall? I really cannot believe people would leave a 6 yr old home alone for 30 min while they drove to go run errands

The OP says drive her other kids to 'sports close by'. I live in a small town with a 'town center' that is about a 5 minute drive but is 1.8 miles from my house. This is where I would be driving to drop my kids off for 'sports' and have it be 10-20 minutes depending on whether I needed to get out of the car with them.

I would 100% NOT drive the 20 minutes to Target to go shopping nor would I drive even the 10 minutes down to the big grocery store to go shopping. But my god, if I hand my son a Nintendo Switch a literal bomb could go off down the street and he wouldn't investigate it.

I think people are having reactions that are tied to where they physically are, there are some places where this would be a terrible idea, and some places where the claim that this is like, DEADLY NEGLIGENCE is comically off base.

OP says “drive.”

When you get in your car to go someplace- your child is unable to reach you and the potentially for you to be delayed is much higher. Accidents happen, hang ups happen. Traffic happens.

And citing the example of a bomb going off and your kid not doing anything bc they are playing Nintendo- that is kind of the point. If a toaster that plugged in catches fire and the alarm starts going off, are they going to care and immediately evacuate? Or will they sit there and continue playing until they notice smoke and then can’t get out? Nintendo and iPad are not resources to enable to leave your 6 yr old home alone. Cannot believe it.

Yeah that is why I said five minutes is also 1.8 miles. I could run home in less than 20 minutes in the event of a car breakdown. I was being hyperbolic, it is not necessarily that he wouldn't respond to any stimuli. I am just saying he's not going to be turning the oven on. Although my specific kid would not turn the oven on in any scenario. This is very kid and location specific IMO. But also, toasters do not regularly catch on fire when not in use. The story an earlier pp shared is horrifying but actually led me to look up a lot of stats on home fires. About half are someone cooking. And faulty wiring/etc. I will add that I actually would NOT do this when we have a Christmas tree up specifically because of Christmas tree fire risks.