At what age do you allow your kids to stay home alone

My son is 8. He can be home by himself for VERY short periods of time. I have never left him home alone for more than 30 minutes. Sometimes I need to run out and grab some milk and he does not want to come with. If I am just running up to the gas station up the road I will leave him home. He has also gotten home from school a few times and I am not home due to traffic and construction. In those cases he will let himself in and get a snack and plop down in front of the computer till I get home. And I always call him when I know he will be walking in the door to let him know where I am and how soon I will be home.

I believe 13 is the youngest by law that a parent is allowed to leave a child at home alone. My daughters are 15 1/2 and 12 1/2 and if they do stay at home alone it is no longer than a couple of hours. Mostly if I have errands and they do not feel like coming, other than that they are with one of their parents or family member if not at school. Never would I leave them alone to go out for social purposes. Too many children are consistenly being left home alone to tend to themselves. I understand also that children need to learn to be independent (my girls clean their own room, wash their own clothes, wash their own dishes and help clean on clean up day (done my all members of family together). But I find that there are too many parents these days wrapped up in their own lives and do not take notice in their children's life. Children need love, support, guidance and supervision. With all the things and temptations there are in our society on TV and internet, it is not safe to leave children unattended, not knowing what they are watching and doing (within reason, don't have to be all over them every minute). I would like the world to be more safe for my girls but the reality is that it's not. I'd rather be safe than sorry.

It really depends on how mature your child is. I'd say at the youngest 10, but most kids it's better around 12. I'd suggest going on some short trips to see how they handle it before leaving for over 6 hours. If they handle a short trip, make another one that's longer etc... Then you should be able to tell if they are mature enough before being gone so long.

I dotn know what age i will let my son stay home alone. I know there is a legal age in our area but am not sure what it is. I am guessing around 12 or 13, but it will depend on his maturity. I know some 15 year olds that shouldnt be left home alone, either they just dindt mature at the right level or they cant be trusted cuz they like to get in trouble. So maturity and showing they can be trusted will be the key.

hi! i agree that it depends on the maturity level of the kids. there are kids who know the responsibility of being left alone at home. there are those who just can think of other things but play and and other stuffs. well, lets admit it, when kids reach the teenage years, they become too concerned with their peers. i know someone, a friend of mine. she has a daughter who is already 17, and the daughter cant stay at home on her own! she became to dependent on her mom i think. i cant tell this to my friend because she's twice my age! in my family, when we were kids, they can leave me and my younger sisters alone when i was about 10, but they'd ask our neighbors to look after us. as long as you know that a kid is matured enough to understand the responsibility of being left alone at home, i guess its fine. but still, maybe you can ask a few neighbors to look after them every now and then. :)

I think it depends on the kid. My son was really mature at a young age so He did stay home for very short spans at 9, but I really didn't start leaving him for longs spans till he was about 10. Now my older daughter she is not as mature and I have not left her for more then 20 minutes and she is 10 now. But I wouldn't judge someone that leaves a child at 9 if the child was mature and capable. I think my parents started leaving me around 9.

My kids are now 18 and 22 but I have to admit I was quite overprotective when they were younger. I allowed my older son to stay home alone for short periods of time when he was about 14 but only for short stints. I did NOT leave his younger brother with him. The younger son had a severe seizure disorder as a small child and, although the seizures went away at age 5, thank God, it took me years to believe they wouldn't come back. (I still fear them.). I didn't like to leave him alone for fear something would happen so it was quite a while before I felt OK about that. I would leave the two alone when my older son was about 16 and the younger one was 12 but only for VERY quick trips. Finally I chilled out and allowed them to stay home alone at age 16 for both. That is funny because I was babysitting other people's kids at age 13 but I was more mature and knew what to do in an emergency. I always felt my kids didn't even though I taught them what to do. Luckily there was never any incidences and all was well when they were home. I never STILL have left my 18 year old home alone overnight though. Not really because I fear what may happen (He's VERY mature and an adult now!) but because he goes with us on trips and nothing really has come up that we needed to do that.

We let our daughter who is 12 stay home alone with her younger brother who is 11 for short amounts of time maybe 10 or 15 minutes at most. It's not that we don't trust her, she is very trustworthy, we just don't trust the world. Also her and her brother fight and without someone there to referee, something bad could happen to one of them, and they would be faced with an emergency situation.

We allowed our son to stay home by himself when he turned twelve. Our state says children can be home alone at age ten, but we thought that was way too early. Our son is pretty mature and trust-worthy, so at age twelve, we felt confident. I think it does definitely depend on the maturity of the child in question.