Originally Posted by Tall boys
I have just started leaving my children for very short periods of time, 15 to 20 minutes.

If you have questions about any age restrictions regarding this in your state, here's a website.
Kids age limits by state

This probably belongs in another thread, but I would think THIS would be the very reason that an inadequate parent could get off a child neglect charge for leaving a child at home alone at, let's just say, the age of 4 or 5 (happens here far too often). If most of these states have no minimum, and those, including mine, only have a suggested mininum, it seems to me, that parents cannot get in trouble for leaving kids alone (which is SCARY).