(About how old should your child be when left at home alone) In the article it said: “The states that do provide guidelines offer numbers as low as eight (Maryland and South Carolina) to as high as thirteen (Illinois).”
That’s not completely true I live in Georgia and at the age of 14yrs your allowed to stay at home by yourself for up to 2 hrs. I know this because last fall when my cousin and her husband were seperated and thinking about divorce (he moved out), she had left her oldest son (I can’t remember if he was 15 or just turned 16 but he was close to 16) at home with the younger children – they were sleeping and she didn’t want to wake them up and get them out on a school night – while she ran up to the gas station to get a gallon of milk, she was gone maybe 15 minutes total. Her husband found out about it because he called while she was gone, and the next day called DFCS (department of family and children services) on her. They came out and told her “at 14 they can stay home alone for up to 2 hours, at the age of 15 they can stay by themselves for up to 4 hours and they can babysit, and at the age of 16 they can stay 6 – 8 hours by themselves.” So pretty much there was nothing that her husband could do about it because her oldest was old enough.
I remember staying home by myself at either 10 or 11 years old for a couple of hours. My daughter is about to turn 8 and at this age I can’t tell yet how old she will be when I personally think she’s mature enough to stay by herself (by law I guess 14) but I would think around that age ….. 12 – 14 years old ….. maybe??? Like I said depends on the level of maturity and responsibility. My husband says 13 (regardless of anything else).