<p>true confession…I would feel uncomfortable leaving my now 20 year old daughter alone, unsupervised, in our house if we were out of town for 10 days.</p>
<p>She lives in a dorm at NYU in the middle of Soho and I do not spend nights worrying about her whereabouts. She drinks occassionally but seems to make wise choices and is mature and responsible.</p>
<p>Last spring we did go to the Caribbean with our younger D for a week while older D remained back at school. It was fine.</p>
<p>But I did feel that if anything happened in our absence that she was NYU’s responsiblility and that she was surrounded by people she knew and had a network of friends/RA staff/ faculty, and even a security guard in her dorm “looking out for her.”</p>
<p>That is not the case if I left her in our home alone for 10 days. Since she is a minor we are ultimately responsible for any drinking etc. that could go on in our house. I would not want it known that she had access to an unsupervised house for 10 days if she were staying home alone there. As other poster’s have said, it is her friends and friends of friends that you have to watch out for. Over Christmas break there were still too many instances of kids getting really drunk and causing damage to homes. And yes, we are talking college age kids. There are many times during the summer when her plans for the evening started out with one or two friends and ended with a group of 10 or more kids back at our house. That is all good and I am talking about good kids…but I don’t want them in my house unsupervised for 10 days!</p>
<p>I also say “no” for all of the above reasons and one not mentioned: what if he gets hurt, needs medical attention or ends up in a hospital? I don’t want someone else making life or death decisions regarding my minor child, and at age 17, I’m not sure the hospital would do anything other than emergency life-saving measures.</p>
<p>When we had to leave our senior D for an extended length of time, she would either stay with a friend or stay at home to study every day after school, but go to the neighbors to eat dinner and to sleep every night. The house gets kind of spooky at night when you are by yourself (maybe I should hire a sitter for ME!).</p>
<p>Lots of good points here and I think my plan fits in well with most of the advice. Certainly there is a range of reasonable plans to fit a range of different kids, families, neighborhoods and communities. Thanks to those who shared their experiences and opinions; that was helpful. I’m not kidding. :p</p>
<p>At 20 I still would not leave my S home alone in my house. Not that he needs care but I don’t want to chance a party happening at my house. Or even if he would have his 2 best friends over I don’t trust that one of them wouldn’t think it was a good idea to jump in the pool from the patio roof.
When we had to gone for a couple of days I had a friend who needed a place to stay come and take care of our dogs. That way someone was in the house. I don’t think my son even realized that the person was staying there so he wasn’t alone in the house.</p>
<p>I would have left my older D alone once she was out of HS. She has more commonsense. I would not have left her alone when she was in HS.</p>
<p>If your child were to be (god forbid) injured or ill, who would authorize care on his behalf. You need to either have someone stay at your house or send him to a friends. </p>
<p>You also need a healthcare permission proxy-- not to mention, $, and a way to contact you if there is a problem with the house</p>
<p>If your gut says no, listen to it. They’ll be gone soon enough!</p>
<p>Many, many years ago when I was in HS my parents left me age 17,my sister age 15 alone with my 12 yr old brother. The water heater broke and flooded the garage. We could not reach our parents. Luckily we had an older married sister close by whose H knew what to do.</p>
<p>You may be putting your kid in a very awarkard situation, because the same friends will be the ones who say lets have a couple of people over because your parent’s aren’t home. Things may start out innocently enough, but they can take on a life of their own.</p>
<p>I have had to deal with a myriad of things that come to my offfice as an aftermath of students and parent’s home.</p>
<p>Kids having hookey party’s and hanging out in the parent’s home.</p>
<p>Underaged kid having sex in someone’s home, parent’s bringing statutory rape charges against other kids.</p>
<p>What starts out as innocent get togethers that get out of control, because someone brings alcohol to the house.</p>
<p>Kids getting arrested becasue police go to the house for a noise complaint, another kid brought drugs (weed), everyone in the house gets arrested.</p>
<p>Remember that you could legally responsible for anything that happens in your home, if someone gets drunk, hurt or worse.</p>
<p>If possible to let your kids stay with family or friends, I would advise that. Then have a trusted adult come by, pick up mail and check the house.</p>
<p>I would STRONGLY advise against leaving a HS student home alone while out of the country for 10 days, for all the reasons above.</p>
<p>I know someone who visited HI this summer with one of his kids & booked a motel in the hometown for the other child who was 20-years-old; just too much peer pressure for the child to be home alone.</p>
<p>A friend in her early 20s had the folks leave the country for a wonderful two-week tour. She “housesat” her younger HS senior brother in the family. She ended up being called in to the HS because of a disciplinary issue that the school felt was very serious. She handled it with the school & younger brother, as the responsible older sib.</p>
<p>When in doubt, do yourself & your child a favor & provide an alternative that will allow everyone to breathe & sleep easier! Nowadays, there are just too many temptations and it’s really a difficult position to put a young person in.</p>
<p>That said, I do know a family who DOES leave their teen kid and kids home alone when they go on (generally short) trips and nothing bad has happened that any of us are aware of. All of their kids are very responsible, but they always tell everyone about their plans and many of us stop by the house at random times to check on things, bring and offer food, etc.</p>
<p>I think you have to think of all the what ifs (bad weather, illnesses, problems at school, etc). I would want someone a bit more than a house sitter, rather someone I would trust to take a sick child to the doctor, arrange a house repair, etc. I would want someone to make sure the house ran smoothly, so my child could continue to focus on school.</p>
