It’s Legal For Now Leaving Your Texas Children Home Alone, Until It’s Not

Belton, Texas is a thriving county seat for Bell County, and even though the population has doubled in size since the release of the holiday classic Home Alone, when you are walking the streets and speaking with neighbors it still feels very small town and quite tight knit.

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From older homes that date back to around the Civil War, to planned communities as ranches have shrunk and sold off parcels of land, Belton perpetually holds onto that community feel where your neighbors are more like friends or family.

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Texas is the "Friendly State," and that is one of the things my wife and I love so much about raising our children here, but not everyone is always the friendliest and part of raising a family is making sure they are constantly learning and aware of their surroundings because you must protect those little lives that God blessed you to be in your care.

Why would anyone ever leave their children home alone?

If there is one challenging thing about raising our family in Texas is that it is a great big place, we have zero familial support anywhere near us and our kids are so close in age and young, so we are not in place that allows us to leave our eldest child home to take care of the others, but not everyone can afford expensive childcare all the time.

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Our eldest child is also special needs, so we will have to wait until the middle child is old enough to be responsible for both older and younger siblings before we are ever in a position to leave them home alone.

At what age can you leave your kids home alone in Texas?

From a legal standpoint, in Texas and most other states, there is not a specific age threshold to leave your children alone at home. For us, it will most likely be 13ish for the middle child to be able to care for the youngest, but according to the law you can leave your children home alone at any age unless those same authorities decide that you have endangered those children by abandoning them with a responsibility that is beyond what is safe.