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Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

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    #16
    Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

    The two Amish girls were just kicking it and got kidnapped the other day. One was 12. Just scooped them right up and gone.
    Satan is my spirit animal

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      #17
      Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

      I found this: http://blogs.extension.iastate.edu/s...ay-home-alone/

      I think they have a pretty reasonable list of questions to ask. One thing they don't have on there is neighborhood. And yea, I know that has to be a factor. If you live in a really bad neighborhood, you may want to wait until the kid is older, no matter how mature they are. I can understand that. But if a six year old can meet the guidelines they present, I don't see why they couldn't be home on their own for a little while.
      We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now. -Anne Bishop, Daughter of the Blood

      I wondered if he could ever understand that it was a blessing, not a sin, to be graced with more than one love.
      It could be complicated; of course it could be complicated. And it opened one up to the possibility of more pain and loss.
      Still, it was a blessing I would never relinquish. Love, genuine love, was always a cause for joy.
      -Jacqueline Carey, Naamah's Curse

      Service to your fellows is the root of peace.

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        #18
        Originally posted by Medusa View Post
        The two Amish girls were just kicking it and got kidnapped the other day. One was 12. Just scooped them right up and gone.
        I don't think this scenario is related to the age at which they are home alone though, this could happen to anyone, even me at 23.
        ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

        RIP

        I have never been across the way
        Seen the desert and the birds
        You cut your hair short
        Like a shush to an insult
        The world had been yelling
        Since the day you were born
        Revolting with anger
        While it smiled like it was cute
        That everything was shit.

        - J. Wylder

        Comment


          #19
          Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

          Originally posted by Medusa View Post
          The two Amish girls were just kicking it and got kidnapped the other day. One was 12. Just scooped them right up and gone.
          Bad things happen.

          Bad things happen because there are bad people in the world, bad things happen because people make bad choices, and bad things happen because of stochasticity--pure chance.

          At some point, parents need to teach their children how to be independent and self-sufficient. IMO, this is best done step by step in a way that slowly and steadily increases their autonomy and their responsibility in response to demonstrated ability--in calculated risk, rather than coddling them their entire life until you kick the bucket or coddling them until you kick them out the door to sink or swim. But either way, bad things still happen. They will happen whether a person is 2 or 12 or 22 or 52. They will happen whether the parents are around or not. And they will happen even when (or because) children are following the rules they have been taught by their parents, who thought they were teaching their children the right thing.

          When bad things happen, its usually from a family member...after family, its most likely to come from someone trusted by the family--teacher, coach, clergy, peers, etc. But instead, parents invest their energies freaking their kids out over the (relatively rare, statistically speaking) myth of stranger danger (whether it be in person or on the internet) and teaching them that the world is a scary and dangerous place to be afraid of, even though crime has been on the decline since the 90's, for a variety of reasons. What parents *should* be doing, is teaching their children about risk--what it is in general and what specific risks are for where they live and what they do, how to determine how risky something may be, how to mitigate or manage risk (how to make something less risky), and when to decide that the reward is not worth the risk. This means letting kids make mistakes, letting them them fail, and even letting them get hurt so that they can learn and grow.

          And that means that parents need to evaluate their children's abilities and personalities and take the chance and that the lessons and values they have imparted to their children will stick, even when they aren't watching (the real reason for a giant pic of mom and dad in the living room, lol). You can wait til they are 17 or 18 (or longer) and hope to hell it takes, or you can start at 7 or 8 (or younger) in small doses and send them off, as confident in their abilities as they are, because you've seen the choices they make when given the responsibility for their decisions.
          Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
          sigpic

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            #20
            Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

            Really depend on the kid, how he usually behave and the degree of maturity. But personally I wouldn't in any case, you just don't know what can happen and a 7 years old may not be expected to handle safety precautions and emergency situations adequatly yet. I would go for a baby-sitter, at least I would feel more comfortable in knowing that someone is watching over my child and can react more effectively to a crisis or some unusual occurances.
            Last edited by Wonder; 17 Aug 2014, 19:19.

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              #21
              Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

              Thal. I'm all for teaching independence. But at some point in a child's life you have to realize they are just children. And not small adults.

              Why not just give a five year old some gas in a bottle and hope for the best?
              Satan is my spirit animal

              Comment


                #22
                Originally posted by Medusa View Post
                Thal. I'm all for teaching independence. But at some point in a child's life you have to realize they are just children. And not small adults.

