Friend let son (9) go to shop with no adult

@Feelsodrained if you have arranged a child at your house you are responsible for them, if they are allowed to play out/go park or shop then fine if you don't know if they are allowed then either ask or don't do it.

Usually as children get older it tends to be them coming round independently(as opposed to a pre-planed play date)
So then it would be between the child's parents and the child to decide what the child is allowed to do.

Comments like this are meaningless. It completely depends on where you live. Where I am the child would have to walk through 2 housing estates and cross a busy main road with no traffic lights that is the access to an industrial estate so has lorry's on it constantly

It is very normal here. My 9 year old has been going to the park and the shop since about September. She only has one year until she'll be getting on a bus to secondary so don't want to wrap her up in cotton wool.

The parent should have asked but as nothing bad appeared to have happened maybe see it as a sign to give them more independence?

I used to go to the shop at 9, isn't that quite normal 🤷‍♀️ sorry OP

Are you mental? I take it they are both still alive. Grow a pair!

I was allowed go all the time as a child-must have been around the age of 9. Safe area, small road to cross. My son first went on his own when, same as you, he went to a friend’s house. Shop didn’t even have a road to cross but a group of young lads called him a name, his friend told them to go away and the lads chased them. That could happen at any age and they said they lost them quickly but I’m still not sure as to how I feel about it as it was wintertime and getting a bit dark

I think 9 is a reasonable age to have independence but it is up to the parent and they should have been asked.

I raised those cases only as a previous poster seemed to indicate nothing bad could or would happen, at all, EVER - and that’s simply not true. Yes it’s a minimal risk but that’s for the parent to evaluate - just like anything else. She might not have discussed relevant boundaries with her kid.

I don’t think 9 is an age where it’s a given this would be okay and OP should have been asked. Senior school age I think is where this changes.

Its very normal where I am. However, it is the sort of thing parent's have different rules on so she should have checked with you ideally.
That said, children can be more sensible at 9/10 than when they hit their early teens in my experience. So its actually better to start to let them have a bit more independence now than wait until they are 13 and they are being allowed more freedom AND they have morphed into complete idiots all at once. (I don't even mean drugs, meeting up with members of the opposite sex or anything. They just lose all common sense for a while. So its actually better if they figure out going to the shops without getting into issues at 9).

I first went to the shop alone - involving crossing a road - at the age of 5. One of my friends was younger still. Unless it's a long way, I couldn't worry about two nine year olds going to the shop unsupervised. I'd be more worried if they couldn't.

It's perfectly fine for a 9 year old to go to the local shop here in the UK - it certainly isn't a taboo and neither is it against the law.

Technically you can leave a child of any age unsupervised here, as long as it doesn't place the child at risk (if it does, it becomes a criminal offence). We're expected to use our judgement as to maturity of the child.

Much like most other countries. A 9 year old not able/allowed to go to the nearest shop here would not be all that common.

It's good for children to have manageable amounts of independence. Unless they had to cross a dangerous road or something, I think YABU. My children used to love doing shopping for my mum. (Couldn't do it at our house because shop was too far away)

I would have let this happen, I wouldn't have even thought to ask the parents. In our area, it's common and a lot of them, my son included, were walking home from school alone which took about 20 minutes.

We let our children go to the local shop from about that age. It’s very close by and no main roads etc. However, I would have sent you a message and asked if he was allowed to go as it is an individual decision for parents when they feel their child is ready.

Generally I think in the UK that’s a no-no right, can’t leave kids of this age unsupervised? Correct me if I’m wrong but I was under that impression.

Having said that I work near a big private school with boarding and kids of this age pop to the corner shop alone regularly?

Abroad that’s pretty normal, eg my friend’s kids who are 7 go to school alone as would almost any other school age kid, but that’s obviously a cultural difference.

So overall seems normal, in British cultural context though that probably isn’t ok.

How your son felt about it is what I would concentrate on.

Sounds OK to me.
At 9,I used to send mine to local shops to buy our chocolate!
I would not expect a parent to check in with you over that to be honest.
If he was 5 or 6 maybe but not 9.

I wouldn't think twice about it, provided he has been taught how to cross roads safely. Some parents nowadays are genuinely damaging their children by preventing them from developing independence and self-confidence.

Depends how far away they are, if it’s just the local ones then that seems absolutely fine unless it’s a really rough area.

I don’t get the “but they can get abducted!” argument. Adults can get abducted. Should we never go out? Car crashes are a huge risk - should we never drive?
The biggest risk to children is often their own family members. You’d be better off not letting them go round their grandparents than not letting them walk to a shop! At that age I was cycling to school and going to a park alone, and definitely the corner shop.

I live in Toronto and ds started going to Tim Hortons on his own at 9. It was about a 10 minute walk with one big intersection.

It did wonders for his self confidence. He has special needs and any independence he wants I'm thrilled to see!

I don't know why people see cities as so different? He's 13 now and takes the city bus alone. I like that lots of people are around if he needs help.

There are just far too many variables for you to get a definitive right or wrong answer. Some people aren’t bothered, some people are horrified. It’s very dependent on the location of the shop. Do they have to cross roads? Were they gone for 10 mins or 40?

If this lady was doing you a favour by minding your child for you, I would tend to let it go and just let the child go there again, if it bothers you.

Because, as Nancy Mitford so memorably wrote, "abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends"?

You've not updated so it's hard to say if tabu or yanbu.

If it's no more than 10 minutes away, with no busy roads, I think YABU. Most local children are allowed to the corner shop/tesco express round here by 8 years old. When I was a child, my mother was overprotective and I was usually the last of my peers to do things but at 9 I was allow to the corner shop, 5 mins away, across a road, and visiting friends would accompany. No one would have thought to ask visiting kids parents if it was allowed. My town hasn't changed that much and it was no more safer then than now.

I was under strict instructions, straight there and back and if I took too long choosing sweets I'd often find my distraught mother charging up the hill to look for me.

Two years later, in Yr 6, I'd be travelling on buses alone to meet my Mum in town after school, largely to prepare me for Yr 7, when most kids have to make their own way to school or hang out independently with friends after school/meet them in town at weekends. Prior to that I'd do the 15 min walk home from school alone, along busy roads, past pubs etc...I was only 18 month older than your son is now.

The kids at local primary schools all seem to do the same these days, and many are younger than I was.

If your son can't go to the nearest shops to buy sweets in Yr 4 or 5 (if he's 9 now), when are you going to start letting him go?

Providing it's a relatively safe, local, place, that is and we aren't going be drip fed a story about a 30 minute walk along rural lanes in the middle of nowhere or across a drug addict riddled estate where knife crime is rife!

This happened to me with my DD going to a friend's and DD later informed me they had been to the park for about an hour on their own. And then had gone to the shop. It was a 10/15 minute walk/crossing roads where people often drive irresponsibly.
I was very annoyed. My DD is autistic and easily gets over whelmed, if someone did approach them she would either panic or trust them. And I'm not 100% sure she would look before crossing the road. Of course my friends 9 year old was capable but mine wasn't and I was so annoyed she had made that decision for me.

Yabu unless the shop is miles away or across a main road. 9 isn't that young. Your also unreasonable to post a thread then vanish into thin air