Is Your Child Ready to Stay Home Alone?
There are many milestones in the lives of our children, but it might be hard for us as parents to know when our child is ready for the milestone of staying home alone. The first thing every parent should do is check with state laws regarding the minimum age your state has set for kids to stay home alone . Illinois requires children under age 14 to have supervision, while other states like Minnesota don’t have any age minimums. Some other states give age minimum guidelines, but do not have actual laws in place for safe guarding kids. Once you make sure that you are following the legal rules for this step towards independence (for both you and your child), there are other things to consider.
Age vs. Maturity – Age might be a legal issue in your state, but it does not necessarily mean that a child is prepared for the responsibility. Maturity levels and emotional intelligence are all components in determining the right time for your child to make this step. If you don’t feel your 14 year old is responsible, you don’t have to let her stay home alone just because the law allows it.
Location – Not every family lives in a cozy neighborhood, at the circle drive with caring neighbors on all sides. Make sure you take into account the external environment that will be enveloping your child.
Prior Behaviors – You know your child and past behaviors have taught you what you can expect when your child is left alone. She should have a track record of making good decisions and possessing critical thinking skills that enable her to assess situations and independently decide right from wrong, safe from dangerous, and acceptable from “mom would not be happy”.
Preparing Them for Safe Success
These considerations require you as the parent to objectively look at the situation and determine if your child is really ready for this milestone. If you feel your child has a history of mature decision making skills, balanced by an appropriate age, then there are other things you can do to make staying home alone a safe option.
Start with a Short Amount of Time
The first several occasions your child stays home alone should be for short periods of time. You might even want to just leave him home alone in the house while you take 15 minutes to walk to the post office and back. One to two hours is a good limit to set for leaving your child home alone until there is a pattern of safe and responsible behaviors while you are away.
Choose the Best Time of Day
The time of day your child will be home alone can greatly impact her safety and security, as well as your own comfort levels. Night time, or even a winter day when it is dark by 5:00, can add heightened levels of worry and fear, so allowing your child to stay home alone during daylight hours is best, especially when this is a new experience.
Stay within Range
It is important for those first few times to remain within close range of home so that if your child becomes anxious and wants you to return you are able to do so in a reasonable amount of time.
Plan for a Boring Time
When you leave your child home alone you should set boring and mundane guidelines – it helps to reiterate that this is not a wild and crazy time when Mom and Dad are away.
- Do not allow your child to use the stove or oven to prepare food.
- Plan for your child to eat before or after her time alone, but not during. Eating presents just one more hazard – choking – that can be avoided by limiting meals and snacks while home alone.
- Keep it a solitary event. If you have other children it is best not to leave your oldest child alone with them as a babysitter before she has stayed home by herself. Build up to that extra responsibility over time.
- No internet access while home alone. It is too easy for kids to get sucked into games and social media sites, leaving them unaware of their surroundings and at risk for inappropriate online content.
- Set guidelines for phone use. In our home our children don’t answer the phone when they are home alone, but instead listen to voicemail and if it is us we ask them to pick up. Otherwise we stick with texting back and forth to stay connected.
- Don’t have them open the door for anyone. It is just easier to let them ignore the doorbell or knocking than to add the extra responsibility of determining how to safely respond to any multitudes of people on the other side, from salesmen, to neighbors, to someone lost and looking for directions.
- Role play scenarios with your child. Give him a hypothetical situation and see what his reaction might be. These could range from leaking pipes, to a smoke detector going off for no apparent reason, to a relentless knocking at the door by a stranger.
Letting our kids stay home alone, especially for the first time, can fill us with anxiety and worry. However, we can help prepare them for this milestone by giving them the tools they need for safe success. When our kids are ready for the challenge, they need this opportunity to further their independence and increase their self-reliance. We can’t follow them around for the rest of their lives (even though we might want to at times), so teaching them to be self-sufficient is one of the best gifts we can give our kids.
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