                Why not just give a five year old some gas in a bottle and hope for the best?
                While I agree, I also think we treat people like kids for too long. 18 year olds aren't treated like adults (one example is expected sexual maturity, from the other thread) and we are putting new "ages" in. Its not just child, teen, adult. Now its child, tween, teen, youth, young adult, then eventually you get adult.

                Course this isnt related to 7 year olds
                ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

                RIP

                I have never been across the way
                Seen the desert and the birds
                You cut your hair short
                Like a shush to an insult
                The world had been yelling
                Since the day you were born
                Revolting with anger
                While it smiled like it was cute
                That everything was shit.

                - J. Wylder

                Comment


                  #23
                  Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

                  Originally posted by Heka View Post
                  While I agree, I also think we treat people like kids for too long. 18 year olds aren't treated like adults (one example is expected sexual maturity, from the other thread) and we are putting new "ages" in. Its not just child, teen, adult. Now its child, tween, teen, youth, young adult, then eventually you get adult.

                  Course this isnt related to 7 year olds
                  I agree too. I think each age deserves it's lessons. 7 just seems too young to me to be left alone at all.
                  Satan is my spirit animal

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

                    Originally posted by Medusa View Post
                    The two Amish girls were just kicking it and got kidnapped the other day. One was 12. Just scooped them right up and gone.
                    As sad as that is, 12 is -not- too young to be left alone or go out and do things on your own. I think not allowing kids to be on their own at that age is depriving them of independence, which is a valuable thing to learn at that age.

                    I was babysitting at 12 on a regular basis, and I think that was pretty common everywhere in my age group (friends from the US, Germany, and the UK seem to have similar experiences).

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Originally posted by Medusa View Post

                      I agree too. I think each age deserves it's lessons. 7 just seems too young to me to be left alone at all.
                      Lessons are different in different parts of the world and different cultures too. This is being made really clear to me atm by all my aboriginal students around the age of 12-13. They are all visually mature. By that I mean big boobs, tall, facial hair, the works (for both sexes haha). Clearly this is a 'race' that matures differently to us whities. (No doubt due to their much lower life expectancy, and a younger white colony). They most definitely have different ideas about what constitutes an age to be left unsupervised.
                      ThorSon's milkshake brings all the PF girls to the yard - Volcaniclastic

                      RIP

                      I have never been across the way
                      Seen the desert and the birds
                      You cut your hair short
                      Like a shush to an insult
                      The world had been yelling
                      Since the day you were born
                      Revolting with anger
                      While it smiled like it was cute
                      That everything was shit.

                      - J. Wylder

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

                        Originally posted by Heka View Post
                        Lessons are different in different parts of the world and different cultures too. This is being made really clear to me atm by all my aboriginal students around the age of 12-13. They are all visually mature. By that I mean big boobs, tall, facial hair, the works (for both sexes haha). Clearly this is a 'race' that matures differently to us whities. (No doubt due to their much lower life expectancy, and a younger white colony). They most definitely have different ideas about what constitutes an age to be left unsupervised.
                        I see that here in Europe as well. Some of the stuff that is perfectly reasonable over here would totally horrify Canadian parents, and some stuff that's accepted in other European countries isn't accepted in others. For example, I read somewhere that Scandinavian (I can't remember which country) parents often leave their kids in the strollers when they go into shops or cafes. People don't do that here. But over here, kids take the subway by themselves at all sorts of ages, which would probably result in a call to CPS in the US or Canada.

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

                          Originally posted by Medusa View Post
                          Thal. I'm all for teaching independence. But at some point in a child's life you have to realize they are just children. And not small adults.

                          Why not just give a five year old some gas in a bottle and hope for the best?
                          In several indigenous tribes in the world very small children have access to knives. They are rarely injured seriously, because they are taught to use the knife...first with supervision, and then with less and less supervision until they use the knife on their own. But while the are learning to use the knife, they are often cut--because using a knife is a skill, and it is expected that they will learn from those experiences.

                          At some point, in being around children, one realizes that they are not just children--they are people, with their own personalities, opinions, feelings, thoughts, and insights--as well as their own skills, abilities, interestes, and specialties....and not all of them are about My Little Pony and playing with matches behind mommies back...anymore than all adults are about what Kim Kardashian is doing and Super Bowl.

                          Children are individuals. A child isn't a small adult, they are a future adult. That means letting them be a kid while teaching them how to be an adult--and expecting that they will make mistakes. They need to be taught life skills and they need to be given responsibility. Most importantly, they need to be given opportunity to fail, because growth comes from failure--from the getting up and trying again. And if mommy and daddy jump in and save little Johnny from every potential boo boo, little Johnny will never learn a) resiliance and b) competence.


