Would you let 8yo walk 0.3 miles part of school run on their own?

[SchoolRunQ]

I'm contemplating changing my work hours that will mean one day a week I won't be around for the school dropoff. We have two children that go to separate schools so DH and I usually take one each. There aren't any other parents that go from where we are to school to team up with.

So one day a week DH will be doing drop off for both and to minimise walking distance for the smallest one, planning to drop off DD age 8 (and a half!) on the pavement where she will have to walk 0.3 miles (about 6 mins) straight up that pavement then will arrive at the school. No crossing involved. We currently leave her further up that road anyway to walk the last few metres alone (there is a steady stream of kids and parents going the same way). She's bright and sensible but can be oblivious to surroundings so that's why I wanted to gauge opinion! It's a 20mph road with some traffic but never fast as there are traffic queues at the end of the road.

Don't know if I'm being overly precious even questioning this - she's my first child so not left them alone to walk anywhere before but might be good to start building a little bit of independence!

A closed school is an emergency. A rare emergency. Rare emergencies are a part of life and I would expect anyone with children, aged 8, 11 or even 15 to prepare their kids for such an eventuality. Walking 300m as opposed so say a mile or getting the bus, minimises the possible emergency situations the child is exposed to, in relation to their age.

I guess the other option if younger DC absolutely can't go with your DH is that they both do breakfast club that day and he drops the younger one off first.

Do you really think that if the school closed unexpectedly,there would be no-one around at drop off time?

If this happened she could walk back with a friend or get someone she knows to call her parents. Or the OP could give her DD a phone now she's starting to go places by herself.

@SleepingStandingUp

My kids know why to do. I've taught them.

Mind you it wasn't exactly the Hunger Games they'd failed to prepare her for, was it? I'm sure she got used to it after a few tries.

Actually no. It was nearly a term in, and she was still worrying about the journey and kept phoning her mum saying she wasn't sure which way to go, and her mum would stay on the phone and talk her through it. Whether that was because she really was lost, or because she needed the comfort of her mum's voice on the phone while she walked, I'm not sure. But I wouldn't call it a successful transition.

Yea. Loads of children here walk to and from school alone at that age; a lot of them walk or scoot together in a group. It's about a half mile walk with a busy main road with a pedestrian crossing but it's fine.

No probably not. I live in what I thought was a safe area (we too walk to school just on a housing estate) and only last week there was a man in a car who attempted kidnapping a young girl outside the school waiting to be picked up. This was during the school pick up time as well, so very busy, but nobody intervened - I guess most parents just presumed she knew him. She just ran back into the school and told a teacher who then raised the alarm and called police etc. Even tonight on the school run there were two very suspicious men stood not far from the school, and another guy in a car idling which was odd. I wouldn't have wanted my daughter walking past on her own.
On a side note, not my children's school, but the school that my friend teaches at will raise it as a safeguarding concern if children under 10 walk to school and back on their own. That school is under a different local authority than ours though.

So the child did exactly as they were supposed to do, and having adults around made no difference. How is this supposedly different to this girl walking 6mins home or to school? Criminals are opportunists. Riddling our kids with fear and anxiety isn't going to change criminals.

I completely agree with you. This tendency that we have developed towards helicopter parenting (not helped by certain schools it seems judging by this thread (who as an aside are getting way out of their lane imo)), does children and you d people no favours and I agree I think is a huge part of the reason so many of our young people are struggling with mental health issues. They are not being given the opportunity to develop confidence and skills that you can only gain by being able to do things independently.

Agree

I think you'd be surprised at how well most 8 year olds would manage those types of situations if given the opportunity.

On my son's first day at a new primary school aged 7 I forgot to tell him where his after school club would be collecting him. There were multiple clubs and parents and childminders collecting groups of children from a large playground - the school also had playing fields.

He came out and rather than panicking or getting upset he simply went round to the different groups of children waiting and asked if they were "Montessorus" (it was a Montessori after school club" !!). I thought that was very clever and resourceful of him. He didn't panic and stand and start crying, or run to the teacher. He problem solved and worked it out himself. He calmly knew to look for people picking up groups and just worked his way around them.

