I would not.

It would depend how far away I was going to be. If I could get home easily within 5 minutes if needed, probably. Might try to keep it to more like an hour or less.

Anonymous wrote:If you are in Fairfax, you can't legally leave a child home alone until 9.

Where do you see that? Is it for Fairfax City? I only see guidelines from the county and they specifically mention there are no laws:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/familyservices/children-youth/child-supervision-guidelines

If you are in Fairfax, you can't legally leave a child home alone until 9.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every week? No.

Occasionally? Yes.

+1

+2. With some ground rules.

I’d make sure they’re okay with it being dark out and you gone. At age 8, my youngest did not like being left at home with only a 10 year old sister if it was dark out. She was fine during the day, but once it got dark she’d get scared. In the winter, it meant anytime after 5 she’d prefer to go with me to pickup the oldest sibling instead of staying home for 30-45 minutes.

Mine would be fine with this occasionally. As long as they have iPads and video games they really aren’t going to move.

No

Anonymous wrote:Would you leave an 8 year old and a 10 year old home alone together from 6:30-8pm? I’d let them watch tv so my guess is they wouldn’t leave the couch. But they fight sometimes and the 10 year old can be mean to his younger sibling occasionally. Would leave them with a phone for emergencies and iPad to text us.

No child sits on a couch for 1.5 hours straight, not even if you put on their favorite movie. If that's your whole plan, you need to come up with a better one that accounts for all the possible ways they could get up to trouble. I'm not saying they can't be left alone safely, just that you need to have 20 back up plans and safeguards in place.

10 is plenty old enough… That’s the age when I walked home from school and occupied myself until my parents came home around 6 or 7. It would be good to give the 10 year old some responsibility as well.

Anonymous wrote:Every week? No.

Occasionally? Yes.

+1

I would do this occasionally but not regularly.

Of course I would. They are 10 and 8… if they aren’t capable of being alone at home for 1.5 hours you did something wrong raising them.

Every week? No.

Occasionally? Yes.

Would you leave an 8 year old and a 10 year old home alone together from 6:30-8pm? I’d let them watch tv so my guess is they wouldn’t leave the couch. But they fight sometimes and the 10 year old can be mean to his younger sibling occasionally. Would leave them with a phone for emergencies and iPad to text us.