Home alone – safely

Is your child safe at home alone?

Many working parents have to leave their older children at home alone during summer vacation despite concerns that they may not have the knowledge and skills they need to stay safe at home.

According to a report from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health, many parents worry that their at-home tweens don’t know how to safely use kitchen appliances, where to go to stay safe during a severe storm, or that they should not give out personal information online or over the phone. Yet, one parent in five who was polled say that they have left tweens home alone for an entire day.

“There’s no magic age at which a child can be left home alone. It typically depends on a parent’s judgment about how mature that child is, and how ready they are to take on the responsibility of being home alone,” says Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP, director of the National Poll on Children’s Health. “Regardless, when parents decide to leave their children home alone, there are several common at-home safety concerns they need to consider and address with kids ahead of time.

Parents who generally are more confident in their children’s safety skills are more likely to leave them at home for more than an hour, finds the poll. Still, more than 25% of parents polled reveal that they hadn’t talked a lot with their tweens about neighborhood, Internet or home safety beforehand. The poll found…

• Nearly two-thirds of parents left tweens home alone for one to two hours.
• One out of five parents has left tweens home alone for an entire day.
• Parents have more confidence in their tween’s ability to follow guidelines for gun and fire safety than for Internet or storm safety.
• 28% of parents whose tweens stay home alone lack confidence that their children would not give out personal information via the Internet. Similarly, 30% of parents lack confidence that their child would not give out personal information over the phone.

Before making the decision to leave children home alone, Davis recommends that parents review and discuss common safety questions and situations with tweens. “We were surprised to find the proportion of parents who aren’t very confident their children will follow safety guidelines, even though they are having their tweens stay home alone,” says Davis, associate professor of general pediatrics and internal medicine at the U-M Medical School, and associate professor of public policy at the U-M Gerald R. Ford School of Public Health. “This suggests that more parents need to have conversations with their kids about safety before they leave them home alone.”

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