<p>Perhaps a single friend of the family or a friend of a friend of the family might work for you.</p>
<p>we left my son (17 - senior year) alone for 5 days while we flew cross-country. i was nervous about it since we’d never left him before, but it was important that we go.</p>
<p>we spoke with him every day, have family 40 minutes away who spoke with him every day, and who hung out with him over the weekend. we made it clear that no friends were allowed in the house while we were gone, and gave him a set of emergency numbers. nothing happened, and he really enjoyed having the responsibility. neither he nor his friends are partiers, so i wasn’t worried about that. if he had a problem, my sister or brother could have reached him in 40 minutes or less, and we have a neighbor/friend who was alerted as well in case of emergency.</p>
<p>that being said, wouldn’t leave him at home if we were out of the country, and 10 days seems too long to me (5 days seemed long). a big part of this is knowing your kid’s (and friends) maturity level, preparing for any issues that might arise, and having adults in the area as backup.</p>
<p>No! Don’t do it! Even if he’s a good kid! Don’t do it! Speaking from experience! Parties, alcohol, DUIs, things happen that your kid won’t be able to control. My inlaws received a call from the H.S. principal when they had gone away overnight. One of my stepsons drove a kid home who was too drunk to drive his own car. (I wasn’t in the picture yet.) Guess which one got the DUI? If you are overseas how quickly can you come home if he has an emergency?</p>
<p>At this point I’m thinking this thread is more discussion than advice since I have already formulated a plan:
</p>
<p>We can’t take him because he’s taking an AP-laden courseload that won’t withstand such an absence–he recognizes this. Also, he is an anchor of his academic challenge team which has a meet during the time we’ll be gone and he has two musical performances (adjudicated–that we are not allowed to attend) that he’s working hard on. </p>
<p>The mommy guilt is, I think, based largely on taking a vacation without him for the first time. I wouldn’t do it if DH didn’t need it so badly and if DH’s ability to take such a trip weren’t about to change (because of work) quite drastically. I know this trip is what’s best for the family as a whole, even if might not be best for DS (although he’s fine with it), so off we go. DS is in on the plan and comfortable with it–plus we have a month to fine-tune and get everything in place. Also, Authorization to Treat Minor forms, itinerary’s, etc. are a given and one of my friends-in-charge (for the weekdays he’ll not be staying at friends) lives 20 steps across my driveway and another is an empty-nester retired nurse he’s known all his life and who lives 9 minutes away.</p>
<p>If your student is responsible and mature, leaving him home alone would be fine. I would have done that with my younger S when he was in h.s., but would not have done that with my older S. If your gut is saying just “maybe,” find a responsible adult to stay with him.</p>
<p>Sounds like you have a great plan and will have a wonderful trip! Glad you’ve worked it out and good that your son is happy with the plan as well!</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, my parents have left me and my brother home alone for weeks at a time.</p>
<p>The first time was for 2 weeks during the school year when I was 16, a sophomore in high school, and my brother was 14, in 8th grade. They were just a couple states over.</p>
<p>Nothing. Asked the neighbors to check in on us, make sure we had food and were getting to school, but they rarely did and we knew who to ask if we needed anything.</p>
<p>The most recent, prior to my moving out for good, was 6 weeks in the summer when I was 20 and my brother was 18; they went to Singapore. It was fine. They checked in every other day or so, made sure we had grocery money, and that was that.</p>
<p>Not all of us make bad choices or have friends (or friends of friend of friends, etc.) who will make bad choices for us, even when the situation seems prime for disaster. </p>
<p>That said, your solution seems just fine to me! It’s all about what works best for your family.</p>
<p>I agree with the no’s. And I have really responsible kids also. I would worry about appendicitis or another medical emergency. We have an older home and I would worry about a house emergency–broken pipe, heat or air breakdown, something electrical. And finally, I would worry about so called friends who got wind of the news that parents would be gone. You would be surprised what kind of stupid things kids at this age think they can do or get away with. Not your kids or mine (wink) but their friends. It just takes ONE IMMATURE friend of a friend to show up and ruin it.</p>
<p>We went out of town for a weekend when son was 19 and just finishing his winter break home freshman year. He asked if her could have a few friends over for a few hours and I said okay if it was just a few. Big mistake and one I won’t make again - I wish I’d had CC then. A few “good kids” came over but they did not keep their plans to themselves. In this day and age of cell phones, word of a house with no parents home gets out to scores of people within minutes. At least a hundred people descended on our house – people he didn’t know or want – and he had to call the police. Some people got let into the house before he realized he should barricade the doors. He ran around locking bedroom doors and putting valuables in them, but still a few things were stolen. People who didn’t get in the house milled around the property. Of course, they trashed the place. I never saw exactly how badly because he and a few friends spent the whole next day cleaning but my neighbors said it was bad. It never happened again. We all learned a valuable lesson, but it was very upsetting at the time. A home without adults is a target in the teen world. If I leave a college age kid home now, they are under strict orders not to tell people their parents are out of town and they can’t have anyone over. It’s just too hard to stop people once they show up. After this happened to us, I heard lots of other stories – even stories where parents were home but the same thing happened and it quickly got out of their control. It’s apparently a very big problem in some communities.</p>