Husband changing mind about DD left at home

You’re in a tricky position and I’m sure you would like it to be different.
i think the crux of it is maybe listening to your husband rather than being offended he is questioning anything.
sorry to be rude but you both sound awful
communicators, he has an issue now and hasn’t taken any time to explain why and you’ve take the hump and come on to mumsnet rather than speaking with him and clearly have little intention of listening to feedback on here either.
why are you talking with your husband about his feelings and also what you can maybe do as a team to make this easier on your daughter?

Agree.

But so many adults in the UK will take the car out rather than walk even half a mile that they have lost sight of this.

For a healthy teen, it's 30 mins at a brisk pace. 45 mins if dawdling with friends

‘Abusive’? What sort of rarified world do you live in? Children have been walking to school since forever, it’s great exercise and reinforces their independence. Last time I looked children don’t melt in the rain, what is this obsession on this thread about ‘all weathers’? It’s not like we live in some extreme environment with earthquakes is it?

It’s clearly very difficult for some parents to understand but as children grow up they don’t want to spend all their time being monitored and coddled by their parents. I wonder how many of you with these anxieties exert as much control over what your children are accessing online, because that could be far more dangerous than walking to school.

My husband walks 2 miles to work. He works at a site at the top of a hill so there’s no buses and cycling is hard. The majority of his coworkers walk. I work in the centre of town and take a bus, but plenty walk or cycle in from all sorts of places - some miles away. No one drives as there’s no parking. My kids are growing up walking and go on hikes with their dad frequently as they think nothing of walking 8 miles or so. It’s wonderful for them (I’m disabled so can’t manage that, but can luckily walk a couple miles). The OPs daughter will benefit so much from being fit and independent.

Women do that too. They do need to talk about it.

I do wonder if pp actually know how far 2 miles is? It may sound a lot if you don’t walk often but it’s not.

1500 pupils in my child’s secondary school and I bet there is only a handful who don’t make their own way there. 2 miles is not far. My dc school is an 8 minute drive from our house that’s 2.4 miles. The walk is 38 minutes. That’s 1.8 miles walking distance. We are closer than lots of people and the majority walk, many cycle and a handful get the bus ( stop is 15 mins walk away). My dd actually chooses to walk and prefers it to getting the bus. This is in all weathers. There is a horde of dc all walking the same way. They have to set off at 7am ish. Sometimes it’s dark. This is totally normal and the dc that go to the next nearest school walk 1.5 miles to the train then another mile once they get off.
Everyone does this from year 7.
I have honestly never seen dc being dropped off unless they live a few towns over.
I don’t know a single year 7 who goes to childcare and I know every year 7, who I work with, or know, stay on their own at times, including after school.
I dont understand pp on here. Do you not have teens or know teens? Did they honestly get taken to school by parents everyday. most schools are a couple of miles away unless you live in the city centre. Does no one live in villages or small towns on here or something

They're not doing a four mile walk. They're walking two miles in the morning and another two in the afternoon. Which is very different.

Every child where I live did that walk to and from school. I don't live in the back of beyond, I live in outer commuterland. But the nearest secondary school is in the next small town to ours, so that's where our town's kids go. And there is no transport provided unless they're three miles away.

My kids never complained about it. The walk with their friends was a social element, and when I was off work and offered a lift to school, it was refused.

This is absolutely not a 19th century thing. It's very much 21st century.

Re: the key situation which triggered this rethink, have you considered a key safe? No worries about losing or forgetting the key and handy for other family members too.

Re: the walk. There’s a few things to break down. Coming home. I’d be fine with that. Going less so. Two reasons; knowing when to leave and not getting distracted and locking the house up securely. The distance and weather are factors too. Councils expect kids to walk up to 3 miles, so about an hour. In my child’s case the day starts at 8.25 so in winter that is a walk in the dark. As a family we walk everywhere and use the car only if essential but kids carry a tonne of stuff to school, don’t have lockers (in my child’s case) or cloakrooms and, if they start out wet it is really unpleasant to spend the day damp. Not so bad coming home though like a previous poster I’ve had to dry shoes out overnight. I don’t know any children who do what the OP proposes (not saying it’s wrong, just stating my experience). Nor do I know any adults at my very large workplace who walk that distance to work. It’s not just safety/inconvenience 2 hours (6 miles ie the council limit) is a lot of time to spend walking in a working day.

I do know a couple of people who drive their kid past the school and beyond to get them out of the house with them so they know they are up and walking to school on a safer walking route than the direct one from their house.

We have made similar changes, which has cost us career progression and means we're stuck in our current jobs. But I appreciate for some professions it's trickier to find those flexible roles.

Abusive is the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen on this frankly confusing thread. There are 800 children at my daughter’s high school and possibly 20 cars at drop off. Everyone else makes their own way there by walking or biking or on the bus. Even if I wanted to walk her in (and she’d let me lol!), I’m busy walking her brother to school a mile in the other direction so couldn’t anyway. It is absolutely expected that children make their own way. Next week she has an appointment and I’m at work so she’ll leave school, walk a mile up the road to the appointment and then go back to school after. This is not abusive at all.

