Is it o.k to let your 11 year old daughter hang out on the local park?

@redskydarknight I think you might be thinking of probably our /your generation where kids were really just kids.
Today an 11yo is exposed to/ surrounded by their own peers who have access to so much harmful stuff- porn, drugs, smoking, grooming.

We have had a kid over from a local activity group. 9yo wanting to listen to hardcore rap music with explicit words. My own dc was shocked and told him he's not allowed to play that, we sent him home shortly after and he's never allowed here again. Told ds he is just sticking to his school friends where we know the parents and types of kids.
This was just music, yet that's a child that will hang around the parks and get up to who knows what. I think children today are far too exposed compared to how I grew up and I will have a closer eye on things.
Anyway in our friendship groups/my dc groups parents are present, drop and pick, play dates arranged etc. and that's fine with me.

I am talking from dusk onwards, so here it is 5pm or slightly earlier. The dog walkers evaporate and clearly I am not talking about them, please stop being facetious, this is a serious subject.

After tea time? So 5pm? If you'd said 9pm, I might concede you had a point.

But in early evening, I think I can safely say that there may be many grown men in parks. They are walking/cycling home from work/shops/other places. They are going for a run. They are walking their dog. They are taking their young children to play on the swings. They are playing organised sport. Yes, not all parks are like this, but they hardly represent the odd exception.

Ofc it goes without saying it varies regionally. But universally parks after tea time are usually places children should avoid. You might know of the odd exception. Some are patrolled. Others are policed by cameras etc but on the whole I think we can safely say grown men aren’t visiting to play on the swings…

Meant my daughter same age goes

My daughter S.A. e she goes to the park with her friends after school I don't see anything wrong

Our local park is not known to attract predators.

Meanwhile some coffee shops, particular bus routes, the local bowling alley (all places which you seem to deem perfectly fine) ... would avoid like the plague.

Ironically you are the one thinking in black and white terms. Parks are not uniformly bad and other places are not uniformly good.

Honestly I find the complacency depressing.

Your child can have as much independence as you/they like! They can travel around, go on camping adventures and shop, watch films, go for coffee, learn to use buses, trains, sailing, ride horses - take themselves off anywhere that appeals independently but have some boundaries around parks, canals and other areas that are known to attract predators.

It is not the park or nothing.

That is just too black and white. There is an entire independent world in the middle.

I’m sure most of you have heard of it, but please do read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (or listen to some of his podcasts)
and also ‘bad therapy - why the kids aren’t growing up’ by Abigail Shrier

This thread is depressing. The amount of helicopter parenting going on. Everything supervised, everything tracked, everything arranged by the adults. You’re probably statistically more likely to crash the car and seriously injure your kid on the way to the local cinema you’re dropping them to for their ‘supervised date’ than them getting dragged in to dealing drugs!
Any sensible child should know not to interact with complete strangers whilst knocking around in their local park and of course you don’t let them go after dark. Give them a curfew and trust them.
If you don’t, be prepared to have to parent them forever. Unless that’s what you want? Don’t let them go to uni in case they’re scared of being away from you. Perhaps buy them their first house, accompany them to their first job interview? Pick their spouse for them even?

I am really sorry that happened to your family, and your darling dd. I hope she has been able to recover and put her life back together.

I think different people are imagining different scenarios.
Most 11 year old boyfriends are just friends who happen to be boys.

There is a park right next to my DC's secondary school; absolutely loads of the children hang out there after school as it's convenient - it's also right next to a parade of shops and a health centre so there is lots of people walking through - there is really nothing dodgy going on, just children in groups chatting or playing football.

No issue (and nor do most Year 7 parents) with my DC going to the park with a boyfriend in this scenario.

If you're imagining your 11 year old having sex in the park with their boyfriend, late at night while they are recruited for county lines and surrounded by people drinking, vaping and smoking weed, then clearly that's an entirely different thing!

And there's clearly a grey line in the middle where your individual situation crosses from ok to not ok. Depending on their own situations people are putting OP's one or other side of the line. Flat saying "there is no way this is acceptable" is ridiculous. It needs qualifiers.

DD12 here and this is hard no from me.

And thats from someone who’s in a ‘nice’ area (whatever that means) and allowed her to walk/to from school with 2 friends from Y5 in primary.

Completely different level of risk, in a park, in the dark. No way.

