Article on leaving a 6 yr old alone at home

[2xx1xy1JD]

I love the blog Raising Kveller....but I don't always love everything that every blogger posts (although I do appreciate that this particular poster, Alina Adams, always gives me something to think about and causes a reaction, good or bad).

Here, Alina discusses her decision to leave her 6 yr old alone in the apartment for around 20 min/day while she takes her middle child to ballet:

http://www.kveller.com/blog/parenting/a ... ome-alone/

One factor that would influence me would be the law. Stuff happens, but if something should happen during those 20 min. and any authorities discover that a 6 yr old girl is home alone, police and child protection officials would automatically be involved.

Thoughts?

[doggie]

it is a stupid thing to do. Just saw a story of a woman leaving her 11 year old to babysit a infant. the buy was jealous of the baby and dropped it on it's head several times. mom and boy are both in jail right now.

[keen23]

I think it really depends on the kid. I personally wouldn't leave a 6 year old home alone. But, in the writer's situation, it's an apartment building, with lots of known neighbors on hand should something go wrong. I get it, it doesn't outrage me, and in her situation, it's not the end of the world.

Only this past year have I started leaving my kids home alone. But the oldest is 10, it's daylight hours only, and for never longer than an hour. There are rules and a plan should something happen. I think I was 8 or 9 when I started coming home from school to an empty house. And 11 when I was left in charge of an infant sibling- in the ages of no cell phones so hunting down my parents was difficult at best.

it is a stupid thing to do. Just saw a story of a woman leaving her 11 year old to babysit a infant. the buy was jealous of the baby and dropped it on it's head several times. mom and boy are both in jail right now.

In this situation, the babysitter child had/has obvious issues above and beyond being too young to be left home alone. It's an outlier, not the norm for an 11 year old's behavior.

The ability to have "old enough" baby sitters and to pay for them is almost an issue of class privilege. A single working mother who leaves her kids home alone so she can work so they can eat- does she get judged? Is it worse if the mom is leaving the kids home alone because she wants to go out with her friends? Just things to think about.

[debrand]

I was always told that legally a child had to be 12 to be left alone. When I was 12, I started babysitting kids around the age of 3 but I didn't watch infants until I was older.

Babysitting is part of the reason that I used birth control when I started having sex.

[dawbs]

I was always told that legally a child had to be 12 to be left alone. When I was 12, I started babysitting kids around the age of 3 but I didn't watch infants until I was older.

Babysitting is part of the reason that I used birth control when I started having sex.

It's actually not a law in many places.

It varies state to state; last I checked (we did try to find this because of a debate in my house a few years ago) my state doesn't have a minimum (and to some extent, it varies so much by child, that I wouldn't think a minimum would be incredibly useful)

That said, I've gone outside of my house (within sightline, but probably 1/4 mile down the road) while my toddler was sleeping.

It's far from my dumbest parenting move so far.

Honestly, if my child were past the "lets freak out for no real reason; panic because there is a dog hair in my mouth ARGHHHHHH" stage, I'd not panic about leaving her home and going to the corner store--assuming nothing changes (big assumption), I could imagine in 3 more years, when she's 6, that popping the mile down there for milk and popping back while she stays here wouldnt' ping my radar as being a bad idea. Obviously, YMMV.

[duplessis3]

I personally wouldn't leave a child under 10 unsupervised. You really don't know how they will react to being alone, if they will let someone in the house, if they will leave to go look for you, or try something that they aren't capable of doing alone - my mom left me alone at 6 - I was a very well behaved child. I decided to somersault down the stairs. Only my foot getting caught in the railing prevented me from crashing into the oak cabinet. And yes, I waited to try this when my mother was away because I knew she wouldn't let me do it. Kid logic rules!

[OkToBeTakei]

I was always told that legally a child had to be 12 to be left alone. When I was 12, I started babysitting kids around the age of 3 but I didn't watch infants until I was older.

Babysitting is part of the reason that I used birth control when I started having sex.

Love it :lol: To the bolded.

I too assumed there was a law and 12 also rang a bell.

It appears not in the UK either.

The law doesn’t say an age when you can leave a child on their own, but it’s an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at risk.

Children under 12 are rarely mature enough to be left alone for a long period of time

children under 16 shouldn’t be left alone overnight

babies, toddlers and very young children should never be left alone.

