How Young Is Too Young To Let Your Teen/Tween Go To The Mall Unchaperoned?

[AdminAssistant]

Seriously how in any legal way are you liable for a child that you are not legally responsible for?

Because the child was on their property.

[jackfaire]

Because the child was on their property.

So if a kid runs into my yard I tell the kid to get out of my yard the kid runs out of my yard and rather than going back to his own yard he runs into the street and get's hit by a car that is my fault? I know I am not a store but if it is based on well they were on your property.

I don't get the legal logic behind that. If your a store you can't bar children from your store or you would be sued for age discrimination hence you shouldn't legally be liable for any children under a certain age and parents of children up to a certain age should be legally accountable for any actions their child takes in a public arena.

[Tanasi]

Jack, In my mind you shouldn't be responsible, but that being said it wouldn't stop the kids parents from sueing you. Heck the expense of defending would cost in the 10's of thousands and could bankrupt you. I'd also say unless you're in a liberal part of the country an honest jury wouldn't find you liable.
I don't allow my kids to have friends over until I've met their parents/guardians. If I get a hinky feeling I'll also have a BIL check them out in the pending/past litigation DB.

[musicismylife5]

It depends on the kid. I was allowed to go to the mall with friends at 12 or 13. The first few times our parents stayed in the mall, but after that we were on our own. I don't think it's a big deal depending on the kid. My brother is almost 15, and he's still not allowed. A parent is the only one who can really judge the maturity level of their child.

[tabbyblack13]

I think this is a judgment call on the parents part. Each child is different and there are different levels of maturity for a group of children that are the same age.

As for children being told not to be in stores unsupervised I agree with that. Stores are not babysitting services and should not expect to watch unsupervised children. I will be greedy and state that I don't want to deal with children when I'm out shopping. When I see a kid alone in a store I wonder if he was forgot by his family (trust me it has happened and I have witnessed it).

[boringscreenname]

I wasn't allowed to go to the mall alone growing up. But it didn't have anything to do with my maturity or lack of. We lived in a rural area and the malls were quite a ways away, so whenever we went to the mall it was a family trip, and not a lot of my classmates made spontaneous trips to the mall because of the distance and cost of gas.

I think it depends on the child, their maturity and ability to behave appropriately, not some arbitrary number. I also think it would be prudent to make sure that if your child is going to the mall alone, that they have a cell phone and parents' phone numbers programmed in.

[Lace Neil Singer]

To get to the local mall for me, involved a bus trip or a lift by a parent. So going alone at age eleven was out of the question.

To clarify; the town that has these signs about unsupervised children is one where there are at least six secondary schools and several primaries. So obviously, there are a lot of truants that need to be discouraged from going down town and hanging out in the shops.