Just the way things worked out, but our oldest child stayed home alone for the first time when he was 19, for 10 days. His younger sibling was at camp.

My parents let me have slumber parties at their lake house when I was 16.

My kids where able to use our weekend place when they were 18. I knew all the kids (and their parents) who were invited. Never had a problem.

eta: I think my kids were 16 or 17 before We left them overnight.

My kids are sort of far apart in age (currently 25, 22, 16) so leaving one older one home “alone” didn’t happen as early as it might have since there would be 1-2 much younger sibs also staying home which may or may not have worked out very well. The first time we left oldest DS home truly alone for a weekend without siblings, he was maybe 19 or 20 and it didn’t go well. I’ll spare you all the details. I think younger DS probably stayed home alone without the older DS at around age 19 and he was (is) a model citizen so all was fine. DD will be 17 this month and hasn’t stayed home alone overnight but has said she is ready to...I have a feeling it might happen for the first time this summer. Oldest DS has moved out and we have left the other 2 home alone for a long weekend the last 2 summers and they were totally fine.

We have a beach house and no one has stayed alone there with friends yet. And no one has asked, so we haven’t had to argue about it! DS graduates from college this spring and we might let him and his group of high school friends have the house for a weekend. We know them all and trust them.

I might be a little overprotective?

Our DD was in graduate school when she took (male and female) friends to our vacation house. My parents allowed me to use our lake house at 18 right after high school graduation-but it was girls only.

At what age did we leave leave them home alone overnight? We were fortunate to have 2 sets of grandparents who were willing to come and stay so that never happened. Although, having grandparents upstairs did not prevent our oldest DD from sneaking her boyfriend into the basement room, which I found out YEARS later.

We live in a very tight neighborhood where the houses are practically on top of each other, so any time our kids have been here alone overnight, all the closest neighbors were alerted ahead of time!

Our house setup made both my daughter and me comfortable leaving her at a relatively young age. I co-own a duplex with my ex; he's upstairs and I'm downstairs. So I don't think she's ever been completely alone overnight without the other parent being home in the other unit (she's 13). I don't remember when exactly she was in one of the units alone overnight, but she stayed at her dad's (keeping the cat company) a couple nights last month when he was on an extended trip. Maybe 11 the first time? As soon as she was comfortable, I was fine with it.

There’s quite a spread among my kids, so I’ve never left them alone overnight. Well, I guess my 25-yo and his wife came to babysit the 11-yo for a weekend, does that count? :) As for when I let them have no-parent weekend trips: college age. (My parents own the property they went to, and my kids and their friends were very respectful of their property.)

I agree with Joanie's post.

There are many things to consider. We don't know the age of your child. When my oldest got her driver's license, I still drove her to gymnastics which was a 30-minute drive on an interstate highway.

Do you feel comfortable having your child drive on highways for two hours with friends in the car?

The first thing that comes to mind for me is that there will be drinking. Again, if any worse case scenarios happen on your property, how could it all pan out?

Bottomline for me? 21 at least if not older.

Since I don't own a second home it never came up. However I never allowed my high school aged children to spend the night anywhere unaccompanied by a trusted adult. In fact, I was very strict about overnights in general -- I said "no" more than I said "yes". I was a mean mother. It paid off.

My oldest turned 18 last May. She spent two nights home alone late last summer when she returned home from vacation a couple of days ahead of us to work. She is not a partier so I wasn’t worried. My neighbors knew we were away so agreed to keep an eye out. She did have a friend spend the night as she didn’t not like staying in the house alone. A couple of weeks later, just before she left for college, she and a few friends spent a couple days/nights at my parents’ beach house alone. And the week after graduation, she and about 10 kids went on a cruise for their senior trip. Because not all of the kids were 18 yet, they were required to have an adult as part of their group. One friend’s parents went along but the kids were completely on their own during the trip. The group of parents met ahead of time to discuss a few rules/expectations, mainly that they had to travel in groups of threes, and after each port, they had to check in with the parents at least one hour before the ship left port. I must say I was a little nervous but she had traveled overseas the summer b/f with a school group with similar loose supervision so that made me feel better.