Personally no. I have not left my child home alone and she is 11. We have started getting her used to the idea. I have gone for coffee at a neighbours, she is now allowed to walk the 500 metres from her school to her Nana's house. She is now allowed to go to the shop, in daylight, with her phone to practice texting her whereabouts etc. In 18mths she will attend an academy that is 14 miles from home and whilst she will be ferried to and from school by the LA. We do feel 12 going on 13 is old enough that she can have a key and let herself in and wait for one of us to finish work should I choose to increase my work hours.

I think we are probably a bit overprotective and recall looking after my young cousins and being looked after by young cousins when I was young. Some kids that age are carers for their parents in some circumstances never mind younger siblings. I do think it is a knock on effect of umbrella parenting and mass media hype of all the dangers which in reality are no worse than 30 to 40 years ago.

6 years old? Not a chance in hell. But that is just me.

The McCann's thought it was just fine to leave 3 toddlers in an unlocked apartment in a supposedly safe holiday complex and sit 100-200 metres away. I find it difficult to be mean because the consequences they faced were so horrific. When anybody though says that could happen to anybody I would have to disagree, my family spent enough holidays abroad with all the grandkids now ranging in age from 21 to 11, taking turns pushing buggies around as we all ate out. I could never have taken that chance. Which is why I would never leave a 6 year old.

[1004srs]

My mature 10-year old has been told he can stay at home alone when I go grocery shopping or do a quick errand. I live in a very small country town and my parents are a few houses down from me. He hasn't wanted to take me up on it, yet.

[JesusFightClub]

Small is 6 and wanders the mean streets with various disreputable local youths, but she has two rules - don't go in anyone's house and always cross the big road by the overpass, not by trying to leg it across it. She lives on a council housing estate where everyone pretty much knows everyone else anyway.

She might get left alone for five mins in the house if her dad was in the garden, but no longer and never with the charge of smaller kids. Too many things can go wrong. I'm not thinking mad abducting peedos so much as the temptations of climbing shelves, playing with stuff you ought not to be playing with - also small children don't know what to do if something goes wrong with a younger one and shouldn't be tasked with keeping them out of trouble.

[Cran]

From the time I started school at six, I was alone for a portion of the day. I went to daycare for lunch, but was allowed to go home afterwards if it pleased me so until my mother came home in the late afternoon. Obviously, I grew up (somewhat), and I wasn't the only child to be raised that way. But what was near normal 25 years ago seems unthinkable with today's parenting.

[OkToBeTakei]

From the time I started school at six, I was alone for a portion of the day. I went to daycare for lunch, but was allowed to go home afterwards if it pleased me so until my mother came home in the late afternoon. Obviously, I grew up (somewhat), and I wasn't the only child to be raised that way. But what was near normal 25 years ago seems unthinkable with today's parenting.

TOTALLY!

Just check out a few threads here. Rear facing child car seats until age whatever. Attachment parenting. The minute detail of education, the helicopter parent. The attention to all things not 'normal' (whatever that is) the finding of labels to accommodate that which is not 'normal' (whatever that is.)

Whilst I think there are great steps in child development and our understanding of it, whilst safety and in particular in a changing landscape of high speed travel. Whilst accepted norms of discipline a la 70's Britain is no longer and nor should it be seen to be acceptable. I was 'caned' at school ....Yup.

It is a miracle we survived to be honest. I can see the aspects of my upbringing I would change...and I have, raising my own child. I agree though that to some extent we have gone WAY the other way in some aspects. Myself included.

Granted I have no issue telling my child she is not the best singer in the world. Rather have an honest discussion than some pathetic kid on X-Factor who's parents spent their formative years telling them they were JUST fabulous. I feel sorry for those kids. It seems to come as such a shock. Stupid parents.

[JesusFightClub]

Actually I was just having a conversation with a colleague recently about the "is my kid a great singer" thing. He's convinced she is (a great singer) and is going to go places in the music industry.

Never having heard her, don't know, and she could well be. But it's an interesting discussion. The biggest problem with some of this is overpraising and not recognising your child is wonderful to you and not automatically anyone else, and I think that's a fucking epidemic right now.

Here's an example (culled, unfortunately, from the Fail...but what can one do).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... looks.html

Apart from the class issues here, you can see how her kids were annoying. A toddler "singing quietly" in its mum's estimation is bloody raucous to other diners. There was one "moment of peace" where the kids looked at the menu, suggesting strongly there weren't a hell of a lot of other moments of peace when they didn't. And few people are so pissed off at the presence of kids that they complain loudly about them at every opportunity, which points to there being some issues with voice modulation.