My son is 8 and is transitioning to walking himself to school now. It’s just over a mile and we are on the edge of the catchment so not a lot of kids for the first little while. He will be fine.

Nobody's forgotten how to walk, but I reiterate that the expectation that a child should have to undertake a four mile walk in all weathers, alone, on a daily basis for the foreseeable, is abusive.

I also do think, OP, that you have possibly underestimated the transition to secondary.

It’s a HUGE leap in terms of how overwhelming it is, how many more things there are to remember and how much more tired year 7s are when they first start.

To not be there for her, at least for the first half term, seems really harsh. It’s going to be a massive adjustment for her. Is she going to have friends to walk with? Don’t you want someone to be there when she gets home on her first day?

I realise it may be really difficult to make work adjustments but can’t you at least get her settled in slightly before leaving her to her own devices? I really think her knowing someone will be home when she gets back from her first days at secondary school will help her settle much quicker.

On another note, do you have lots of parental controls on her phone? It’s all very well saying she’s perfectly safe at home but do you know what she’s watching and accessing while at home alone?

I think you're romanticising the 19th century if you think this is comparable to the reality of kids lives back then.

Around half the children at my DC's school must live in the 19th century then.

What's unreasonable is that so many people have forgotten how to walk.

How do you know it’s normal for the ‘vast majority’? Have you done a nationwide survey?

I’m not saying it’s terrible and she definitely shouldn’t be made to do it, but saying it’s ‘normal’ is categorically wrong. I know no year 7s that do this and I have many friends with teenagers and have been teaching for over 20 years.

It probably depends massively on where you live in the country and how lucky you are to live near to a secondary school but I honestly believe students nowadays that would have to do this journey each day are in the minority.

2 miles to school on foot? By herself in September?? That's more of a concern to me

What is actually unreasonable is a four mile round trip on foot for a child from age eleven years, on a daily basis, for approx. 7 years. This sounds like a scenario from the 19th century. You'll need to rethink this.

YABU your child is too young to be left alone, whether “you have to” or you choose to. Y7 is the age to start leaving them alone based on their maturity level.

Although I would have found this difficult with my own children, both now 20 & 17, I do wish that I had allowed them to gain more independence. Up until recently I ferried my 17 year old to college 3 times per week and even in her final year at school, I took her most days and picked her up, even though she could of caught the train one stop! I feel slightly embarrassed because at times I run myself ragged because I knew my daughter would have been late most days! OP your daughter is going to be very independent and this will set her up well for the future, when it comes to working etc. I did not do that for my daughter and the result is that up until recently I basically managed her life, she is getting so much better after her ADHD diagnosis but I realise now that I did not help her to manage certain aspects of her life independently. Sometimes threads like this make you realise where you went wrong. I was lucky that I could work part-time and be there for drop off and picks up but I wonder what my daughter would have been like had I not had this option. I think you are doing the very best you can and I feel people should be a little less judgmental.

My daughter walked about 2.5 miles from year 7 and yes she did it in the rain and in winter, there was no other choice. She never had any issues, people aren't being realistic if they think you can just quit your job or whatever.

I imagine she'll find friends to walk to and from school with when she goes to secondary. I used to walk an hour to and from in all weathers and it was arguably more dangerous in the 90s cos none of us had phones... I'm still alive. You can't cocoon children forever.

I think we all have that fear to a certain extent, you just have to remember that statistically they’re very unlikely to be run over or harmed. And you lessen the risks - being out in busy areas in daylight, fine. Walking home alone through woodland at 10pm in the winter? Not so fine.
You absolutely do need to let go, especially once they hit their early teens. They’re the years where you need to step back and give them the confidence and independence to become an adult.

Is there a friend you could drop her off with from September to walk together? I agree re popping to shop etc 11 years old is fine but 1.5 hours after school everyday seems a lot. However she does need to prepare for high school and the time things went wrong she managed it.

ifspeak to your dh and ask why he has changed his mind.

Im 44 with a 12 year old and so I was 12 in the 90s and am raising a 12 year child today. I obviously survived my childhood but absolutely had many, many times I would have really appreciated a way out of a situation or ended up somewhere I shouldn’t. I am grateful for modern technology that means my kids have the ability to reach out on demand. My mom was anxious whenever I was out on my own and would have loved me to have a smart watch or a phone or anything really.

of course I think it’s important to learn resilience - my daughter goes out with her friends and makes decisions and figures out buses and budgets how to spend her pocket money… and sometimes makes mistakes along the way. That’s important. But it’s also such a wonderful thing that she can message me when she does get in over her head and I can help. It’s absolutely made me a more relaxed parent and has made my anxious daughter braver too.