Walking to school alone - advice please

Are we keeping kids safe with all this access to technology?

There's a hell of a lot to say there's more risk from being online due to social media and unrealistic and unachievable representations of women/men, potential 24/7 harassment and bullying, idealism of lifestyles which do not reflect reality and that's without considering who they might meet online which may be altogether more dark than walking by yourself to school from an early age.

And if you are totally reliant on tech, what happens if you lose your phone or you break it? It infantilises in a way.

That's the other thing I was just thinking. We have so much more technology in place to keep kids safe now. Mobiles, trackers, etc. Yet they are less independent. It does make sense.

You could put an apple tracker in her bag but that would ping other people's phones if they come close - its a safety feature so other apple users know there is a tracker nearby.
To be honest, if you are worried it sounds to me like she is not ready - tell your son to suck it up for another year. Seriously, I would be removing his priveleges if he can't help you out with this one job.

So the solution is to get in the car and drive your kids to school? Ok.

You say we learn - but history shows that not all learned this are actually progressive (despite being labelled as such). Some beliefs can be utterly regressive and not actually reflective of real life risks and threats to us.

At what age are your kids going to be old enough to walk? Or are they still going to be at high risk of all those imagined zooming cars that apparently don't exist in other countries? (Really you should travel to some parts of Europe cos the driving there makes the British look good!).

There's always going to be an excuse about why it's too dangerous to walk and before you know it the kids are adults saying it's too dangerous to walk.

Walking culture generates from peers walking. It becomes harder to justify ferrying your kids everywhere. Try it. It might improve your mental health and improve kids behaviour in the class (plenty of evidence that walking to school improves behaviour, particularly for ADHD kids).

When we talk about the risks of walking to school, why are we not talking about the increased risk to mental and physical health from being driven to school? Or is that an inconvenient truth that parents want to just ignore?

It's normal to be doing that in my area from around age 8, so yes, depending on the child (i.e. that they're happy to do it, not stressing about it).

You can get tracker watches with GPS and a sim card where you control the only numbers that can call or be called (e.g. both parents). Then you can check on the app that she's got to school OK, and if she encounters any problems she could press the SOS button to call you from the watch, or you could call her while she's walking. It can then be set to school mode when she arrives so it just shows the time like a normal digital watch.

My child cycles in alone and has done since the OP's child's age but I still teach him the world is a dangerous place! because it certainly can be!

I think there a huge difference between "The world is a dangerous place, let me protect you from it at all times" and
"The world is a dangerous place, here's how to deal with that and stay safe"

And sadly I do think the former is being used far too often and kids are missing out because of it.

No I don’t think that’s entirely true.
For many parents who work, letting kids leave by themselves and walk themselves home would be an easy (and cheaper) option. Loads would take that offer up for younger kids if given the chance rather than pay for wrap around but most schools won’t allow that. And for good reason.
I also live in a village - a safe one. But the amount of vans I see daily hurtling down the small car lined roads here is crazy.
The generation before (kids growing up in the 50’s) would have thought we were bonkers for taking our kids everywhere. My relative was 7 and looking after her younger siblings of 5,4 and 1 daily whilst her mum did the daily shopping which took about 2 hours including the walk. She also walked all the younger kids to school and picked up neighbours 5 year olds to walk.
What Madeline McCanns parents did wild have been absolutely acceptable in the 70’s. There were baby listening services at most resorts to leave your baby / small child whilst you went out and had a good time- someone would pop round and listen out for crying and inform you if your baby was crying. My parents used this service once or twice with me and my siblings. Was absolutely acceptable.
When I was a kid there were no seatbelts in the back of a car- 4 of us just rolled around and lay across one another on the motorway.
Things change. We learn. The world changes with each generation. And it’s certainly changed since the 80’s.
Other countries have a different culture and people act differently. Maybe in other counties they are more careful as they know small children are crossing for example.
In Japan it’s very common for a 4 or 5 year old to catch trains and transport to school. No one would bat an eyelid. That’s because their culture allows it with a different crime rate and respect and culture.
Can’t really imagine a 4 year old getting on the underground by themselves here can you?

Funny how 'other countries....' Is always trotted out as an argument when it's something MN approves of, but ignored when MN disapproves.