(I'm not suggesting children be constantly silent but srsly, people with kids don't know how loud they are. I once had a memorable encounter at Ikea where a child said loudly and poshly "Look mummy, there's the lady with the silly hair" and pointed at me. I looked over and laughed, then the child said "She's cut her hair so no one can tell if she's a boy or a girl, that's silly, isn't it, mummy?" The mum made some mumbled noises and then the child stated piercingly "But you said! That's what you said! You SAID she looked silly!" Kid was about four and had three lines of shoppers staring at her and me and "mummy". :lol: )

It's all the "My kids are so great they can never do anything wrong, they always behave perfectly and they are geniuses in the making. I can also share information with them just like I would with an adult because they are my best friends and really super clever" mindset.

[ILoveJellybeans]

I wouldn't leave a 6 year old home alone for that long.

Im pretty new to parenting, having recently inherited four children after a death in the family, and I have left the kids home alone, but never as young as 6.

The oldest kid is 10. He walks home from school on his own (about a 15 minute walk) and gets home about 5-10 minutes before us. He has his own house key. I can leave him home alone for short amounts of time, maybe less than an hour. He can also be trusted to go to the shop and park by himself-both are just round the corner. I can also trust him to watch his two year old sister for short periods of the time when I am in the house but in a different room. He keeps asking to babysit properly, but I don't think he is ready to watch the baby without me being in the house.

The second oldest is 9 in a few weeks, and quite immature for his age. I have left him alone (or with his 5 year old sister) for five minutes while I run up to the shop round the corner with the baby, but wouldn't leave him for any longer than that. He can play on our street by himself, but cant go any further. He is the only morning person in the family, so when he gets up earlier than us, he is capable of going downstairs and playing quietly or turning on the TV.

The younger two I would never leave home alone. Not even for 5 minutes, they're too young.

[Conuly]

We've lived here 20 years, and we've known the neighbors usually that long. I don't always like them, but I trust them. One time the nieces left the front doors open, and one neighbor stopped to let me know they had closed the inside door for me and another two mentioned they'd watched the house to make sure nobody went in. (And one obnoxious kid said he had snuck in and the girls had a lot of dolls, but I don't believe that for an instant because a much more salient comment would be that we have a lot of books!)

And it's a fairly safe neighborhood, people leave their doors unlocked if they go to the store, kids play unsupervised in the street, so I might leave a six year old unattended while I went out to the corner store or such. If I had a choice, though, I don't think I'd leave them alone for longer than those short 10 minutes or so.

But that doesn't mean I would necessarily call child services if I heard about another child being left alone longer than that every day. I would want to know if the parents had a choice or if this was their only option to get to work, and if the kid was actually in danger. And even then, a better option than calling in the authorities might be to offer to help out, if I really thought the situation was unsafe.

In the US, laws and guidelines regarding when it is okay to leave a child unsupervised vary wildly from state to state, from 8 to 14 and, of course, many states have no guideline, which is a bit of a double-edged sword if your local social worker has this idea that kids should never be left alone, not even at age 17. (Social workers are usually not crazy, of course, but in every group of people you will find somebody who makes the rest look bad.)

mass media hype of all the dangers which in reality are no worse than 30 to 40 years ago.

In fact, most of us are safer than we were three or four decades ago.

[crazyforkate]

One of my coworkers has to leave her six-year-old twins at home, alone, the three days a week she's working. The boys are expected to be good and do their homework (and apparently they do). Unfortunately, it's an economic reality for my coworker - her husband has a punishing schedule, they both come from outside of Moscow so there's no family around, and they can't afford childcare. Their two incomes alone are barely enough for living in Moscow. I cannot imagine what it must be like to leave those twin boys by themselves.

[Miss M]

My brother and his best friend were both 9 years old, left alone for an hour at the friend's house while friend's mother went grocery shopping, the friend found his Dad's gun and shot my Brother in the right temple, my brother died instantly.

Why the fuck can't she take the 6 year old with her to drop the other one off at ballet??

[Cran]

That would be more an argument for better gun control.... don't over-control your kids, control your fucking guns!

[bucherwurm]

I don't know what I would do. My neighbourhood is safe. In the summer there are always kids playing ball hockey in the little park. We don't have any stores in this little village they can buy stuff at. I probably wouldn't leave a 6 year old alone and actually drive somewhere, but I would probably let them play outside by themselves, leave them to check the mail down the street, etc. Depending on the child obviously.

