<p>We started letting D1 stay home alone or with younger brother last summer at 17 1/2 - we might have agreed to it once she turned 17, but it never came up. We are very close to all the neighbors, but I can’t see in a year letting letting S1 be home alone overnight if I was far away.</p>
<p>By the way, in that situation, if I could get one trusted friend to stay over with my kid, I would choose that option. I’m not as opposed to the staying unsupervised as I am to the “alone” part at 15.</p>
<p>I like the trusted friend–with parents in town–option, too. The answer to the whole thing, though, is “it depends.”</p>
<p>Minny, to you it’s a horror story; to the mom of the dead girl, it’s a horrible reality.</p>
<p>You sound confident in your most recent post, but the fact that you’re asking at all indicates you aren’t 100% sure. I’d listen to your gut.</p>
<p>I second the idea that your son staying alone would not be the greatest idea . Wouldn’t you be worrying him ?</p>
<p>We were away one night to move older daughter into college last August, and had our 15 year old daughter stayed overnight with a neighbor. She stayed at our house, alone, most of the day, but had dinner and slept at the neighbor’s house. Although we felt she was responsible enough to stay alone, we didn’t want her to be lonely, especially since this was the first time older sister, to whom she is very close, was leaving home.</p>
<p>If the same situation occurred this year, I think we would still find a place for her at night. As much as she loves to have the house to herself on occasion, we again would be concerned about her loneliness.</p>
<p>We live in a safe neighborhood.</p>
<p>Tried to remember at what age I was first “alone” overnight–I’ve always had siblings, roommates, H, or kids around. For a couple months as a young adult I lived “alone”–in a double house, shared with a co-worker/close friend whom I saw/shared meals with daily–so, hardly alone. Spent one night alone in a hotel room last year. Went back to do maintenance at a house we were selling after we’d moved–slept alone there a couple nights. I was in my mid-40s. So maybe 3 nights in my life, age 45+?</p>
<p>I’m going to buck the majority here and say you know your son and he knows himself. I just can’t believe that every teenager who’s spent a night at home without parents has had an underage drinking party bust out. We’ve done it on several occasions with kid(s) around that age and it’s always been fine. We had rules about who could or could not be at the house. We have had a friend spend the night with our kid but that’s easier on a weekend. We’ve also limited our time away to what the kid was comfortable with (I think one of our kids was 17 and DH and I were trying to go to a soccer tournament–he said he’d be fine with us both gone for one night but not for two, so that’s what we did).</p>
<p>If you’re okay with it and he’s okay with it, then I think this is an opportunity for him to show how responsible he is. Is it possible for him to split the nights–one with a friend and one home alone? He could come out of it a more confident young man.</p>
<p>I have a story I think is funny. Not a true horror story, but it speaks to how kids are.</p>
<p>Our next-door neighbors have two girls. I had just taken a new job that allowed me to be home later in the morning. One day, out the kitchen window, I see the mom leave for work. One minute later, I see the older girl’s boyfriend pull up in his truck and go inside. He drove her to high school, but school didn’t start for more than an hour so there really was no good reason for him to be there. I didn’t think a lot of it. The next day, I witness the exact same thing – mom pulls out of driveway and bf comes scooting in a minute later and goes and stays in the house. The third day, when the mom gets in her car, I go out on my porch and look to the right and see the bf’s truck parked at the corner, waiting for the mom to pull out. That night, I talked to the mom and said I don’t know what your rules are and I’m not passing judgment, but I want you to know this is happening. My thinking is that if it was OK for them to be alone in the house before school he’d just come over while the mom was still there, right? She had no idea and thanked me, but I told her NOT to tell dd1 it was me who ratted her out as I was pretty close to her girls.</p>
<p>Fast forward 10 years. Neighbor mom and I were talking, and she told me about a drinking party her dd2 had had when they left her alone overnight. She said the dd snuck people in the side gate on the OTHER side of the house because neighbor mom had made the mistake of telling both girls that I was the one who ratted out dd1 and was on the watch!</p>
<p>Anyway, I love my kids. Maybe it’s because I got into things I shouldn’t have when I was their age I am suspicious. But my dh is too trusting and still is shocked when he discovers one of the boys has told us a little white lie. I’d rather air on the side of caution.</p>
<p>I say go for it. The neighbors will make sure a party won’t break out. He’ll get a small dose of independence. It will be fine.</p>
<p>My daughter started being able to stay alone for a night at 15 in a similar situation with lots of close friends nearby. She was tired of moving out for a night, and liked sleeping in her own bed.</p>
<p>Minnymom - Go with your gut feeling…am guessing since you posted here, you are on the fence. Never hurts to be on the side of caution. He’ll have many opportunities in his future to be home alone. It doesn’t sound like you “smother” him…he sounds very responsible. My only is very responsible, but when he was 16 he went to a friends house and had peppermint schnapps…he didn’t like it. Only after we discussed it the next day (long story how I found out) did he realize it was alcoholic…they hadn’t said, he hadn’t asked. So then we had to retalk about eating or drinking stuff when you don’t know what it is. Good luck!</p>
<p>First it totally depends on your kid as far as if he/she’s a rule-breaker or not. We live in an area of some very permissive parents but DS wouldn’t think twice about telling kids they could not come over even if they tried to.
