Leaving your kids home for a short period of time

My parents left us home all the time growing up. We lived in the country with no neighbors and no cell phone.

We survived.

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I have a 10 year old son and an 8 year old daughter.

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if they are responsible and truthworthy, I don't see why anyone would have a problem with this

I don't see anything wrong with it for an hour or so when it's necessaryat that age.

My sister and I would ride the bus home in 3rd/4th grade and usually be home alone for a bit.

Depends on the kid. If you can trust them, go for it. Being left home alone is a maturity thing, not an age thing.

depends where you live

For short times like that, we did it with ours, probably earlier than 10 years old. If you teach them to act right, I see no reason to worry.

I have a son and daughter 2 years apart as well. They are 13 and 11 now. But we started leaving them home alone around the same age as yours.

They should be fine.

My 9 and 12 year old routinely stay home by themselves for 2-3 hour chunks of time. One day in the summer they were home all day by themselves.

My 9 year old did a 3 hour stint by himself the other day. He's a really chill kid and makes good decisions, so we're becoming increasingly comfortable with it.

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I have a 10 year old son

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My son is an absolute rule follower and has a flip phone, so I understand why she feels ok with it.

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What age did you do it and for how long?

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We did it starting in 4th grade. He walked home from school and was there about 1 hour before him mom got home. He was able to be tracked by his phone by her, and we have cameras.

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What's your opinion on leaving kids home?

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Not so much and opinion but just what we did.

I think we started leaving ours at home when the oldest was about 12 or so...which would have meant his younger brother was around 7 or 8. Not for long periods...like a run to the store...30 minute type trips. We didn't start going out and leaving them for hour plus trips until he was 14.

Part of that was he needed to be mature enough for us to be reasonably sure he'd not only make the right decision if something happened, but that he could also handle being in charge and not cause more problems with his younger brother than he'd solve.

Before then, I simply told them "Get your shoes on," and put them in the truck and we'd run errands.

The mileage of others may vary...