AIBU to let my Year 5 daughter walk home alone?

You are raising a fully functional member of society. Well done! Free school lunches can be dire so I can’t say I blame him.

You misunderstand.

Of course! I’m in Scotland so it’s free school lunches through p5. He decided he didn’t like them in p4 so I told him I would buy the food if he packed his own lunch. He lets me know what to get in for him.

Perfect! Did he make his own packed lunches too?

So I spoke to DB and SIL about letting just turned 8 nephew to shops to buy something. Emphatic no and roads far too dangerous. They’re not! So that’s that then.

Yup. Triple win for us at that age as he decided he didn’t like school lunches so packed his own. Hes totally independent in the mornings now and I can get to work without the stress

We live in a three tier school system area so the lower schools encourage children to leave school and walk home alone from the summer term onwards in preparation for moving to middle school. So we have 8 and 9 year olds walking independently, and then the majority do it when they start Year 5- some Year 5s travel a huge distance to and from school independently. My dd is July born so she’d only just turned 9 when she started walking to and from school (with friends) and the only part we (parents) supervised was them crossing a busy main road. I was so anxious the first few weeks she walked to and from school but children are a lot more sensible than we give them credit for and they loved and flourished with the independence they were given.

OP, a safe 4 minute walk is a great starting point to encourage her independence.

If she can be trusted to cross the roads sensibly there is no other risk. My dds were doing this before year 5 and the school had no say in it but might have changed now

Working the playground. Jesus Christ.

It’s a win win really isn’t it? You save on breakfast and or after school club, kids get their own breakfast and after school snack and they walk and get independence. What’s not to like?

All part of the fun of winter.

In these circumstances absolutely if she is sensible. She is 10, not 3.

My DD has walked home alone (well with friends most of the way) since end of year 4.
Similar 5 mins walk and only one minor road to cross

My working of the playground was very hands off. I certainly didn’t curate my kids friendships, but was alert to other parents who were. There were also people in the playground I liked to catch up with, who weren’t the parents of any of my children’s friends.

She should definitely be getting more independence especially since it’s only 4 mins

I remember my DD would sometimes take a couple of hours to get home from school in winter as she'd find a snowy hill and spend a happy hour sliding down it on her bum, or she'd have her skis because she skied to school and she'd do a couple of laps of the cross country course.

My son started walking the mile to school at the end of p4 - he was 8. The kids who love 4 minutes away were mostly walking themselves earlier than that.

I have no idea what happens before and after school as my husband and I work full time. Before my kids could walk themselves to school we’d walk them to wraparound. He was delighted when he could cancel breakfast club. It’s all much easier now.

If school let them I imagine there will be quite a few doing it so YANBU at all.

My DC feels like he’s the only one not allowed - but there are two or three major crossings and a lot longer journey than yours. Still doable on foot. I’m trying to do it bit by bit so that it’ll be ok from y6 or half way through y6.

My DS has been walking since 1st grade. Takes about 20 minutes,...in theory. He can take up to an hour to walk home because he stops at places, has a chat with friends, goes to the playground. We live in a small town.
It's completely normal here, though. He's about to start 3rd grade after the summer holidays.
4 minutes is nothing.

@HelenaWilson I agree. I don't want to curate my kids' friendship groups - there's enough socio-economic filtering through where we live and my kids' hobbies and activities without me imposing my ideas of who I do or don't think I want my kids to hang out with. Kids, like adults, already tend to form friendship groups which contain people from similar backgrounds to themselves, so the chances are that if they're happy with a child, the parents will get on OK. I didn't need or want to take on an extra task of arranging my child's social circle.

@Hillarious I left the working of the playground to my children to do, because the playground is their office and I was typically working before and after their school day. They both worked out who they wanted to hang around with and who they'd rather avoid. My kids just had to do a bit more legwork in arranging the playdates - they told me who they wanted to invite, we wrote a note with contact details, they gave it to the friend, the friend took it home, the adults got in touch and made the thing the kids wanted to happen actually come about.

Have a presence there. Get to know the other parents and kids, be able to take friends back home with you to play/have tea, understand who your kids like to hang out with, and who you think you might like to avoid, keep your ear to the ground for gossip. Networking, basically.

Surely the only thing you need to know is who your child likes to hang out with. And your child can tell you that. It's primary school, not politics.

Have a presence there. Get to know the other parents and kids, be able to take friends back home with you to play/have tea, understand who your kids like to hang out with, and who you think you might like to avoid, keep your ear to the ground for gossip. Networking, basically. This then stops for secondary.

Round here y5 would be the minimum age for this, I’d say it depends on the child but I think I’d have been just about ok with this with mine from y5, definitely y6

Maybe 20 years ago - but not today. That's just me.

https://capt.org.uk/csw-road-safety/