<p>I trust myself, but sometimes my evil alter ego does these kinds of dastardly things.</p>
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<p>One of the most interesting phenomenons I have observed is the secrecy around the whole ‘parents away, teens have massive party’ incidences.</p>
<p>In many case, these parents never know that it’s occurred in their home. At times, other parents are aware of that an unsupervised party took place but are too afraid to say something to a parent they perceive as permissive. Why? Because usually those parents get very defensive that ‘little Johnny would never do such a thing’. When you think about it, it often serves the parents’ purpose, which is to be able to go away and not have to find a place for their grumbling child to stay. Permissive parents really don’t like other parents to point that out to them, often times preferring to stay in denial.</p>
<p>Secondly, teenagers almost never tell their parents that they were at a party at someone’s house when the parents were out of town. To do so would be to commit social suicide at worse or be restricted from hanging with those friends at best. When the police descend upon the party, the teens scatter like roaches and only those who caught get caught in the dragnet have to tell their parents.</p>
<p>Does it happen every single time a teen is left home alone? Of course, not. It might only occur 20% of the time, who knows? Odds might be your kid wouldn’t end up in that situation but you’re still taking a risk that they might. Every one of my son’s friends who ended up with a massive party will tell you they only invited a few friends over but that word got out and there were many party-crashers and things got out of control very quickly. This happened to me as a teen and if you believe your teen has the ability to prevent it then you don’t understand the social mores of teens.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t assume just because you never heard of such a thing that it didn’t occur and that your kids weren’t among the party-goers. It’s true that some kids have such tiny social circles that they might not ever get invited to such a party but I wouldn’t automatically assume that about your kid unless you are 100% sure you were 100% aware of their whereabouts of every minute of every day. Teens are notoriously secretive - even those who appear to tell their parents everything.</p>
<p>And, IMHO, not leaving your teenager at home alone overnight is not tantamount to coddling them. It’s matter of personal safety, personal liability and minimizing one’s risk. There are plenty of other ways a teen can experience independence.</p>
<p>We let the kids stay home alone at 16. At that point they had jobs and couldn’t always come with us when we went to the cottage. In every case (and until they left for college) I always told the neighbors we were leaving and the kid(s) were home alone and they should absolutely call if anything untoward was taking place. We told the kids they could not have more than a couple friends over at night. </p>
<p>I knew darn well we were opening the door to a potential problem, but the kids knew that if a problem occurred they would never be left home alone again. And the first time with the oldest was a leap of faith. I also checked in at random times and they darn well knew they had to answer their cell phones. When they were sixteen we took all the car keys so they couldn’t drive and told the neighbors in case they had a medical emergency and we always have a medical release form on file at our physician and at the hospital because of sports etc. and the fact that our jobs are quite a distance from the kids during the day. At 17 we let them keep the car keys. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t be at all surprised if things occurred that I wouldn’t like but no one ever ‘caught’ them, there was never any evidence and sometimes ignorance is bliss. The worse things that happened with our wild child oldest happened when we were home, not away. I think all the kids genuinely appreciate this small freedom. It’s probably why I’ve survived raising 2 boys to adulthood and have almost survived the third.</p>
<p>I have a cousin who was left alone at 16 and subsequently attempted to contact a hooker.</p>
<p>^^ That is horribly funny but dangerous in this age of STDs and who knows what.</p>
<p>Shaggy, I saw that movie!</p>
<p>How many people here wouldn’t know if their kid threw a party while you were away? You would have to be pretty clueless not to know (sorry). I know which picture frame or furniture my housekeeper dusted or not. My kids know it would be death for them to have people pver without our permission. Unless my kids could make sure people wouldn’t touch anything in our home, they wouldn’t think of trying to hide a party from us.</p>
<p>Frankly, there are enough parents who are willing to serve alcohol at parties that those teenagers do not need to wait for any “home alone” to have a party. To take away any liabilites, a lot of those parents are throw parties at clubs.</p>
<p>My worry of leaving a 15 year old at home would be an unforseen emergency - fire, theft, illness, nature disaster. In our case, we had grandparents and friends close by just in case.</p>
<p>We’ve all seen Risky Business, right?</p>
<p>So, we’ve decided that 15&1/2 year old DS will sleep at best friend’s house- 2 blocks away, but will come home each morning to care for dog and collect newpaper before riding bike to school, then again each afternoon to play with dog, get mail, do homework. Eating dinner at home will be optional, then crate dog and sleep at friend’s house. If he is responsible with these tasks, next time he can stay in house all night.</p>
<p>As weird as this sounds I have one adult son that I would not feel comfortable leaving in my house…he would leave the burner on or forget toast in the toaster oven and start a fire. Heck he was home studying during a break last year, and he had ear plugs in and the fan going for black out noice, and he never heard the fire detector go off. This is the son working over seas right now…I asked him not to wear ear plugs while doing any kind of reading or deep concentration. </p>
<p>If you have a very responsible son and great neighbors on both sides it should be fine. I have to say that I am not sure if I could do it.</p>