Your preteen has proven trustworthy when left home unsupervised but will things fall apart if he's left home in charge of a younger sibling? And even if your kids usually get along, what if they break the rules while you’re gone? There are several issues to address before deciding if siblings are ready to be left home alone.

Keeping the Peace
"No sibling under the age of 11 or 12 should be responsible for a younger sibling -- even if they are the most responsible children in the world," says Jody Johnston Pawel, author of "The Parent’s Toolshop: The Universal Blueprint to Building a Healthy Family." "Imagine the emotional trauma to a child that young should anything happen while he or she is ‘responsible’ for the younger sibling." Pawel offers several tips to help determine whether kids are ready to be left home alone in charge of a sibling.

• Do the siblings get along? If one torments the other, they shouldn’t be left alone without an adult present.
• How many children would the older child be watching? Minors shouldn’t watch more than three or four kids under the age of 10. Eleven- to 13-year-olds should only watch one or two children, and it’s preferable if the children they’re watching are older than toddler age. It’s safer and more ideal for a child who is at least 13 to watch a sibling who is 7 or 8 years old.
• Children should be at least 13 to care for young infants and should have training in infant care. They need to know how to cope with incessant crying without resorting to crying themselves or -- far worse -- shaking, which younger children may do because of inexperience or lack of knowledge. Parents should have children help with the baby to gain experience before leaving them alone with each other.
• Is the oldest sibling the most responsible child? Avoid sibling power struggles by having both children stay home together but independently. In other words, let them each be responsible for themselves. They shouldn't tell each other what to do.

Melody Vasquez, a busy California mom of three teens and a 7-year-old, says, “Before leaving siblings home, make sure you have open communication of some kind.” At work, she was only a phone call away from her kids. She also had a responsible older son, who could help sort out problems.

Sometimes leaving all siblings home unsupervised just isn’t a good idea. Elizabeth Hale of Quebec finds that it works to leave two of her three boys together when she's away on short trips. “I’ve left my 11-year-old with one of the other boys while I run off to a friend’s house. It’s never for more than 15 minutes. Three of them would get into trouble, but two is fine.” For Hale, taking one child on an errand is much easier than taking three.

Pawel waited until her son was 13 before leaving him home alone with his 9-year-old sister. How did she know he was ready for this? “He was mature, responsible, capable of doing tasks like cooking, and patient with his sister. He also attended a Red Cross first aid and CPR class before I left my daughter with him,” she says. At first she only let her kids stay home for 15 to 20 minutes, didn’t go far, and was always accessible by cell phone. Her kids, now 15 and 11, stay home alone together for several hours now, with their parents always available by phone. She cautions against leaving teenagers alone overnight. “Even though my son is good and responsible, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for teens to be home alone overnight or for several days. It’s just too tempting for their friends to maybe take advantage of the situation, which can get out of hand quickly even with ‘good’ kids.”

Kathie Jones, a Chicago mom of two teen daughters, agrees. Her daughters pleaded to stay home alone while their parents attended a business conference in the Bahamas. Feeling apprehensive, Jones called home just before boarding the plane. “A boy answered the phone! I could hear a party in the background and our plane hadn’t even left yet.” Jones would have postponed her trip but her mother agreed to go stay with the girls.

Broken Rules
Jones’ teenagers had to adjust to having their grandmother baby-sit. “They weren’t happy and it took me a long time to trust the girls again. Luckily, when I finally did, they behaved.”

Jones faced a crisis with her girls. But what if you return home from an errand to find milk congealing on the counter, your kids mesmerized by HBO and popcorn ground into the carpet? Pawel suggests preventing problems by evaluating your children’s maturity for staying home alone, stating rules clearly and teaching safety. If a problem does occur while you’re gone, plan your response to your kids instead of just reacting. Pure, angry reaction could escalate the situation. “Take a deep breath and figure out what your issues are,” Pawel suggests.

The next thing to do is acknowledge the other person’s feelings. “Give the child an opportunity to explain. In a non-accusatory tone of voice, ask questions like: ‘What happened?’ and ‘What would you do if faced with the same situation in the future?’” Use questions to help kids figure out their own answers so they won’t tune out a lecture.

While at work, Vasquez received the phone calls all mothers dread: “Mom, Jeremy hit me! Do something about it!” After determining that her kids weren’t seriously hurting each other, Vasquez addressed the issue later at home. “We talked about what happened to get to the bottom of it. Then, I told them that if they didn’t feel old enough to handle these problems, then I’d better hire a sitter to take care of them and they said, ‘No!’”

After discussing a problem, Pawel recommends setting limits or expressing concerns. If a problem involves Pawel’s safety, health, appropriateness, rights, property, rules or values -- what Pawel calls SHARP RV concerns -- parents need to address the problem and decide how to fix or prevent it. Find out what the child gained by breaking the rule and brainstorm a more appropriate way to meet the need in the future.

Finally, parents need to decide on an appropriate discipline. “The goal of discipline is to help children learn from their mistakes, not just impose suffering or inconvenience on them for the mistake," Pawel says.

A parent may feel fearful or untrusting after a problem occurs. Pawel suggests having the child be totally supervised for one day to one week, then gradually leaving the child for increasingly longer time periods to rebuild trust.