At What Age is it Safe to Leave your Kids at Home Alone

Young boy at home in white shirt

When I was growing up in the ’80s, parents often ignored safety standards that we consider essential today. Wearing seatbelts in the car was practically unheard of. Cribs might have been coated in lead paint, and no one even knew what a helmet was—let alone wore one while riding bikes. Kids roamed the streets freely, not having to be home until dusk. It was a time of innocence, albeit one filled with risky behaviors!

Times have definitely changed. My generation tends to be much stricter and more safety-conscious with our own children. Perhaps it’s because we narrowly escaped injury and death so often as kids. We don’t want our children to face the same hazards we did, so we bubble-wrap their lives and hover over them relentlessly. Our kids don’t know any different and have never experienced the thrill of living on the wild side. We can only hope our hyper-vigilance doesn’t backfire and lead them to rebel when they finally gain some independence.

I remember many of my friends being “latchkey kids,” children whose parents worked outside the home and who had keys to let themselves in after school. They might have been home alone for hours before their parents returned. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, so I was never alone after school. Looking back, I truly appreciate how fortunate I was to have this arrangement. My kids are blessed to have two parents who work from home, so they don’t have to be latchkey kids either.

So, how old is old enough for a child to stay home alone? I distinctly remember my parents leaving me with my older brother when he was ten and I was eight. My brother, born with the personality of an old man, likely seemed quite capable of holding down the fort in their absence. However, he and I didn’t get along. I was so angry that my parents didn’t take me with them that I wrote them a letter claiming I had run away. I hid in my closet, and when they returned, it took them some time to find me. My brother didn’t notice I was “missing” and didn’t help in the search. While he may have been old enough to stay home alone, he certainly wasn’t babysitting material.

My own kids are twelve, nine, and seven, and I have left them home alone exactly once. It was moving day, and my husband and I had to take our king-sized mattress to the dump using our large moving truck. There was no room for the kids in the cab, and I didn’t want to drive an additional car. I knew we’d only be gone for twenty minutes, so I set my girls up in the living room with books, instructed them not to eat anything (lest they choke), and reiterated that they should never answer the door when we weren’t home. I gave my oldest daughter my cell phone so she could call me in case of an emergency. We rushed off to complete our mission, and when we returned, all was well.

Despite this successful trial, we haven’t allowed it a second time—yet. My oldest daughter is almost of babysitting age, so we’ll try again once she turns thirteen and has completed a CPR/first aid course at school. Perhaps I sound overprotective, but my daughters tend to fight with each other, and I know my younger ones will test my oldest’s patience the first time she officially babysits. Frankly, I’m putting it off as long as possible. I’m a very paranoid person, often imagining all sorts of horrific scenarios when I’m not with my children. In my mind, I can vividly see the house flooding, burning down, blowing up, or being swept away in a tornado. None of these things would likely happen if I or my husband were home, but leave the kids, and the universe would suddenly conspire against them. No, thank you. And yes, I am a bit nuts.

So, how do you determine if your child is old enough to stay home alone? The laws vary by location, so it’s worth taking a moment to look it up if you’re considering this privilege. There are many variables to consider when deciding if your child is ready to be home alone. Factors include their age, the time of day, the safety of your neighborhood, your child’s maturity level, the quality of sibling relationships, how far away you’ll be, how long you’ll be gone, whether they will need to eat, how prepared they are for emergencies, and their ability to operate the phone or computer in case they need to contact someone for help.

Part of me feels sad that soon I won’t have to spend time calling potential babysitters when I have plans to go out. Leaving them home alone means they’re old enough not to need supervision, and before I know it, they’ll be packing their bags for college and driving away from me. I like that they still need a sitter (or so I think) and that they’re still babies in my eyes—big, giant babies who would probably do just fine on their own for a few hours.

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