Same here. I'm sometimes blown away by the level of freedom people on here give their kids. An 11yo has no business having a boyfriend, or hanging out in the park. I live in a very nice area too, and we don't let our kids roam around hanging around the streets or parks. It's usually at home with a parent around, or organised activities. Also an 11yo having a boyfriend isn't cute, I would judge someone for that.

It’s not for me to decide what is right for your dd, but sone things stand out to me.

Why are well cared, nurtured village children considered ‘coddled’?
And why is that a negative for you?

What realities of your own life do you think dd needs to experience? That off set the private school experience in your mind? Why do you think the private school parents are not following your lead and stopping the after school activities for cultural education at the park?

Your decisions for your dc, as are all of ours, are heavily influenced by your own life. Your dd is having a completely different life.

I know other people have mentioned county lines. This actually happened to a friend's daughter. She used to hang out in a local park in a very nice part of sw London - she and her friends were targeted by a group of older guys who bought them drink and cigarettes etc. Soon she was entirely roped in. They would turn up at her parents' home to pick her up and take her off to do their bidding. In the end she had to be taken into care and placed hundreds of miles away and the things that happened to her are just unbelievable. It happens.

@Mummyoflittledragon that's all well and good but like everywhere else fhe park is OK until those people turn up

Is it o.k to let your 11 year old daughter hang out on the local park?
No, it fucking is not. 'Hang out'? How much trouble do you want in her life?
Daylight visits, with friends and/or supervised, strictly timed 'Back here by four'.
I live in a 'nice' area. Park issues include groups of lawless teens, drug use, rapes (including of a four year old).

@Savingthehedgehogs agree with every word. Of course they can be independent it just means in different ways.
That may include a park sometimes.

So 3.30/4pm November to March?

Hence my home before dark comment.

Well of course that would be the case at 11am, but it’s a different place after 5pm. Why not head there at 7pm a Friday night? And see a different world open right before your eyes.

Her friends are not less than salubrious. They’ve all been to my house. I think my post upthread may be confusing. When I said none of them are getting drunk or smoking weed around her, I think that has been read to imply they smoke weed. I didn’t mean that at all but I can see how it could be read in this way. Quite the contrary - they don’t buy / smoke weed and don’t regularly get drunk (as I said some of her friends do get a bit drunk at parties).

I am the girl, who got drunk down the grimmest of pubs at 16 and younger, whose friend used to go off and leave me to have sex with randoms every week without fail when I otoh was known as frigid as I wouldn’t sleep with any of them. I am the girl, who used to walk down dark alleyways over canal bridges to get to said pubs so I can tell the difference. The beautiful city park for example is not safe even at dusk and I thought all parks were like that one.

A year ago dd was the girl not allowed down the park after dark when a lot of the kids her age were down til 9.30 pm. But I went to the local park alone this time last year one evening when things with things were getting tough and was astounded to see a couple of boys, who couldn’t have been more than year 5 playing in the dark alone with torches at about 8pm. They came over to me and asked me if I was ok as I was just sitting motionless on the bench. Dh was also worried about me. It is just so different down there to what I had imagined and I started going down in the dark for a while all before I allowed dd down. The kids in our village are known as being coddled by the wider community, which also comes from the primary school, so it all fits that they’re not up to no good.

So no, dd really isn’t getting hardened to a life of hard knocks or anything. That isn’t my intention at all. She always knew the difference between the city park and our village park. It was just me, who didn’t. And as her mum it is my responsibility to expand her world so that she can heal and grow.

It highlights a staggering lack of insight into what actually happens in parks today and for a good long while.

You are totally dismissing the county lines operating, drug dealing, gangs, knife crime, rape and sexual assault, child abuse, trafficking and pimping, violence and intimidation. It’s completely passed you by that pp on this thread, with lived experience, are warning of these dangers.

Why on earth would you choose to expose any child to this? Yes, it might be part of the world we live in, but these predators trade on neglect and naivety.

I have spent 20 plus years working in the justice system and I honestly wish people would educate themselves on the actual realities. Before your children become just another statistic. I am exasperated.

Sorry the hot chocolate thing means they can go and warm up for a bit and move away from any problems.

I have to say that this week during the day most parks are full of families and yes 9-13yos hanging out. Most self respecting drug dealings don't hang about hoping for passing trade.