Children Home Alone
At what age can a child be left home alone?
It varies from state to state, but usually you're looking at about fourteen. They normally don't let kids that are under the age of fourteen or what everyone calls 'latch-key' children, have long periods of time where they're waiting for their parents to come home. These are kids, often who have to make there own dinner, they have to make sure they do their own homework, because that's the situation in their family. They just can't afford a baby-sitter, or can't be where they need to be for their kids. But one of the things that I would go on, more than age, is maturity, because people usually use an age level to decide whether or not a child can stay home, and I know, literally, I know twelve-year-olds that are so street-smart that they would have no problem being alone. Even though they should be a little bit older than that, the law constitutes. The other side of the coin is, I know eighteen and twenty-year-olds that are so gullible that you'd never want to leave them alone. And the law says that they're perfectly fine and they're adults. So don't just go, you want to fallow the law. You want to call your own state to find out how young a person can be to be left home alone. But more than that their maturity levels involved. You really need to know whether or not they can take care of themselves.
How long can I leave my child home alone?
It depends on their age and on what state you're in. If you're expecting a child to take care of themselves while you're off for the weekend for two or three days, I would say that that's not a very good idea. If you have teenage kids that are 16 or 17 and you're going to go do something and you're going to trust them with the house for the weekend, it does happen. It depends on your relationship with the child and their level of maturity. I would always check. I'd make sure that my house is constantly being visited by neighbors and friends and relatives and anybody else who can come and check on what's going on.
How can I make my home safe before I leave my child alone?
You want to remove all of the dangerous objects that would normally be there before you leave a child home alone. If you have alcohol in the house and you don't want your kids to get hold of it make sure you move it. Put it some place where there's no way they can get a hold of it. There's a lot of firearms problems because parents have a lot of guns across the country. And depending on what state you live in and depending on what city, it is very commonplace to have loaded firearms in the house. A lot of times kids are out shooting with their parents and they know more about guns than their parents do. But, I would remove all the objects that could be outwardly dangerous to children before you leave them home alone. The other things you would like to do is set boundaries about where they can and can't go. If you don't want them getting hold of your other car and they know where the car keys are, then make sure the car keys aren't there. Take away everything you possibly can to take away the temptation for some problem to occur when you're away. Another thing you can do to ensure your child's safety when they're home alone is to make sure that any scheduled maintenance or people that might be coming over to the house do not come over when your children are home alone. If you have a swimming pool that needs to be taken care of, if you have a gardener, if you have any electrical work that needs to be done, if you call the cable company to come over there and repair your television set. When your children are home alone, don't have anybody come over for any type of maintenance that would normally come over.
What home safety rules should I teach my child before leaving him alone?
The main safety rules to teach your child before leaving him home alone is to not come into contact with anyone who they should not be in contact with. For instance, don't answer the door, and don't give out information over the phone. You want to be able to test them to see if they actually will do that. The main things are that you don't want to tell somebody over the telephone how long the child's going to be home alone and that's what the bad guys are trying to find out. Is there a parent there, how long will it take until they come back? So you want to be sure that they never give out that information. Secondly, letting anyone in the house; that is the worst thing of all. So you want to make sure that they never, ever open the door for anyone. If it's the next door neighbor or one of their best friends then they're going to know their voice. They also have the ability to look outside through the peep-hole and see them; they're going to know it's okay. But, somebody they don't know, I would absolutely make sure they understand that those people are not there to be their friends and if they're trying to get into your house they're lying to you about why they want to be there because no one is authorized. We didn't order any pizza, we didn't order anything to come to the front door. There is no reason for you to ever open the door and they need to know that.
How can I help my child learn safety rules?
When you teach kids about safety, and there are things that are potentially life-threatening about, for example, strangers that may come in contact with them, I actually test them. The way I would do that is if you can get kids to come with you by using a variety of different lies. You can say, "Your mom got hurt in a car accident and she's in the hospital and she asked me to come get you." Nine out of ten kids, depending on the age, will get in your car and go with you. There's many ways to trick kids. I would go onto our website, I would download that information about what tricks paedophiles use and predators use to get hold of kids. After they learn it, I'd test them. I'll send people my kids don't know to school and see if they can pick them up. I'll do that if they're at the mall. If they don't fall for it, then you know it, and if they do fall for it, it's a good idea that it's not somebody who's actually going to hurt them. Then you can sit down with them and say, "Now, this is a friend of mine that you don't know, that just talked you into getting into their car. This could be very dangerous for you, because most people that are coming in contact with you that want to take you somewhere aren't doing it for your benefit." You need to explain to them why, and explain to them what to do about it. I test them. I don't just say, "Here's the safety information. Tell me the right answer." I'll test them and see if they really will.
