...to ask you at what age do you think 2 girls could be left alone overnight?

[Bunnyfuller]

...posting for traffic, and yes, all kids are different.

It would be an overnight, but about 200 miles from us. No family local.

I think I was about 15 ish overnight alone (just over 10 years ago) but I had very lovely neighbours and family locally. Probably longer than a night would have been about 16/17

I’m probably scarred by my friend’s experience of getting a phone call from the police after her 16yo had a massive party that destroyed their house. He wasn’t much of a party kid either. They were hundreds of miles away too. It put a bit of a dampener on their weekend away.

My kids are a year apart in age and the eldest is almost 15. I imagine we could go away overnight when they’re 17 and 16 but we are very close with our neighbours and my brother lives down the road. If there is genuinely nobody available to assist I wouldn’t want to go so far away until the eldest is 18.

When I was 15 my parents left me for a long weekend while they visited family 200 miles away. I loved it! However my brother is 6 years younger so they took him with them.

They were happy for me to look after him alone when I was 19 and he was 13, but he was a real handful so that was more about him than me.

If the girls are sensible, I think it’s fine.

JustLyra

no, police came to the door about something else, (I think neighbour had been burgled and they were asking for witnesses or something) and son opened the door, and the policeman then asked him how old he was.

I remember because their neighbour had a 16 year old daughter who did a lot of the nieghourhood babysitting.
He was laughing about the logic of inviting a 16 year old girl in to babysit your 15 year old son, when

1. he was physically twice her size and
2. Putting 2 teens together for the evening with parents out seemed like causing trouble not preventing it.

My mum left me home alone at 16. I worked too but was stupid and locked myself out one day and ended up getting my friends to kick the door down. Then had to call my mum and say I'm in now but you need to call whoever fixes doors.

14

Planning to do this soon - they're 17 & 14 (boy & girl) probably won't go more than an hour away first time and increase it when they've proved they can be trusted. Would love to do whole weekend (abroad even?) when oldest is 18 - can't wait!

I was left home alone at 14-15. I was left for holidays at 16 (one of which was 200 miles away, I got bored half way through the week and traveled across the country to meet them - with no mobile phone!).

I do think MN infantilises young adults quite a bit. 15/16 seems perfectly fine - in fact even better than there’s two similar aged so the other can get help if one ends up in trouble.