Have to make sure about rules like stove/oven etc., even mature kids can get that messed up. As an adult I’ve set off the smoke alarm numerous times! of course you make sure about things like doors locked, where to go in an emergency etc.
I’d make sure a close friend/neighbor is aware that said kid is staying home alone by his choice, 100% chance that neighbor will offer to do anything that comes up if kid gets left without a ride, misses bus etc.
I can understand about the kid not wanting to be a imposition on friends, and that as long as transportation is not an issue, having them stay in their own home with their own stuff can be much easier for all involved.
And with Facebook, cell phones, texting etc., it’s not like there’s really a chance to be very lonely.
All that said, we left DS2 home for three days the week he turned 15. Flew across the country to a destination wedding. During that time DS1’s college got hit with the Tuscaloosa hurricane, our flights were delayed etc., he handled everything like a pro and it gave him tons of self-confidence. Would do it again in a heartbeat. Cell phones are a wonderful thing.</p>
<p>Last year, when we took D to college 300 miles away, we brought our oldest son along to have another driver (I don’t like driving upstate where the speed limit is over 55 and I refuse to drive H’s conversion van). We left our 3 youngest sons, then 15, 14 and 11, home alone for 2 days and nights. Our neighbor 2 doors down knew about it and we had a friend lined up who would pick them up to go to grandma’s if needed. They didn’t want to go and I didn’t want to bring the dogs so it worked out. Of course, my kids are not partyers. I don’t think I’d leave a child who partied home like that.</p>
<p>I say go for it, but first sit down with him and come up with your rules, I would include things like: No one else in the house after 10 pm, before 10pm only these kids (list them by name), you will call every night at this time, but you can call at any time, dogs must be walked, lights, etc. (include these things so he knows that you are setting house rules, not just trying to control him). WRITE THEM DOWN. Give him a list of phone numbers, doctor, neighbors, your hotel. Give both the rules and the phone numbers to the neighbors.</p>
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<p>I will admit I haven’t read every post this time but I totally agree with the above statement. I will not leave my almost 20 year old home alone for this reason. While I totally trust him, I don’t trust all the other kid’s his age. Not only will your kid’s friends show up but if kids at other area high schools find out, they will also show up whether they know your child or not. Teenagers are always on the lookout for a parent-free place to hang out. It is very, very difficult for a teenager to tell his peers what they can and can not do. Over the last 5 years, several of son’s friends have been in this situation and when the neighbors call the police, your child will be the one in trouble and you, yourself might find yourself in hot water legally. I wouldn’t do it. Too big a risk.</p>
<p>^^^I have raised 2 teenagers, I have never heard of that with my kids’ friends. It is a bizarre concept to me.</p>
<p>^^^In my area, it is a routine concept.</p>
<p>My son had a friend whose father often went on business trips to interesting cities and whose mother liked to accompany him. When one of these occasions arose, the parents would call the grandmother, who lived in another state, about a 4-hour drive away, and ask her to stay with the two teenage children. If Grandma couldn’t come, the mother wouldn’t go on the trip. If Grandma could come, one of the parents would drive 8 hours round trip to pick her up and bring her to their home so she could stay with the kids during the trip. And they would drive another 8 hours to bring her home when the trip was over. (Grandma herself was no longer up to highway driving.)</p>
<p>Grandma was not required to do anything on such occasions except to be present in the home to discourage teenagers from congregating there. I don’t even think she cooked. She just hung around. Her services were greatly appreciated, even by the kids, who would otherwise have had difficulty preventing a spontaneous and potentially destructive party from taking place in their home.</p>
<p>my 17 year old daughter would not want to be home alone. She just stopprd caring about that just for the evening. Now that my older D is 20 I would leave them. But at 15 no. I dont always worry about them, but other people and I just wouldnt take the chance. the age is rather borderline.</p>
<p>Your kid would have to actually open the door for people to come in, right? Why would they do that?</p>
<p>When D2 was younger, she went through a phase where she was afraid of the dark (10-12) and was afraid to be by herself at home. I still remember D1 dragging her every where whenever we weren’t home. Sometimes when D1 had to go away over night, she would remind us not to leave D2 at home by herself. At some point, D2 grew out of it.</p>
<p>I’m a pretty liberal mom but I don’t think I’d have left any of my 5 Ds alone at 15. I think each of them was 17 before we left them on their own, and the times we did, the one who was staying home had a friend come stay with them. Fortunately, they’re all long past that stage and I don’t have to worry about that anymore.</p>
<p>Zoosermom, I was reading about that poor child in Brooklyn. Stories like that break my heart. Those kind of ‘fateful’ occurrences that result in endless ‘what ifs’, they just make me so sad. Like that poor dad who was killed at the baseball game in Texas. A couple of weeks ago, a young police officer in Toronto with two very young children stopped a speeding minivan at 4 a.m. The driver was 15, as were his passengers. The officer reached in to turn the van off and get the keys, and the kid took off, with the officer caught in the window. The van lost control and rolled, critically injuring the officer, who managed to call in a report, including that the kids may also be injured, before dying on the way to the hospital. The 15 year old driver is now a paraplegic and those two tiny babies have no dad. These kind of stories really do haunt me. You just want to push the rewind button and start over. :(</p>