Home Alone
Babysitting
One day it happens: your child is old enough to stay home alone, without parental supervision, without a babysitter! When this happens we are not sure how to train our children for this experience. Of course, paramount in our minds is safety and security. For some of us, we must protect our children from themselves. The following suggestions and charts are available to give you some ideas. You must tailor these tools to your own standards and situation. What works for our home might not work for yours. We have ADHD, bipolar and Asperger's going on here. The following charts might sound paranoid to you. They are absolutely necessary for our home.
NOTE: If you want background colors to print, you will need to set your printing preferences to do so. For Firefox, click on File - Page Setup - Check the box: "Print Background (colors & images)." For IE, you must set background-color printing in Options: Click on Tools - Internet Options - Click "Advanced" tab - Under "Printing" check "Print Background Colors and Images" - Apply - OK.
Not sure how it will print out? Click on File - Print Preview. You will see exactly what will print out. You can adjust margins, choose paper type, etc.
Emergency and Home Base Information
Print out this chart to post near your phone. You fill in your home address, phone number, cell phone and emergency contacts.
How to Answer the Phone
Helps your child use preapproved answers to callers' questions. Very important that a child not reveal that he is home alone. We use the same script for when mom is in the bathroom, taking a shower, or taking a nap.
Home Alone Rules
Our children are not allowed online, to watch movies or TV, or play computer games while they are alone unless they are preapproved or child calls parent on cell phone and gets explicit permission. ADHD children are great at finding loopholes. This policy closes those loopholes.
Chore Charts
I leave a list of chores for my children to complete each time I leave them home and run errands. This gives them some structure to their time. I call about 20 minutes prior to returning home to remind the children of that chore list. Another option is to have the children complete the chore list then call you for permission to watch a DVD, play a particular computer game, and so on.
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