And he has ASC and ADHD. An NT child should be even more capable of this type of problem solving.

Children are capable of much more than we give them credit for.

I agree completely. Schools are overstepping massively but I don't blame them as whenever something happens, it's always the school that's blamed.
It's really interesting to me how vocal parents are on this website when the school oversteps in an area they don't like. The general opinion is always how dare they. How dare they keep them back for detention or tell them to walk quietly in the corridor or put their blazer on or fine them for a term time holiday. When you tell the parents that's the schools policy and they must abide by it, that's not good enough.

When its something like not allowing their kids to go to school alone, that policy is as good as gold. When faced with a scenario where the parent has to be a bit uncomfortable and let go of their anxieties, suddenly the schools advice is amazing and faultless. Even in the face of mass evidence that independent travel is safe and extremely important for the development of a childs self worth.

No but its pertinent to the "it's for the good of dest child to do it!". If op felt that, why isn't she dropping her 10 minutes away every day.

Also it's a discussion thread. No one gets fired for asking another qn and ione is going to knock on ops doors and demand a full written explanation

How exactly is it pertinent to that? The OP asked for advice on her 8.5 year old walking to school alone. She didn't asked for advice on why that need has arisen or even for alternative solutions. Explaining this will be good for said child is very much an answer to OPs dilemma. Questioning her husband, making horrible remarks such as 'its a DH problem' isn't necessary or something she asked for. Just because it's a public forum, doesn't mean you have the right to know every single detail of the situation, or give unsolicited advice around subjects the OP didn't request. It's common decency.

I also completely agree with this.

Not a chance! Not unless you’re standing there, watching them the ENTIRE time and are with other families.

DD is 8 and I would not let her walk that alone once, never mind daily. I think people forget that times are not like they used to be when we were kids. There’s many more people in the UK than there used to be 25/30 years ago and with more people you get more predators (plus I personally think the internet has influenced the increase in crimes against children but that's just my personal opinion)

Ultimately it's just not worth the risk at that age. It doesn’t matter how ‘grown up’ a child is, they’re nowhere near old enough to navigate any kind of dangerous situation requiring them to make critical decisions in an instant. You can tell them what to do in X or Y situation a million times but as we all know, at 8/9 they’re unlikely to remember it! 🙄 😆 and are also highly vulnerable to influence

@Dodgeitornot Overall I agree with you but not at 8!! I completely agree they need teaching independence before year 7 (I was that terrified child crying in year 7!) but at 8???? My 8yr old still occasionally watches Bing & Peppa Pig! (When she's having a break from watching Minecraft videos on YouTube 🙄)

I just think 8 is far too young for this particular attempt at independence

Thank you, I genuinely appreciate your reply.

My DCs walked to their very small village school from the age of 8, and I'd hope that they'd be able to cope with these situations though.

If they need the toilet, they can use it when they get there. If they step in dog mess, they would know to try and wipe it on the grass - much like they would do if I was there.
They didn't generally forget stuff as we had it laid out the night before. I work shifts, so we've had this system in place since they were nursery age.
My eldest is 25 and my youngest is 13, so I've done my share of school runs - nobody ever dropped anything, and had to backtrack to look for it?
Similarly, I've had experience of 8 primary schools in total, and I've never known one to suddenly close at the point of people arriving at the gate. I appreciate it happened to you, but the school would still have staff on site to contact parents to inform them of the closure, and would presumably have measures in place to keep the pupils with them until they were collected.

I genuinely don't mean to dismiss you, but there's nothing on your list that an 8/9yo couldn't deal with?

We are doing children a real disservice by assuming they would be panicked by everyday situations.

No I wouldn’t.

Because it doesn’t make kids more independent, or more mature or ‘life skills’.
Kids at the age of 8 have far less life experience or skills to deal with things that might come up such as

• other kids, older, noticing they are on their own sometimes just to be mean or be persuaded to do even minor silly stuff.
• road sense (although less so if there are no crossings).
• possibilities of rare, but potentially very scary incidents like finding school closed or seeing an accident.
• just generally more vulnerable to grooming or bullying.
• not being able to get a sense as a parent of how their day went at school, be around other parents.