Some horrible remarks about the ds here. Maybe it's just that he knows children at his sister's school walk alone from Y5 and, not unreasonably, doesn't see why she can't do the same.

Not surprising there's an epidemic of anxiety among children and young people, when (some of) their parents seem determined to teach them the world is such a dangerous place.

Completely agree.

I'm often flabbergasted by the vast cultural difference with England on this.

Personally, I would be fine with this. I would prefer her to walk alone than with a friend, though, although either is OK.

Yes absolutely fine, DS walked home at this age and for all those saying no. Schools here allow is as not long ago we where a middle school area and when they started middle school they make their way to school and home on their own so Schools actually allow them to go home in year 4 on their own with parents permission. As middle school starts in year 5.

We aren't now but most parents still feel it's absolutely fine for year 5&6's to make their own way to school and back as that's what they did. So you don't see many of them being picked up unless they have younger siblings, even then it's not cool.

I did get DS a Nokia brick phone so he could ring if need be. Either me or his sister, sometimes his sister would walk past school and pick him up, but he didn't think that was cool either. 😒 It wasn't on her way to school so she couldn't really drop him off.

Where I live, lower school ends at Year 4. At the start of Year 5 almost all kids walk to Middle School. So it wouldn't bother me on the slightest

I don’t think it’s laziness; the opposite surely.

OP lives in a village. Her child doesn't need to cross a main road.

The shift has been more to do with parents not wanting to walk to school because they all have cars and then the kids never having learnt that skill from a very early age.

Also, I believe they also have cars in the rest of Europe and the increase in cars has also happened in the rest of Europe.

We can't even blame the weather if you consider it's typical of kids age 6 to walk by themselves in Norway.

It's because parents in the UK have become more lazy and this has then set up the kids to follow that.

What happened was 100’s and 100’s more cars on residential roads.
Cars go faster and not electric cars mean they can’t be heard either. Thousands of delivery vans that wernt there 20 years ago. And they are not often slow or careful either.
Look up a photo of a typical suburban residential street from the 80’s. It’s really quite an eye opener as to how many fewer cars are there.
So many kids get hit on bikes by cars each year and many walking it’s frightening.

Couldn't agree more.

Our school allows kids to walk to and from school from year 5. My dd has been taking herself there and back since then. I think it’s absolutely fine. I was walking a 20 minute walk to and from school from year 5. We mollycoddle kids too much these days. If she doesn’t get there the school will inform you

I'm liking the sound of aftershock care! It sounds much better than the local after school club which only lets the kids read.

My boy has been cycling to school since the February of year 5, which is 9yo. We got him a bike for Christmas that year and he cycled from February onwards, once he had got used to the bike. If he had owned a bike from when he started year 5, I would have let him then but it is a little far to walk.
I myself walked independently from year 3.
TBH I was actually just about to make a thread about this sort of thing when I saw yours. In other European countries it's the norm for all kids to walk to school independently and is in fact frowned upon for parents to take them. That used to be the norm here and I'm not sure what happened. School traffic and parking is horrendous and kids walking independently or in groups with other kids could solve a hell of a lot of issues. I'm all for it.
I would let her walk the two streets independently or get her a bike. Two streets is nothing.

I think the 9 year old should be in aftershock care. What if he wants to do something after school or meet friends? It isn't fair

You’re the parent and DS the child so you need to be the one in control here and insist he walks with her. It’s no hassle for him walking alongside his sister to ensure she is safe. I’d let her walk alone in year 6.

I think your expectations of your 15 year old are too much if he’s doing after school care every day plus the morning. I can see why he’s rallying against that. Could you compromise and put the 9yo in wrap around a few evenings a weeks so your older one has more flexibility. He might then be more willing to do the mornings.

I don’t think either are wrong.

I wouldn’t personally do it. I think there is a difference between the probability of something happening (abduction is rare but it would be misleading to claim it has never happened and most of these sorts of crimes are opportunistic in nature.) The probability is low but the risk factor is high, in other words.

But that doesn’t make it wrong and it doesn’t mean parents who do make this choice are irresponsible or (worse) don’t care if their child is run over or something.

You can do it. I'm fine with the policy.

I think we've gone far to far the wrong way tbh.