What would you think to a year 3 child, walking to and from school alone everyday, coming home to an empty home till about 5.30pm, and spending all the summer holidays at home alone

[Lardlizard]

Apart from the odd week or two the mum could take off work for holidays rest of the time the child is home alone

Apart from the holidays, I think this fairly common in the '70s and early '80s.

Haven’t RTFT but didn’t want to read and run. Have you thought about holiday clubs?

Surely there must be some sort of prize for post number 201?

@Lardlizard

Oh, I must be confused then? Who posted that?

Biwi, because I don’t need sympathy from strangers, far, far worse things have happened To me in my life than that

Apart from a handful of posters
Everyone else confirmed exactly what I thought would be said, guess I was just seeing if my suspicions were right, and they were

What an odd thread

Surprised the school allow this. It’s only allowed from year 5 in my DC’s school and even then it’s not common place. I see a handful of the year 6’s walking home but they live on the estate closest to school so not a long walk and no real roads to cross. I think it’s ok in year 6 to prepare them for secondary but year 3 is far too young.

If the parent have okayed it the school can not oppose it norway

I’m probably going to have to trust Ds to get himself to and from school and fix a snack until I get home at age 10 unless wrap around care provision increases locally in the next 3 years, (at the moment my teenage daughters drop him at breakfast club, but it opens too late for me to get to work. They will both be at uni in three years.) 10 feels worryingly young, 7-8 far too little.

You cant judge parenting in the 80s by todays standards - we all know now that smoking around kids, not wearing a seatbelt, leaving kids alone, smacking etc wrong and not a good thing at all but parents in the 80s didnt, society didnt view it as wrong.

By todays standards it would be abusive but by 80s standards its not something that would have raised too many red flags generally.

@BrieAndChilli doesn't mean it still won't have effected the OP though.

Walking to and from school alone, sometimes with a younger sibling in tow, was fine in the 1980s, and the being home alone until 5.30 was not unusual.

The holidays bit is odd, I grant you.

Humans are endlessly evolving and I’m glad we’re not so cavalier about child safety now.

So you posted this as a test

I walked my sister home at that age. My parents worked the holidays, although we were sent to our grandparents for a couple of weeks every summer holiday. They were completely different times.

I dunno what you want from a bunch of complete strangers. If you're still upset by this, therapy may be a positive move.

I was a 70s child. Walked a 15 minute walk across fields and 1 road from Reception age. I didn't know any different.

My son is in year 4 and walks to school everyday I can literally see the gates from my front window though, the school are fine with it.

Leaving him all day in the holidays is not great, I wouldn't do it personally however being a single parent is hard. In my experience jobs aren't typically understanding re childcare she may not have anyone to help her and be scared of getting fired.

All your threads are very weird. Agree with BIWI.

I’m a child of the 70s. I walked to and from school and was a ‘latch key kid’ but I had two older brothers. We had maybe an hour or two on our own in the afternoons.

But being left on our own all holidays? No way. That wasn’t normal then. At all. Not in my circles anyway.

I don’t think this was normal in the 80s. I was 8 in 1981 and we walked to school by ourselves, but when we came home I don’t remember anyone coming home to an empty house. That only seemed to start in the last year of primary for kids with two working parents, at the very earliest. It was common from age 11.

The holiday thing I really don’t remember that happening to anyone at primary school.

I think you have the right to be sad about this op

I hope you get your childcare sorted OP. It’s good that you’re thinking about this now rather than leaving it until July.

@GoFiguire I think you need to read the full thread 😂

I’m quite liberal about things and children being wrapped up in cotton wool but that’s far too young. I’d say last year of primary to walk home alone and then at least 11/12 high school to stay home in holidays.

I would go to social services though I would say it to their face first.

I'd be very worried, that's a lot of time alone for fairly young child.

OP: I am sorry you had an unhappy childhood.

I think a lot of the “it was normal” posts are about the walking to school as this seems to have taken up lots of the discussion.

I am older than you and it was not remotely normal for 8/9 year old children to be left alone all day in the 60s and 70s during the whole summer hols, let alone in the 80s and 90s.

I’m not saying it didn’t happen but it wasn’t normal or viewed as OK.

People don’t read the whole OP, focus on things that are relevant in their own lives (“when will I allow my child to walk independently to school?”) plus there is often a weird blanket ageism on MN in which it is assumed that anyone who grew up before 1985 lived a barbaric life, routine violence, was a frothing zealot in every form of oppressive ‘ism’ and patented a la Sparta in Ancient Greece.

My school has teachers on both gates and stood at all the doors so they would know which kids are coming to school on their own.

I don't know if there is an actual rule about what age they can walk to school alone though. They can walk home from yr3 with written permission. Everyone without permission is let out one at a time when they can see their parents.
You don't have to sign anything about walking to school though.

So wait, you set up this thread as a test to see if you could second guess what people would type?

What an odd thing to do

I wasn't particularly bothered by walking to school with friend from age 5.

Was not particularly bothered by being a latch key kid from age 7 nor being home alone if poorly from age 7. Each parent popped in during their lunch hour.

I would have been bothered by all day alone in the summer holidays I think.

I was more upset by not having someone special at sports day.