What age would you let siblings walk home from school?

[ThemysteriousH]

As the title says - I’m curious what age you’d let 2 (sensible) siblings walk a short distance home from school by themselves?

My DS do together, the school allows it - in fact suggested it, for days when my health is bad. They’re never left home together, an adult is always home.

I’ve been subjected to a social media status done by someone who dislikes me and many comments by their peers. Small town and I’m extremely sensitive as it is. Said person is blocked but I’ve received a few people messaging me and of course the screenshots alongside it.

I know I shouldn’t care or let it bother me. Feeling quite low so please be gentle .

They only went back to bloody school today. They get the bus in the morning (there isn’t one home), so I’ve no clue where this has come from , if the general consensus is I’m wrong then the days I can’t do it I will get a taxi for them. I do on bad weather days anyway.

Year 5/6 depending on journey.

Totally, utterly and completely dependant on the kids, route and area.

As a rule, towards the end of Year 4 - so I guess over 9?

It is so subjective to where you live and their maturity.

My youngest is ten, it is a 15 minute walk in a very safe area in Dublin. I walk him part of the way in the dark mornings and he walks home with three pals. He has been doing this since October.

There are two crossings both have traffic lights.

Sorry I should’ve given more information, so it’s essentially 2 streets with one crossing, in a rural welsh town, a 10 min walk (would take me double the time though haha!)

My eldest is 11 in a matter of days and has the maturity of an adult. My other son is nearly 8.

95% of the route their aunt is near them or with them.

We did towards end of Y5. Did have 1 busyish Road to cross

As others say, it really depends on so much. That's why there is no law about it (beyond a law against neglect).

My older DC walked home together in year 6 and 4; DD walked to school with a friend from the end of year 4, so 9yo.

The route was quiet with one road and then one zebra crossing, and crucially, lots of other people walking. I always kept an eye on anyone walking on their own when I was dropping off and I am sure other parents did the same. They had a big list of friends' houses they could call in on if anything worried them.

Depends on the roads they have to cross without a crossing

The ones near DC primary school were horrific, blind corners with parents speeding oblivious to pedestrians. It was scary crossing as an adult.

One went to a different junior school and there were lollipop staff so that was absolutely fine from 7/8.

Sounds perfectly fine but you're always going to get people judging you for parenting decisions, no matter what they are. Of course its not easy to ignore when people are criticising you on social media but if you know your sons are behaving properly when they're walking home then you've just got to try and ignore them.

At nearly 11 and 8 that is absolutely fine. Try and ignore those awful people, they sound nuts! They're not doing their kids any favours if they're wrapping them up in cotton wool, they'll be off to secondary in Sept!

I think thats ok.

I've known year 6 walk in younger siblings a short distance.

I let my 13yo go fetch my 9yo from school occasionally. Said 13yo was able to walk to school alone from turning 10. I'm not letting my younger one do the same.

This is fine OP. All children in Germany walk to and from school from much younger. My children walked home together at a similar age.

It does depend on the children and how they get on, but I was happy they were safe.

Thank you so much for your responses. I’ve got myself into a right state over it, I’ve never been in any of the school mum “clicks” so a bit of an outsider.
The road they do cross has a proper crossing and relatively quiet. We live on the edge of the town.

I feel a lot better now, I’ll ignore the social media malarkey and let them carry on judging

Depends on child, family have an 8y old who was far more the careful one while 10y would want to cross where it was faster. Together they were a good team. The younger one wouldn’t let him get away breaking any rules.

8 and 11, if they use a pedestrian crossing to cross the road, and 95% of it is with their Aunt is a complete non issue.

Mine are 10 &7. They have a 10 min walk home with no roads to cross. They get home & let themselves in and are alone for about 10 mins until their dad gets home.

By 11 lots of children are in secondary school and catching buses alone. Sometimes they drop younger siblings to school on their way. I think what you're doing is totally normal.
Honestly as a parent you will always have somebody saying something, not even just as a parent just people in general. If you don't let an 11 year old go anywhere alone I bet some would say you're stifling them and should let them walk alone sometimes.

Doesn’t matter what age I would allow it as our school doesn’t allow it until year 6.

We had been letting year 5 9yo DD walk herself in for the last couple of months but got told off by school just before Xmas because they said children must be 10yo. We are literally on the same street so it's no big hardship to walk her in but she was enjoying the independence so that's a shame.

Sensible 11 and 8 yr olds would be fine in my opinion as long as there are no unlit/dangerous/scary parts to the walk.

We did year 5.

We got him a mobile with Life360 on it, so I could track that he got there ok. And then hw knew he could phone if any issues.

Worked for us.

See no issues with age of your kids.

The youngest is seven nearly eight, so is that year 3?

Personally I do think that’s too young. But I would say to have confidence in your own parenting here. They are your children and you make those judgement calls.

I think it's fine. I wouldn't want the 8yo walking alone, but 11yo and aunt for most of the time is a complete non-issue

I personally wouldn’t want an 11 yo being responsible for walking home a 7yo. Our school wouldn’t allow that until the younger child was yr 5 so 9 turning 10.

Personally I would judge the judgy people for seeing what they perceive as a problem, and choosing to criticise publicly online, rather than reaching out to you in private and offering to help.

My two are similar ages to yours. I would never let them walk home together as they are a lot less responsible together than apart - they’d end up squabbling and forgetting to look before crossing or something.

Like PP our school won’t allow until y6 which feels about right to me, but I know some kids are much more grown up than mine.

I wouldn't have a ten year old be responsible for a seven year old to get them on a bus and to school on a morning. How far away is it? It seems odd that they get a bus on the morning but walk back.