10 year old using the tube alone?!!

Tell me you don’t live in London without a saying you don’t live in London

😂

Changing on a Tube line really isn't that difficult. She knows which line to take and follows the signs. At that age I took the bus into town; this doesn't seem any more complicated.

This.

I think it is good that the parents have taught the girl so much independence.

How do you propose you stop a grown adult from doing what the fuck she wants?!

My son is 10. He gets the train after school to an activity which involves changing trains (and technically stations). I can track him at all times and he knows lots of people in the area where he can ask for help. I love that he's got some independence and so does he!!

If this child's mother (and the child!) is happy with the situation, why aren't you?

OP I live in London with good transport links, so I rarely drive and was regularly getting my DC to work out interchanges and which tube we needed from the time they could read. By 10 they were very good at it.

When other parents offered to drive my DC rather than let them travel independently, I felt either patronised (I can help you, poor busy working mum, and now you owe me a favour) or disapproved of (I will look after your DC properly as you clearly neglect them). Do please see it from the other parents’ point of view.

As for @EnglishBluebell , I assume she’s being ironic. Nobody is that precious and out of touch with the real world, surely!

DDs used the tube alone from Year 6, so the same age. We lived in zone 1 or 2 throughout their childhood and used the tube with them several times a week as we had no car, so they were more comfortable with it compared to dc in the outer zones who get driven around a lot. Our local station was one of the busiest in London so they wouldn’t be fazed by a busy interchange. I was explaining the tube/bus network and how to deal with rerouting our journeys every time we took a journey or had something unexpected to deal with, from toddler age really, so they just absorbed that information and know the network like the back of their hands.

Martin Allen was a 12 year old boy who was thought to be abducted from London Underground in 1979. That is the only child I am aware of that has ever been abducted from the underground.

Dd had to do a 2hr train journey every day for a month including going through Victoria when she was 11...She loved it to be honest because she felt so grown up. She was taking the bus home from Primary school which was 5 miles away though in Y6. I personally think parents know what their kids can do and if they have asked for independence and can be trusted it's up to their family. Some kids absolutely not.

regardless of other posters view, the number of 10 year olds being abducted on the tube is vanishingly unlikely. I’ve never ever heard of it despite the previous poster thinking it’s inevitable.

dont be so ridiculous. Why on earth not? It’s perfectly safe

The point of parenting is to raise a competent, capable child - sounds like her parents have done a good job. I took the tube, but mostly the bus everywhere when I was that age (tube was expensive, but I had a bus pass) and that was before smart phones and bus stops that displayed arrival times. Maps also much harder to interpret/require some rough knowledge of the geography of London.

I live in London, 4 kids, and 2 of mine have used the tube independently at a similarage. Usually it is to meet DH at his office. They were more competent than the vast majority of adults at that age. They had mobiles and it it much safer when public transport is busy.

I'm not sure what people think goes on in London. Plenty of us raise families unscathed. One of the upsides is that all of my children are completely unphased by travelling anywhere, by any means. They also flew independently to meet us in various places from 16. They are sensible and it was a great experience every time.

OP it's not your call. They know their child.

You should fit in with their parenting decisions, and not try to impose your own feelings and anxiety.

The chance of her being abducted is very, very, very low.

We are Londoners and my Year 6’er can confidently use bus, train and tube albeit not regularly through central London. For that i’d only let him naviagte that alone if it had been done a couple of times before. If you know the parents to be generally sensible sorts then i think its fine.

Hundreds of thousands of 11 year olds get the tube or bus to school. How many of those have been abducted?

Your perception of the risk here is way off. I hope you're not planning on driving them around, that's much riskier.

@EnglishBluebell Forgive me, it's hard to tell what's satire and what isn't.

'It's only a matter of time before that little girl is abducted...'

If this is intended to be read along the same lines as the concept that monkeys will eventually recreate the works of Shakespeare if given sufficient time/resources/randomness/typewriters, well, yes, there's a small but non-zero possibility of that happening, and given infinite time, it'll happen. Whether humanity is still around in any recognisable form when that happens, well, that's another question.

If, for any given person, the mean time between abductions can be expected to be very long in relation to their expected lifespan, it seems rational to me that someone may be prepared to tolerate that level of risk in order to access the benefits associated with the ability to travel independently.

It’s good practice to get a 10 year old ready for secondary school, so they’re comfortable in year 7… I do worry that we molly coddle and breed anxiety into our children by being too cautious. Fostering independence is super important for emotionally healthy kids.

I think if her parents have said they want her to do it than you should accept it. It's not like they are asking your own DD to do the same. Just make sure you have the parents' contact details, and the girl's own mobile number if she has one.

Absolutely but keep a check on what happens when your dad visits her friend. Once they are older expect there to be even less supervision and more going around London on their own when your dd visits. Absolutely fine and good but just keep a check on it all. I say this from similar experience in a kind way to you.

Do you know how many 11/12 year olds get the tube to school in London every day? Do you know how many of them have been abducted in the last ten years? (Clue, it's quite a round number)

Do you think that there are hordes of marauding abductors hanging around waiting to prey on girls before they reach the magic first day of Year 7 and are magically immune?

It's tricky isn't it. I was/am a single parent and in yr6 mine had to traverse tubes/trains/buses in London otherwise they couldn't get anywhere.

But if it makes you feel more comfortable, offer to pick them up from home whether you get the tube together or drive. I would have appreciated the offer in their shoes!

I've lived in London all my life and know the underground well. There is absolutely no way I would let a ten year old travel on the tube alone. My daughter had a long journey to secondary school, not on the underground but it would have involved two buses and a train if I hadn't been there, and I wouldn't have let her travel alone on public transport for an hour when she was in Year 7 either.