COMPLEX WEB OF DECISION ON LEAVING 'EM HOME ALONE.

Byline: Karen Engberg Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

When is a child old enough to be left home alone?

State laws provide unequivocal, though varying, answers to this question, but most parents are not as familiar with legal statutes as they are with the competence of their own children and the necessities of their lives. As a result, everyone answers this question a little differently.

In most instances, leaving a child alone for the first time is not something accompanied by a drum roll or any anticipatory planning, but is, rather, a spur-of-the-moment event. From the daily observance of a child's self-confidence, judgment and maturity, a parent may decide that it's OK to dash to the corner store for milk while the 9-year-old watches his favorite video (or, perhaps more likely, dash to the corner for a video while the kid drinks his milk). Like many trial-and-error processes, once tried successfully, this will inevitably be repeated for gradually increasing periods of time.

So many variables enter into the decision about whether to leave a child alone, and for how long, that comparisons from one household to another are difficult to make. The presence and age of siblings, the proximity to neighbors, the time of day and the duration of the expected interlude are all factors. Whether we like to admit it or not, convenience almost always plays a role. And the answer to the question is basically a judgment call.

Even once you think you're over the hump and have gained confidence in your children's ability to fend for themselves in your absence, it's not time to become complacent. Some things never change, and just because children get older, bigger, smarter and more self-sufficient doesn't necessarily mean they become more reliable when home alone.

Having grappled successfully with the questions of whether, when and for how long to let my older three children stay alone - my youngest is still required to come along for the ride - I have now come up against the problem of how to reconfigure this privilege to best serve a teen-ager.

Teen-agers, despite what they tell their parents several dozen times a day, do not want to be left alone. They want to be left with their friends. Under this circumstance, the topic acquires new shades of gray, and to the whether-, when- and for-how-long question gets added a ``who?''

Working out rules about who can be in your home when you're not can be tricky. I decided I'd rather welcome kids to my home and be around as much as possible than discourage their presence because no one is home. By doing this, I keep my finger on the pulse of what they're up to and decrease the likelihood that they'll be driving around or hanging out at someone else's house where no adult is home. The most reliable method of monitoring the situation involves staying well-informed about where your kids are and with whom.

The ultimate home-alone dilemma, however, presents itself when a teen-ager wants to stay alone overnight. It's tempting to look at very competent, independent and reliable teens and assume they will be fine for a night or two alone. It's not, however, a good idea to give in to this temptation. When a kid gets lonely, bored or anxious in your absence and recruits friends for company, decisions can be made that don't reflect the good judgment you've come to count on. When the family goes away and my oldest has other plans, I make arrangements for someone to take care of the dog and the teen-ager.

Of course, this is when it's really nice to have family around. It's not just anyone, after all, who will be able to keep track of my teen-ager when I'm not around. It also helps to have someone do the job who will still love the kid when all is said and done.

Of course, a teen-ager, unlike a 9-year-old, will want to know why you don't trust him enough to let him stay alone for one night. You won't want to engage in this discussion beyond saying that you'd feel better knowing there was an adult on hand because, let's face it, anything could happen.

``Oh, mom,'' your exasperated teen-ager will say, ``that's what you've been telling me ever since I was little.'' You'll just nod and smile and know that, indeed, some things never change.

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PHOTO Macaulay Culkin plays an 8-year-old boy who must defend his ho me from burglars in ``Home Alone.''