Would you let your child do this or am I over the top?

I agree and I used to have a friend when I was around 17 that wished her Mum gave as much concern for my well-being as mine did. My Dad was the opposite and dismissive about my Mum being overprotective and in all honesty I wouldn’t want the father of my children to be so flippant about it - it did sometimes feel like he didn’t care.

Actually my mum is petrified of this and reminds me every time we take dcs to a hotel.

She claims there was a case/ cases in the 70’s of 80’s where exactly this happened.

I tend not to worry too much simply because if I worry about everything my brain gets overloaded by fears; but in op’s defence it’s by no means the first time have heard of this and, as I say, my mum is convinced it is backed up by incident.
So I’m voting YANBU op. After all, you’d feel pretty stupid if you’d worried, done nothing and then it happened.

Yes I’d let my DD leave a hotel room to go down a corridor alone

If I was that frightened of being somewhere I probably just wouldn’t go in the first place

How far from Manchester are you? My DD goes to the shops in a City but we are a 30 min walk from it and 10 mins bus journey, 5 mins train as live next to a station but I wouldn’t let her go to London yet which is an hour by train as too young and I don’t know anyone that would. Dd is nearly 13.

At 12 I had free reign in hotels, going to the pool on my own, to the cafe or lounge. I had siblings, younger and older and we all did what we wanted as long as we turned up for meals. It’s ridiculous to keep a 12 year old in the room because you are scared something is going to happen. I wonder if OP would treat a 12 year old boy differently.

I despair of people saying if parents keep an eye on young children 24/7 on holiday the children are destined to become anxiety ridden adults with no confidence. I can assure you I was never out of sight of my parents when on holidays & I am the total opposite. I say let your young children go off on their own on holiday as much as you wish, or walk alone at night down dark lanes. I say that's dangerous.

You've witnessed 12 year olds crying because they couldn't find a toilet in a bar and being escorted back to their parents by strangers?!?!?!?!

Hahahahahahaha!!!! I am actually crying 😂That is the best post on here today by a mile 😂

In other news, my 12 year old DSD is off into Manchester for the day on Saturday with her best friend to go shopping for holiday clothes.

Marriott is fairly nice… I assume all corridors have cctv? I mean worse case scenario you can start banging on one of those 12 doors?!
As long as you trust her to come straight back I don’t see a problem.

I stayed at a similar chain with my 2 year old in the USA who thought it was funny to keep opening the door and run down the hall to the lifts. I can assure you nobody grabbed him…
Usually housekeeping are around. Nobody is going to be waiting at the door expecting your daughter to walk alone down the hallway, or be able to grab her in time physically. Sorry I think you are being delusional. She is probably safer walking down the hallway in this hotel than at some places in the UK… I am sure most people are on holiday to enjoy themselves and not planning to kidnap anyone.

A troll, I have been on here for years! A bit rude- I didn’t say I wouldn’t go camping where single people go but a) I wouldn’t go camping in the first place as I don’t have a tent or equipment and b) if it is not a family campsite the dynamics may be different, more rowdy behaviour, more drinking, more merriment that isn’t really appropriate for kids. I’m not sure how that fits the description of the clinically insane, it is a practical approach.

My children are younger than that, but we have been working on skills needed for age-appropriate independence since they were small. The statement that in a few years they would be crying because they can't find their way back from toilets is therefore utterly ridiculous. I can imagine this happening to a child who has until then been under constant supervision though - of course you panic if mummy has been always there every step you take.

I'd go with her! If we are anywhere foreign, on vacation, whatever, I don't like letting my kids out of my sight & they are 17 & 12! Even in the grocery store, I hate it when they flit off to another aisle.

It literally only takes a split second (for the worst to happen).

The odds of winning the Lottery are about 1 in 4 million - but huge numbers of people still play it because we don't live our lives by statistics. I always lock my room door when I stay in a hotel - am I being irrational?

my eldest is 17 I am well aware of how to help them navigate life and have alerted them to all sorts of risks that they need to know about. Believe me my DS is super confident, very laidback and nowhere near the image of a gibbering wreck that some on here would like to believe.

Why do you think she is in more danger of being abducted while walking past six hotel rooms in a hotel in America than she would be while getting a bus or going to the shops in the UK, though?

You're being really irrational about this.

You are being way over the top.

Again, I didn’t once mention abductions this the hyperbolic wording of those that want to prove it is all OTT helicopter parenting. Crime in hotels exists that includes an array of stuff that I wouldn’t want my DD to be witness to or come across when it is completely unnecessary.

So what you have quoted there has exactly proven my point that I never ever once said the risk was about child abduction. Indeed in the quote above I crime in hotels, The child abduction line has been trotted out again and again by those trying to prove to the OP that she is being over protective by stating the most unlikely crime that could arise, knowing full well it is hard to argue against that. It is for those suggesting the abductions of children in hotels is rare to find the data to back ‘their’ argument up, not mine as I referring to hotel crime and being caught up in, witnessing anything akin to that.

The car risk I listed all the things you mentioned as reducing the risk to a point of tolerance so I am not sure why you are telling me to suck eggs. It’s not really clear to me what you are actually trying to explain.

People are asking about statistics. Just found this.

”There are about 72 million kids 0-17 in America. And the number kidnapped by strangers is about 100. So the odds of being kidnapped are about 1 in 720,000. One way to look at that number: The odds of having conjoined twins is 1 in 200,000 according to the University of Maryland's Medical Center.”

So you are more likely to give birth to conjoined twins, then for your child to get abducted in America by a stranger.

Goodness I would let my 9yo do this and now I'm wondering if I'm too laid back.

@ButWhatAboutTheBees to be fair, Goldenbear is getting a lot of people commenting on her posts as the OP is, one assumes, sleeping and now strolling around doing morning things!

I think this particular poster has decided the whole thread is now about them

At 14:39 you said: Again, the specific child abduction stuff is hyperbole but people are so sheltered that they think no crime exists in hotels, that everyone operates in this life with an outlook as charmed as theirs - that is frankly hilarious!

That seems pretty clear that you agree it's unlikely she's going to be abducted.

As for people asking you for data - the point they're making, that you are spectacularly failing to even consider in every single one of your posts - is that the fact that a risk exists is not a binary in itself - you have completely failed to consider the liklihood of the risk. This is the final factor that should be considered when doing risk assessment. You only consider three: a) is the risk avoidable b) what is the potential negative outcome if the risk happens and c) how important it is to do the thing that puts you at this risk.

Someone else earlier in this thread used your same risk assessment factors to dispute an argument that getting in a car is high risk but we do it all the time. Her point being that the downside of NOT getting in the car is potentially significant. But actually, in that assessment, there is an automatic inclusion of my factor - the seriousness/liklihood of the risk itself, in this case, the risk of an accident. And we know this because, for example, few of us would get in a car that is not roadworthy or does not have seatbelts or where the driver is drunk becuase we would feel that the need to get somewhere was not sufficiently important to compensate for the massive increased risk.

That's why you're being asked for data. But you don't seem to see it as important which is strange to many of us.

Not in a Marriot
They attract all sorts. If it was a better hotel I would be fine with it.