                          Originally posted by Medusa View Post
                          I agree too. I think each age deserves it's lessons. 7 just seems too young to me to be left alone at all.
                          Well, I don't think its a good idea to leave the average 7 year old alone all day long...but for under an hour, once or twice a week? During daylight hours? With full knowledge of how to operate a phone and not answer a door and 0 inclination to play with matches or cook a 7 course meal on the stove?

                          My dad ran a paper route at 7. My grandfather worked on a farm, driving a tractor when school wasn't in session--and walked his little brother two and a half miles to school and home when it was.

                          I was staying at home alone for short periods of time at 6/7. Specifically for the same reason I let my kids stay at home for short periods of time--to teach them how to stay home alone for longer periods of time (like afterschool) when they are older. I walked myself home from school and stayed home alone afterschool in the 5th grade...I was 9 (and I thought it was awesome). I checked in with my next door neighbor, I let myself in the house, I called my mom, I fixed a snack, I did my homework, I did a few chores, and then I got the TV to myself until my parents got home from work around 5:30. When my parents got home, I went out to play with my friends until dinner time. Unless you had a stay at home mom, this was pretty standard in my (midwestern, middle class neighborhood of mostly retirees, young families, and military folks) neighborhood.


                          The capacity of a 7 year old's (or a 9 year old's, or a 12 year old's) abilities hasn't changed, our perspective of their abilities has. And that capacity has very little to do with age.

                          At what age do you suggest starting to let a child learn to be alone for an hour? What about an average child, versus a mature one? What about a disabled child versus a normal one?

                          Parenting is cultural...and it (unfortunately) seems to have more to do with shaping a childs abilities to meet societal expecations than anything else (like, I dunno, attempting to raise self-actualized human beings). The capacity of kids for self-reliance and competence is much greater than mainstream American culture gives them credit for. Quite frankly, we shortchange our children. Children aren't cookie cutters. At 4, my daughter was hella more mature than my son is at 6...but before he was 2, he knew all the letters of the alphabet by sight (upper and lower case), while his sister wasn't proficient at the alphabet til she was in kindergarten. An individual child's skills and personality should be at question, not their age, when determing when they can stay home alone or (for that matter) drive a car, etc...
                          Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                          sigpic

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                            #28
                            Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

                            Originally posted by DanieMarie View Post
                            I see that here in Europe as well. Some of the stuff that is perfectly reasonable over here would totally horrify Canadian parents, and some stuff that's accepted in other European countries isn't accepted in others. For example, I read somewhere that Scandinavian (I can't remember which country) parents often leave their kids in the strollers when they go into shops or cafes. People don't do that here. But over here, kids take the subway by themselves at all sorts of ages, which would probably result in a call to CPS in the US or Canada.
                            The article I linked mentioned the stroller thing. Also, in Japan, apparently its normal for 7 and 8 year olds to be on the subway by themselves. And in the Marquesas Islands, apparently kids take care of themselves in a big group---the toddlers play with the babies, the preschool aged kids play with the toddlers and the primary aged kids supervise.
                            Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
                            sigpic

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                              #29
                              Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

                              I think it depends on what you mean by "alone" and what sort of kid it is...on average, I say MOST 7 year olds are NOT safe alone. I see horror stories of the damage kids do when parents ARE home, like poo on the walls and swallowing marbles and eating paint and crazy stuff like that, and many are 5-6-7 years old.

                              I can take a shower when my 3 year old is "alone" and I know she really won't do much of anything, except make a mess with her toys. But my nephews would destroy the house.

                              There's no yes/no answer to this one, but I think the law saying 12/13 is a good idea.

                              People are stupid, generally.

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                                #30
                                Re: Is 7 too young to be left home alone?

                                Thal you ask at what age. I have no idea. You are right. Kids need to learn etc etc. It's age approriate etc etc. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying for me and the experiences I've had? I wouldn't let my 7 year old home alone. Mostly because of where I live. Remember me? From LA? Yeah. Not gonna happen.

                                As to what age? Well I'd have to see just how dumb my kid was I guess. I think each parent has the right to decide that for their own kid. And I won't go poking my nose in. Unless of course you think you have a smart kid and I see it on the porch eating glue. Then I might mention it.
                                Satan is my spirit animal

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