What is the legal age to leave a child home alone?
There is no national/international guideline for this, but there may be in your own city’s bylaws that could be worth investigating. Typically it is individual by individual basis. A good rule of thumb is when the child is only enough to babysit, then they can be left alone, which is approx 12-13. I think based on the situation the only viable option is to offer your daughter’s friend a place to come visit if she likes, and I would teach her how to make easy to prepare snacks for herself. You have good intentions, but be careful. Meddling in another person’s family is not going to help the girl. Also, 12 years old is quite a resourceful age – that’s why I mentioned about easy to prepare snacks. Likely there is food there and she just doesn’t know how to make it, or worse still, she’d rather have ready to eat crap like chips and fries. (My husband is notorious for coming to home and saying there is no food -AKA nothing he *wants* to eat.) Keep in mind as well we don’t really know what a