I have three younger teenagers but would evaluate each one individually based on how trustworthy and responsible they are. So far, I’m guessing my 17 y/o DS will not be allowed to stay home alone overnight at age 18. Not that he’s a bad kid but I could see him being easily influenced by friends and not necessarily make wise choices.

My parents allowed me to live at the beach at my friends’ parents beach house when I was only 16...with only her 21 y/o sister in charge! While her sister was a goody two shoes, we were not and definitely were up to no good! My friend’s aunt and uncle lived in the house behind us so I guess both our sets of parents felt comfortable with that. While it prevented us from having parties, they otherwise had no real idea what we were up to! Looking back, it was a summer of fond memories and no real harm but I can’t believe my parents were ok with it!

I had left either of my sons alone over night when they were teens, it would have been like a scene from Risky Business. I did allow the younger one to have my car and access to the house when he was 17 but he had to spend the night at my parents house.

My parents went to Europe for two weeks and left me home when I was sixteen. Suffice to say that I've never allowed DD to be alone, not even for one night.

Your first q is NA, my 3 kids are 18, and about to be 16 and 15.

In re the related q:

I think it really depends on the kid and the circumstances (although, as someone pointed out, there are actually state laws of which to be aware). Is the kid a partier or a nerd? Have there been any issues in the past with them or their friends? Does the kid(s) have a serious BF or GF? How long will you be away and where will you be? Can neighbors/family or staff check in? Do they show good judgment and basic self-discipline? Do they have some life skills to take care of themselves properly?

Local, I’m curious, how old is the child?

I'll tell the story of an acquaintance many years ago. My kids were little at the time.

She left her 19 year old son alone in the house when they went to Australia. I think the son was taking classes nearby or working. She had asked neighbors to call the police if they saw more than a couple of cars at the house.

Son invited a few friends over and word got out and dozens of kids showed up. Neighbors waited too long, but Police finally came and arrested the son because alcohol was being consumed and he was the "adult" in charge. There wasn't much the parents could do when they got that call in Australia. House was a mess. The son never intended to have things get out of hand, but was unable to take control once things went wrong.

Today, with mobile phones and social media things would get out of hand even quicker and have even more people show up.

Thank you all so much for generously sharing your thoughts. This came up today, I said no, and I wanted to know if I was typical or off base. The child in question is 16, and very responsible. We have left him home alone before.

Going away, skiing, is just a different situation for me. Too many unknowns, too many variables.

I am way more strict than many parents. Is alcohol likely to be involved? If so, they never would have had my permission. If they were not likely to be doing any drinking I would allow a friend or two to go when they are at least 21.

It is not uncommon to have some " cool parents" host underage booze parties. They take everyone's keys and insist that all guests spend the night. The parents then drink with the kids. They surely provide a lot of supervision.

Several years ago the was a TERRIBLE tragedy nearby when a group of kids were " spending the weekend at a cabin". While they were sleeping a fire broke out and 11 kids perished. The kids were 19-24.

I wouldn't compare when I was a teenager to today--it's a very different world. I see you made your decision and I totally agree with you. I think of these kinds of things in terms of IF there was an emergency, how would they react? At 16, my sleeping kids wouldn't hear a landline ringing let alone a smoke alarm. For what it is worth, I would wait until the college years before I would allow overnights without supervision. Your mortgage, your decision.

Yep yep it TOTALLY depends. On the "kids", on the decade (what was safe back in the day may not be now), on the help factor if needed. I would not allow my teen to attend your teen's no adult party, let alone overnight, let alone out of town. In my world that was college behavior. When mine were in college I doubt I would be up for the liability of them hosting a gathering like you described, but mine attended many at other people's places.

I’m a pretty lax person and even I can’t imagine letting 16-year-olds stay by themselves for a weekend at my vacation property. I would let them have a sleepover with me in attendance.

^ that’s what we have done with our kids. At age 16 or 22, they’ve had groups of kids stay at our beach house WITH a parent (or 2) there. My kids have never asked for us not to be there so I’d have to wonder why they’d want to go without an adult (esp at 16).

Also kid home alone wayyyy before kid has friends over home alone unless I knew the friend as well as my own kid. And one friend. And they both have to be as nerdy as I was at that age. Which is pretty much impossible.

