Indeed; we learned this the hard way when I was growing up, in a graduate student housing complex consisting mainly of foreigners.<p>The one thing that dozens of nationalities could all agree on was their presumption that their ten year-olds can get home from school and fend for themselves for a few hours.   Everybody knew everybody (quite literally), there were always adults out in the enclosed backyard, and there were periodic security patrols. I could think of few safer places to leave a child home alone. Until the harassment from the police started, it would have never occurred to any of us that this constitutes child neglect.