Reply to When would you allow your kids to stay home all day every day in the summer?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is OP.   He'll be 12 next summer and he really wants to stay home.  DH thinks it would be fine.

I agree with all you guys saying that's too young but I'm not sure I can articulate why.  I do trust him to not get into trouble.  [b]And I know that he hates situations where he's meeting people for the first time, so he would hate doing a week here and then another week somewhere else.  I can't be home 4 hours a day, but he does like shooting baskets in the backyard so he'd do that on his own.  And he would play electronics.  He doesn't like to read so wouldn't do that willingly.

I don't know, it just seems lonely, sad and not productive.[/b][/quote]

I am an introvert who spends huge amounts of time alone. I also have an introverted DS who does not do summer camps because he also does not do well with the "start something new with new people" every week. I think there is a big difference between a kid choosing to be home alone because he needs downtime after a busy, thriving year at school, and a kid who stays home alone because there is no where else he feels comfortable and no friends he can connect with. There is not enough detail in your post to know if being home alone is going to be a good introvert recharge time for him, or if it's going to be lonely and sad because it was the only choice he felt comfortable enough to make.

The compromise for my kid, who is 11, is that he is doing a  5 week 1/2 day tutoring program which he needed anyway and at which he will see some friends from school. 3 days a week he also has afternoon or evening activities. One is solo (diving) and the other are groups where the same kids attend every week (one is a group for kids with anxiety/social issues, one is fitness related). A few times a month he also sees friends from school (sometimes they initiate, sometimes we do). The rest of the time he can choose what he wants to do, and it is a lot of staying at home.

I am lucky because I don't work in the summer, so it's easy for me to transport my kid wherever. [b]I just suggest that you reflect a little on why your kid is alone, and if it's because he is anxious or has difficulty making friends, start thinking about how to address that. It might be as serious or structured as therapy, or it might be finding some evening clubs or activities he can do (after you get home from work) that are ongoing and where he can meet some other kids and feel more confident and comfortable getting out of the house and trying new things. [/b][/quote]

Good post.  Essentially, does he want to be alone primarily because he's an introvert, or because he's got a significant amount of social anxiety that causes him to want to avoid social situations?  If the latter, then I'm not sure staying home is the best remedy.  Too much avoidance can definitely make social anxiety worse or at the very least, it can maintain the anxiety it over time.[/quote]

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