Another thought I had was not only could you be held responsible depending on the age laws but other parents could sue you should something go wrong involving their kid(s).

Glad you decided not to allow it.

I got off pretty easy with my oldest. She has always been level headed and responsible which I think was partially the reason the girls who were her best friends going into h.s. eventually pushed her out of their social circle. At the time it was a very difficult experience for her (and as her mom, heart wrenching to see her being excluded), but now in hindsight, thank God! And dd has a much better circle of friends. The popular thing to do here upon graduation is to rent two huge houses in the Outer Banks-one for guys and one for girls. Each house has a couple,of parents present for the entire time and there are certain rules, tho from all the stories I’ve heard over the years, the entire week is binge drinking, sex and girl drama. How relieved was I when dd’s group decided to go on a cruise instead which, believe it or not was actually cheaper. It was well researched, as mentioned before, parent chaperoned (one kid didn’t turn 18 until end of summer so they were required to have an adult fortunately!).

WRT parties with and without adults, I have been struggling with this the last few months with my son, a junior. It is unbelievable to me how many parents allow their kids to have parties, with underage drinking, while they are home! MD passed a law a year or so ago that holds parents accountable if caught - sadly the law was precipitated by an accident that killed several teens who had been drinking at a party where a parent provided alcohol. And then there are the parents who allow multiple teens (sometimes coed) to sleep at their homes when they return from underage drinking parties, basically enabling them to drink w/o parents. I know one mom in particular, who either allows the group to Uber back to her house, where she will hang out feeding them or chatting with them, knowing they are all drinking and/or drunk -this permissiveness makes her the “cool” mom. And then I wonder about the clueless parents - don’t they realize why their kids are always spending the night at that one house. I’m hoping the mean mom -won’t let my son go to these parties.

Long winded post to say...I definitely would not allow my h.s. aged kid to go away for an unchaperoned weekend, not stay home overnight alone. Even a chaperoned weekend would be dependent on who the parents were b/c as mentioned above, even with parents present, there are plenty who still would allow them to drink, etc.

Talk about "cool parents", my sister had a situation where the cool parents were smoking pot with the kids! And did not deny it when confronted. In a state and at a time when it was not legal.

I am highly suspicious of sleepovers for teens. I understand the fun quotient for preteens, but ironically as they get older I can think of only a few reasons why kids want to sleep somewhere else ... especially boys. Just my 2 cents, and the reason why we limit sleepovers and they are almost always hosted by us.

The Maryland law 4kids4us mentioned upped the penalty for adults whether they are aware of the underage drinking in their home or not. The impetus for the law was a tragedy where 3 recent HS grads were killed in a car crash after drinking at a friend's house. It is uncertain whether the parents were aware of the drinking n their home.The driver was the only survivor. I knew 3 of the 4 kids. They were typical kids- involved in sports, community service, good students, heading to college, but they lacked the sense not to drink, drive. The pain of the loss is exacerbated. One of the teens killed had been grounded for having attended a party where there was alcohol. His parents thought he was in his room when the police came to their door.

Good decision localeater! So glad you were prepared to say no to your 16 year old.. There will be plenty of future opportunities when he/she is older and more mature.

If of college age or older and assuming they were considerate and respectful of their space while living under your roof, I think they deserve a chance to be trusted.

but in this age when millennial buy food w/instructions on how to boil water and clothes w/instructions in what top to wear w/what bottom, Why not write a list for them of EXACTLY how you expect place to be cared for and left after they’re done; with a PS: that future use is contingent on how closely they adhere to your list.

Hope all goes well for all parties involved.

Staying alone overnight at home never came up.Our younger son started going to the family cabin with friends when he was around 20. He still goes everyyear for a long weekend with the same three friends. We know the parents and the kids all went through high school together.

I think it depends on the child. Our two older sons could never really be left alone for long as teens, not because they were troublemakers or partied, but because they couldn’t be relied on to feed the pets, keep the house clean, etc. Our daughter who is 19 is ultra responsible, very cautious and a neat-freak. She has traveled on her own internationally and has spent extended time abroad without us. She is the only one in her dorm suite who takes out the trash and cleans up the kitchen and living area. I would trust her in my home or vacation house on her own at any time.