One question frequently asked by parents is, "How old should a child be before he can be left home alone?" Often, I'm asked this question when holidays are coming up and parents will be at work, but children won't be in school. The question is asked even more frequently as summer vacation approaches. Of course, there is no simple one-size-fits-all answer. This decision is complicated because much depends upon the individual child and also family dynamics. A parent has to consider not only whether his or her particular child is "old enough," but is ready enough to be left home alone. The issue becomes more complicated if there are younger siblings. Is the oldest child ready to stay home alone and to be "in charge of" the younger children?
Some states have laws specifying an age (e.g., 10 years) below which it is illegal to leave children alone. Other states do not set a specific age, but rather, consider the maturity level of the child. In Michigan, there is no state law specifying how old a child must be to be left alone. However, Michigan's child support laws are also used to regulate the share of child care costs that a non-custodial parent must pay. According to that law, no child care costs have to be shared after the end of the summer when the child becomes 12. Does that mean that your 12-year-old is old enough to be left alone? Does it mean that a 12-year-old can or should be left home alone with younger siblings? The real issue here is readiness. Is your child ready to stay home alone?
Click here for checklists and other information to help you decide whether your child is ready to be left home alone. See also links below to earlier posts: Home Alone Parts I, II, III, IV and V.
Home Alone: Child care and babysitter issues Part I, July 2007
Home Alone: Summer Parenting Issues and "Failure to Protect" Part II, August 2, 2007
Home Alone Part III October 4, 2007
Home Alone Part IV October 11, 2007
Home Alone Part V October 12, 2007
Home Alone Part VI Assessing Readiness July 20, 2011
Home Alone: Part VII | Leave your children home alone while you vacation? November 7, 2017
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I'm jumping into the stream here a little after the fact (a lot, actually) but I'd like to see more discussion of realistic risk assessment, and the presentation of accurate information regarding risk to kids in court when varying parental views are argued.
As Dubner point outs, parents risk their kids' lives and safety all the time; it's the decision they make every time they decide to drive a car, get on a plane, etc.
Their assessment of the true risk, however, is often lousy.
As pointed out in the original Freakonomics, the actual risk of death to a pre-teen child, from going to a friend's house with a swimming pool is provably orders of magnitude HIGHER than the risk of going to the house of a friend whose parent keeps a firearm at the house. (death rate from pools per year: roughly 1 per 11,000 pools; death rate from firearms per year; roughly 1 per 1,000,000 guns) This is NOT a comparison of differing consequences; it's deaths ONLY.
Similarly, the risk of "stereotypical abduction" is miniscule. Working from the stats cited, and comparing them to Weather Service stats, approximately as many people are killed by lightning each year in the US as children are killed in "stereotypical abductions". Both numbers are again orders of magnitude smaller than the number of kids killed on bicycles, or, as noted above, even in swimming pool drownings (about 500 per year) and far smaller still than the death rate from motor vehicle accidents.
If you're concerned about leaving your kid at a bus-stop, in mid-day, for a half hour, at age 9, then remember: in eight years, your kid may be 3000 miles away at college, or enlisted and carrying a weapon for his country overseas. The risk to your child from being afraid of the world, and lacking the coping skills to get through it, is probably objectively greater than the danger at that bus-stop.
Posted by: R Gould-Saltman | July 20, 2011 at 07:57 PM