Reply to How long would you leave a 9 year old home alone?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Um, no. I'm pretty sure it's illegal. [/quote]

As far as I can tell having looked into this a bit, leaving a 9 year old home alone is not illegal in DC, MD, or VA. Some counties have guidelines ([i] guidelines [/i] not laws) setting 8 as a minimum, but other than that I'm not aware of a specific minimum age in any of those three locations' laws. Not sure about other states. Where it could become illegal is if the situation is deemed as child endangerment, which would pretty much have to be decided on a case-by-case basis but I'm fairly sure most DCUM parents would be able to spot that line and not cross it.

I would be comfortable with leaving my almost 9 year old home alone for ~3-4 hours by herself, and I might be willing to leave her home alone for the length of a schoolday/workday in an emergency, based on her past examples of handling the responsibility of staying home for a few hours well.. However, I would not be comfortable leaving her with her younger sister until she is old enough to take the babysitting course (age 11 I think).[/quote]

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