Home Alone

One of the things my adult ESL students always wanted to know was the legal age for leaving kids alone. But there isn't any -- or, to put it more clearly, the law is based on the risk of harm instead of the child's age. As this story says:

Hovering over parents is what many believe the law says about leaving any child under 10 home -- or anywhere else -- alone. The Canadian Criminal Code (section 218) refers to those situations where the child under 10 is in danger or the likelihood of danger, police sources say.

Whether there's a "likelihood of danger" is left to the parent's judgment, based on their knowledge of the child. Judge badly, and you're in trouble. If anyone ever finds out.

It's hard to trust your own judgment sometimes. Like the mom in the story, who now teaches a Home Alone course, but started out being afraid to run out to the store because she kept thinking of "what-if disaster scenarios".

I think the thing to remember here is that we know our children better than anyone. We know how they'll react, if they have to, to those statistically improbable disasters. If anything, we probably underestimate what they can handle, because everyone tends to go a little more helpless when Mommy's around.

The story makes another good point: A child who can take care of herself is not necessarily ready to take care of younger children. It reminds me of a video I've used, where a 10-year-old girl is interested only in sitting and reading a magazine while Mom works extra hours. Good way to stay out of trouble, terrible way to babysit your preschool brother.

The bottom line is that parents are on the hook for a lot of responsibility -- but we always have been, anyway.