I'd hate to live with this level of anxiety, honestly.
For Y4/5/6, my two DCs went to their tiny village school (42 pupils in total). The school was at the opposite end of the village green and everyone (parents and Headteacher) was happy for the kids to walk there and back on their own. It took a few minutes, and nobody was shouting about safeguarding.

It was a wonderfully free range environment for my DCs, and I'm glad that they were spared the shackles of dealing with these emergency situations that other's DCs seem to face.

It seems so odd to me that this is a concern at all, at 8 I was playing out all the time with friends, walking around that distance and we roamed a fair bit. We were all sensible, it was a quiet neighborhood, we knew how to cross streets etc. Even looking back, it seems completely fine, and honestly those independent times are the ones I remember loving best.

I live abroad and my kids aged 5,5 and 7,5 regularly go home together on their bikes. My 7,5 plays outside for up to 4hrs with his friends, alone. My 5,5 year old is allowed to walk to a friends' house alone. I'm always amazed by how kids in the UK are treated like babies up until they're about 14, and then they're suddenly expected ti magically become adults. I teach my kids never to speak to strangers or go anywhere with them, to avoid unusual parked cars near them, to solve any problems that they might encounter, to safely cross roads. I love my kids more than anything but I also strongly believe the best thing I can do for them is allow them to learn to trust themselves and problem-solve for themselves. Most kids in our village play outside by themselves from age 5-6. I find it sad to think the UK has become a place where a parent would hesitate to allow their 8(!) year old to walk 300 metres alone!

This is my exact length of school run and I would definitely let my eldest do it at 8. He's 6 just now and ?ADHD so it does make me a bit anxious but we have been practicing me going another route where he can't see me and he manages absolutely fine. Sometimes if I'm caught up with his younger brother he runs on ahead and knows the way perfectly. He's allowed to play on our street or go to the park with a friend. He's incredibly cautious when it comes to roads. If any situations were to arise on the walk he would go to school and get help, my best friend works there and would sort him out or call me. The school would not close without notice via text (they message me all day about much less important things) and at least one staff member would be on the grounds until all children were collected safely.

Schools can exercise their policies by refusing to let children away without a guardian below a certain age and contacting the parents to discuss the situation but they can't not let them through the gates if they arrive alone. They can raise it as a safeguarding concern if that is their policy but having spent time with HV's (in a well to do country area) and seeing how tied up their time is dealing with cases where children are actually at risk I would be incredibly surprised if SW had the capacity to take this much further than a phone call.

Feeling unwell or needing the toilet surely the average child would realise the best move is to get to school and use the toilet/tell their teacher they are ill and need to call home? I am certain my DD would have been able to figure that one out at 8.
Treading in dog mess - if an 8 year old doesn't know to wipe their feet on grass then they must have been very lucky to avoid dog shit all their life. Most will know what to do because its happened before.
DD has forgotten things before, she's just carried on to school and explained she forgot. She soon learnt to be better organised, its a life lesson not an emergency.
Dropping something and walking back for it? What's the emergency about that? They might be late but that's it.
Road blocked off is something that not all would know what to do about but others are walking to school at the same time so they can easily ask. Same with school closing suddenly, if its last minute enough for parents not to be informed then there will be other children and parents there so plenty to ask for help. If it happened to DD she would have just gone home again, zero worries, and called me.

Seeing something like an accident would be an actual emergency that would be upsetting to anyone, but more so a child on their own for sure, but this is the kind of thing you talk to your children about regularly "what do you do if you see X, or Y happens?" and hope that they are listening and learning what to do in unusual situations.

Ours doesn’t allow it either. I think because they need the opportunity to see parents for a variety of reasons and it helps them pick up on if there are issues at home as well as generally catching them to ask for a chat later etc. plus child safety (lots of cars directly outside school entrance on a hill). They would call you in to discuss it if you it child was turning up alone. I don’t know how they’d ‘stop’ it, but as they request that doesn’t happen, I just look for independence in other areas for my 8yo.