How Old Does a Kid Have to Be to Legally Stay Home Alone in Pennsylvania?

Pennsylvania seems to have a TON of laws on the books that sometimes feel a little antiquated.

So when I saw an article about the right age to leave your kid at home alone, I thought: Pennsylvania surely must have mandated an age where that becomes OK, right?

So I did some research to answer the question: "how old does a child actually have to be to stay home alone in Pennsylvania legally?"

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Well, I was surprised to learn that Pennsylvania doesn’t actually have any laws on the books regarding what age a child must be before they can be left unsupervised at home. 

However, it’s much more complicated than just that because there ARE legal consequences in many instances. Which I’ll get into in a second. 

Some of the states that I found that DO have restrictions on this, by the way. For example, I found in Maryland that there's a minimum age of 8 for a child to be left home alone.

Illinois, however, is quite a bit older as they have a minimum age of 14 for kids to be left home alone. 

So what happens in Pennsylvania? Well, when a child is left home, they are still the parent’s responsibility. This can lead to charges of neglect if something happens to that child while they’re alone, pafamilylawyers.com noted.

So now that we've answered the question about leaving a kid home alone. What happens when you want to leave your kid alone in the car?

Is It Legal To Leave a Child Alone in a Car in in Pennsylvania?

It's illegal to leave a child under the age of 6 unattended in a vehicle. In fact, there's a separate offense for each child left alone in the car.

By the way, it's extra important to remember you should NEVER leave your child alone in a hot car.