to insist that DD1 (11) is taken to and collected from school for a while?

[freddiefrog]

DD1 is allowed to walk to and from school on her own, although it doesn't happen all that often as we're usually taking her younger sister

[dexter73]

What are your circumstances? Who are you insisting on taking her?

[AgentZigzag]

I'm not sure why you would insist when she can walk on her own.

What does your DD want to do?

[MadgeHarvey]

Did you press 'post message' just a tad too soon? Otherwise wtf are you on about?

[Witchety]

Age 11? So secondary school?

[IneedAsockamnesty]

why?

[Trills]

YA probably BU

11 yr olds generally get themselves to and from school.

But you haven't given enough information.

[freddiefrog]

Oops, trigger happy. Phone screen froze and I pressed post by accident. Will try again.

DD1 is 11 and is allowed to walk to and from school on her own (although that doesn't happen very often as we take her younger sister and she walks with us, mainly when she has after school clubs), she's allowed to knock for her friends, to the park and shop, etc around our home.

It was in our local paper last week that a man has been acting suspiciously at neighbouring schools (there are 2 other primary schools within spitting distance of ours and this man has been seen at them both after school) approaching young girls, trying to get them to get in his car, offering sweets, etc.

Discussed it with DH and we decided that we'd collect DD1 from school until we know a bit more about what's been going on.

Today, I had to go to a meeting so DH did the school run. DD1 had an after school club, DD2 didn't.

DH let DD1 walk home on her own.

Nothing happened and she's fine, but given the information that we've had I'd rather she was accompanied at the moment

[AgentZigzag]

Unless it was a specific threat against your DD, I would say just give her the talk about what to do if someone approaches her and let her walk.

There are a lot of other people around when she's walking to school, and although that wouldn't necessarily stop anything were it to happen, I think it'd drastically reduce the risk of something happening even further.

There are similar approaches to the same aged children near where we live (in both directions ) but thankfully the men haven't been persistent when they've been told where to get off.

[lovebunny]

keep her in sight as much as you can. why take risks with a person you love?

[AgentZigzag]

Because, although it's a shitty cruel world out there lovebunny, you have to let them do things which make you feel uncomfortable.

Not so uncomfortable that you'd be an idiot to let them do it, but relatively safe things like walking to school with everyone else without their mum.

[freddiefrog]

See, generally, I agree. We are quite laid back and does have quite a lot of freedom and we've discussed what to do if anyone approaches her, but this has scared the shit out of me.

Local gossip has embroidered the story quite a bit and whilst I'm trying to stick with the confirmed facts and not get hysterical its put the wind up me a lot bit

[freddiefrog]

Once she gets away from school, her route is mostly along a quiet alley rather than along a road, alongside a business park. It's fairly busy at normal school kicking out time, an hour later after club, it's very quiet.

She is quite sensible and confident, we had a talk about what to do should anything happen, but she's still only an 11 year old girl iyswim

[freddiefrog]

Oh, and sorry, just saw the secondary school query above. No, year 6 in primary

[AgentZigzag]

Could you let her when there are lots of others around but collect her after her club?

The quiet alley doesn't sound very good for your blood pressure, is there any other way she can walk which has a bit more life to it?

[freddiefrog]

Tbh, she's not really bothered whether she walks with us or not. Most of her journey is alone until she gets to the road so it wouldn't be stopping her walking with her friends iyswim.

There is no other way unless she goes right round the road way, which is long. She'd have to go miles up our lane, instead of cutting through the housing estate behind us

I'm just pissed off with DH tbh

[AgentZigzag]

Yeah, if you'd agreed to pick her up and he didn't bother, I'd be fucked off too.

[ChristmasKate]

I'm having the same concerns, as recently as yesterday a young girl went missing from our town.

My first reaction when I found out via facebook, twitter & YouTube was to call my DH and tell him not to let DD walk home or go out to play but not to tell her why.

The young girl was handed in to a police station today but I'm still so worried at letting her walk without me being near but I don't want to squash her independence and she went to bed sulking....

It's so hard to know what to do for the best isn't it?