I was left alone for the summer I turned 11. My parents and my older brother were working all day. I never went places besides the yard. I was old enough and besides making some gross stuff to eat I didn't get into much trouble. I also started babysitting when I was 11. No babies, but young kids.

I'm not a parent, so I don't entirely know what I would do, but 6 seems too young, especially when she doesn't have to leave her alone.

[Conuly]

That would be more an argument for better gun control.... don't over-control your kids, control your fucking guns!

For that matter, that could have easily happened with the mother at home, unless we are seriously suggesting that the mother should follow the nine year old child from room to room staring at them all the while.

[momo27]

I have never left my six year-old daughter home alone. If I want to run out without her, she just pops over to the neighbor. Generally she comes along, she loves walking all over town. I leave my 10 year-old home alone fairly regularly, and have been for a little over a year now. We live in a secure-access apartment building, the kids know the occupants of every other unit on our floor, and he's well versed in the plan for emergencies. He's also rule follower by nature, and honest to a fault. He's never tried to do anything other than the approved activities while we're gone. The six year-old may not be able to be left on her own at that age because she is much more adventurous than her brother. She would be the one that would decide to test out her acrobatic skills, and might buzz a stranger into the building because she likes to talk to new people. Each kid is an individual and the type of responsibility they're ready for at various ages isn't set in stone.

Venturing out alone is a different matter altogether. My son has sensory sensitivities, gets easily overwhelmed when out on the street and has an extremely poor sense of direction. It will be a few more years before he'll be able to navigate our neighborhood on his own. My daughter will likely be able to go places on her own before he will.

[jjmennonite]

The unfortunate reality is that day care etc. is a privilege that most of us can access, but many parents in the world can not. I left my child alone at around 9 years old, because she hated grocery shopping.

For many parents, it is a choice much more difficult than I have ever faced: leave children in less than ideal conditions so you can work to feed them.

[NotAGangsta]

I don't know. I can't imagine leaving my 7-year-old at home alone yet, but I don't think he wants to stay home alone, either. We've talked about the possibility of staying alone for short periods when he's around 10, but it will depend on his maturity level at that point. Right now, I'm not comfortable with leaving him home alone, but we're also fortunate that we have enough family nearby that it's not been a concern yet. (And my mother thinks we're being horribly neglectful because we allow him to come downstairs and watch Disney on the weekends while we have a lie-in - it's not like he's figured out how to purchase movies on the Playboy Channel or anything :evil-eye: ). Granted, I'm not going to judge a parent who has no other choice, especially in this economy - if that became the case for us, we'd prepare my son and lay some ground rules (not saying I wouldn't worry like crazy every minute, though!)

But in the case of the woman leaving her 6 year old to take her older child to ballet, it just strikes me as lazy parenting. I don't get it. :think:

[Conuly]

But in the case of the woman leaving her 6 year old to take her older child to ballet, it just strikes me as lazy parenting. I don't get it.

Well, laziness is not a crime, and if she feels her six year old is safe enough staying home 20 minutes and that taking them along to ballet class would be much more painful for everybody, I can see that. 20 minutes is a smidge long for my tastes, but to be honest, if her kid is fairly level-headed (or is ensconced in a book or TV show during those 20 minutes), not much is likely to happen.

[NotAGangsta]

Well, laziness is not a crime, and if she feels her six year old is safe enough staying home 20 minutes and that taking them along to ballet class would be much more painful for everybody, I can see that. 20 minutes is a smidge long for my tastes, but to be honest, if her kid is fairly level-headed (or is ensconced in a book or TV show during those 20 minutes), not much is likely to happen.

Yeah, if lazy parenting was a crime, I'd be posting this from the state penitentiary. :shifty: And you make sense - 20 minutes seems long to me, too, but OTOH, it's about how long it takes my kid to watch one show on Disney or Nickelodeon. If the child's got the kind of personality where she's easily placated for that 20 minutes while her mom's gone, more power to her.

[OkToBeTakei]

Well, laziness is not a crime, and if she feels her six year old is safe enough staying home 20 minutes and that taking them along to ballet class would be much more painful for everybody, I can see that. 20 minutes is a smidge long for my tastes, but to be honest, if her kid is fairly level-headed (or is ensconced in a book or TV show during those 20 minutes), not much is likely to happen.

I totally agree lazy should not be a crime :lol:

What I do have an issue with is the fact we all have to do things we do not like in life. I'd rather teach my 6 yr old this lesson for 20 minutes once a week, rather than put them in ANY harmful situation no matter how short the time.