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Ask Dr. Sue
LEAVING CHILDREN ALONE
Dear Dr. Sue,
I have heard that there is a legal age at which a child
can be left alone. What is that age in Washington?
When do you think it is OK to leave a child home alone
as a regular thing
after school?
Dear Parent,
The laws governing "abandoning or
endangering a child" do vary from state to state.
In Oregon, the allowable age to leave a child home alone
is 10 years old, as long as the child is mentally and
physically competent to take care of himself. In
Texas, the law is worded in a way that requires
knowledge of the child and the situation and allows for
the variability that really does exist between children
of the same age. Their law is as follows: a
person is breaking the law IF, "having custody, care or
control of a child younger than 15 years, he
intentionally leaves the child in any place under
circumstances that expose the child to an unreasonable
risk." This seems to be the most logical approach
to the problem. As far as I have been able to
ascertain, there is no law on the Washington books
regarding a specific age at which it is legally OK to
leave a child at home, either. Rather, it is the
responsibility of the parent to insure that the child is
in a safe setting.
As far as the WISDOM of leaving a child alone (and
wisdom and law are certainly not always synonymous!),
that is extremely variable depending on the child and
the setting. There are a
number of fourteen year olds who should always have some
degree of supervision, and I have known a few eight year
olds that I would trust alone as long as they had strict
instructions and
someone checking in by phone on a regular basis.
The first thing to consider is your child's level of
maturity, as well as any problems with impulsiveness or
poor judgment he might have demonstrated in the past.
Of course, every child
will make the wrong choice at times, but I'm talking
about a repeated pattern of poor choices. If
stressful situations have arisen while you were home,
how has he handled those? Does he tend to panic
and fall apart, or does he participate in the
brain-storming and problem solving that goes on when
crises come up? Is he a worrier, or does he tend
to be easily frightened? Will he be the type to
faithfully follow some strict and important rules about
being home alone? (More about those later.)
Less important than his safety, but still important, are
the issues of what he will be doing while home alone.
Kids left unsupervised at home do tend to spend more
time watching television and playing video games than
children whose parents are available to sometimes
redirect them. Be sure to leave some simple chores
that he can do, and set an expectation that his homework
will be done while he is waiting at home, so that the
evenings can be family time. The other huge
consideration is the setting, both within and outside
the home. Can you make your home a safe place to
stay?
Do you have a natural gas stove that even the
best-intentioned child might leave on accidentally?
Do you have a swimming pool? Are there any
firearms reachable? (REALLY? YOU SHOULD KNOW
BETTER THAN THAT BY NOW....LOCK THOSE THINGS UP TODAY,
WHETHER YOUR CHILD STAYS HOME ALONE OR NOT!!!!) Do
you have beer in the refrigerator,
or hard liquor in the cupboard - if so, get rid of it
before your child is there unsupervised. Is your
neighborhood safe? Are there some neighbors close
by that you and your child both trust that
can be reached during the day?
If you do decide that your child and the setting are
both well-suited to his staying at home unsupervised,
sit down with him and discuss the rules that will have
to be strictly adhered to. These rules will vary
from household to household, but might include the
following:
1. No hanging around with friends outside the house
until parents are home (two or more kids can come up
with bad ideas more easily than one. Besides one
study done in a Connecticut suburb in 1991 showed that
kids who "hung around" with friends had lower school
achievement, more behavior problems, and experimented
more with substance abuse than either the supervised
kids OR the kids who stayed home ALONE in their houses.)
2. Always take the same route home from school, and make
an "I'm home" call to a place that the parent can get
the message, even if they aren't there the moment the
call comes in. Your child also needs to know to
NEVER enter the house if the door is open, or if
something else looks amiss. (They should go to that
trusted neighbor's house and discuss the situation with
them.)
3. Keep the door locked at all times, and never open the
door to anyone while the parents aren't home. This
could be modified to "no-one but grandma," or whatever
you choose, but children should not have their friends
coming over while you're not home, and should certainly
NEVER open the door to a stranger.
4. If the phone rings, either let the answering machine
pick it up, or, if the call is for a parent, say "They
can't come to the phone right now, can I take a message
and have them call you back?"
You should also post any emergency numbers your child
might need, including 911, the safe neighbor's house,
your work number, and any others you can think of.
 
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