Letting children play out on their own, differing parental opinion

[Lovelynewboots]

Hi, had a massive row with partner last night. My oldest (daughter aged 10), I have just started letting her go out on her own. Many of her friends have been allowed to go out much earlier than this but my partner in particular has been very forceful in his opinion that he does not my daughter not to be supervised at all times. On Friday I let her go to the park with her friend. Partner came home, we had planned to go out and said I should get my daughter. Went to her friends house first. Her dad was there and wasn't sure where they were exactly. I stopped for a while and chatted and went to the park and they were there. Last night my partner said that I had handled the situation really badly, should have known where they were (I did, Dad of Daughters friend didn't). While I was out getting daughter my partner had phoned and spoke to the Dad and was angry that he didn't know where they were. I feel like he is looking for an excuse to trip me up on this as he doesn't want my daughter going out on her own. She knows the boundaries, knows when she should be home and I generally feel I manage it ok and that it is best that my daughter goes out on her own occassionally in readiness for when she has to handle secondary school. My partner doesn't feel that this is important at all. I am really not sure if I am being unreasonable and if I should consider my partners feelings about this more than I have.

Cheekychops84, I feel your pain!

YANBU. My dd is 11 and goes out on her own to the park, meets friends there, goes round to a friends house, etc. Normal at this age. They need to spread their wings.

She will be going to secondary school soon, she needs to learn to have some independence

Lovely sorry I meant to say above "you are not working under his command". And since you are home with the DCs all day, much as he has a say, you have more.

He sounds like he's just a bit too worked up over this one thing. Maybe you can get him to actually see somehow the joy and sense of self worth she can get out of doing things on her own. Also as is said above, she's in much more danger by not developing street smarts than she is of being kidnapped.

Lol @ the thought of a mobile being useful in preventing kidnap!

The point is, how often are kids ever kidnapped compared with kids who get lost/decide they'd like to pop into a friend's house/decide they'd like to come home a bit later?

Forget the kidnap thing, that's just stupid.

Her having a mobile will hopefully put her Dad's mind at rest because she'll be in contact with him all the time.

Must admit dd doesn't take her phone. Like has alread been said its not going to stop her being kidnapped, I don't think any kidnapper is going to let her ring me up to tell me where she is. If something happens like an accident there's enough people about that someone would come and tell me.

Bejeezus, no you are right and I apologize if I came over a bit fatuous. I do know where she is and she does know the boundaries. I didn't know about the Manchester incident tbh until you posted and that is terrible.

Thanks for the comments everyone. It has helped a lot to get some perspective.

DH and I have struggled with this too, our eldest is 10 (11 in September).

He's quite over protective and I'm a little more relaxed. We live in a safe area and I think it's totally in her best interests to be a little more independant.

We also live quite rurally so she'll be bussing it into the next town for secondary school in a year's time so I'd rather start preparing her for that by allowing her some freedom now.

She's allowed within a certain radius - shop, park, friend's houses, school and knows if she goes out of that radius she'll be grounded. She has a phone (only a cheapy £10 PAYG) and texts us if she's leaving the park to go to a friend's or whatever.

I do worry about her, but I feel I've got to let her go, whereas DH would rather lock her in the house. She's gone off over the fields with her friend and a picnic and fishing nets today (there's a little ankle deep stream) and I've told her to be home by 3pm. She's texted me twice to let me know she's fine so as long as she continues to be responsible, she'll earn more and more freedom over time

DH has got used to it, and the more DD has proved herself to him, the more comfortable he's got.

I'd get her a cheapy phone, set her some boundaries and hopefully your DH will become used to it over time

I would ask him what he envisages her doing and at what age? FWIW at 7 my dds could go up to the post office or co op & play out on the cul de sac. At 10/11 they could go to the green or park or friends houses as long as they told me where they are. At 13 dd1 is getting the bus to another village so she can be with her friends there & getting the bus back.

Freddiefrog your situation and where you live sounds very similar to mine. I am hoping he will get used to the idea. Its a lot for any parent to get used to I think.

My dh will be completely oblivious to the Manchester thing until I tell him, so I don't know how relevant that is to your dh.

My eldest dc are late teens now but were allowed in our street, the shops and parks nearby, friends houses, to school and back on their own and a few other local places at 10 and we live in centralish london.

The phone thing helps, but to begin with you can say things like text us ever hour, or if you will not be home in 2 hours you need to text. That kind of thing. Teaching them to keep on regular contact is good and will ease your mind.

Realistically situations will arise, e.g older boys ask them for fags in the park, drunk man rants near them, (think a few years ago someone flashed my dd1) or something else relatively undesirable. However to them it's something a bit or they just laugh it off. I think that things may happen which make your dh want to say she can't be unsupervised but those things are normal and she needs to learn to deal with them. You don't want her at 16 out all the time and terrified of 'strangers' by that point she should be able identify safe or unsafe situations.

but worra OPs dp is worried about kidnapping...therefore a mobile will not put his mind at rest

Tbh, I wouldn't want my child out unsupervised aged 10 with no one knowing where she is. I understand why your partner was upset but arguing over it won't do any good. Personally, I would leave it for a bit until he is comfortable with the idea.

Oh dear he is going to be beside himself in a few years when she is a teenager I do think 10 is ok to go out with their friends I do think some people are very over protective of their children but that is up to them. I think your husband sounds quite forceful about this I do think he needs to reach a compromise before she rebels and just goes out anyway,

He will have to be comfortable with the idea when shes 11, or is he intending to walk or drive her to secondary school?

You can get (on Vodafone) a payg thingy whereby you pay £5 a month and it makes all calls between 4 Vodafone numbers free - so you, your DD, your DH and 1 other person could be on that network and your DD could phone you with no credit at all.

My DD is 8 and she is allowed out with her mobile phone. Our agreement is that she can stay out all day (and often does) on the proviso that she always phones me to let me know where she is... So I always know where she is. We are both happy with this agreement.

I don't for a minute think that her phone protects her against kidnappings, apart from one exception. When I was reading up and deciding what I wanted to do with playing out ... I read somewhere that the best protection against kidnapping is for the child to say 'no'. It's extremely rare for a kidnapping to be forced, when children don't go willingly, in 90% of cases, the potential abductor will move on. (this was some research I read from early to mid 2000s). My daughter knows I never send anyone to get her / tell her to go with anyone - I always phone / go myself.

Therefore this removes any ambiguity with strangers - she knows that if anyone (known or unknown, stranger or authority figure eg policeman) asks her to go with them, and she has not had a phonecall from me, it is a lie and she is not to go with them - but she should go to one of our agreed safe houses instead (houses of friends littered around our estate, people who we trust!). This way it reduces the minuscule risk of kidnapping by a further 90% because she knows no matter what story she is told - mum's hurt / gone to hospital / can't come now / told me to get you, whatever - she knows it is a lie. She also knows not to stand there phoning, but to shout no, run away to the nearest safe house and phone me to check. Something like this might help your DH??

Also just to add to what's mrsletch said, friends of mine have used passwords with their children.

So if anyone who is not pre approved, as in mum, dad, grandma but excludes friends and less immediate family, must say the password in order to get them to go anywhere. So non of this "mummy is unwell/ asked me to get you/ just round the corner" business.

The password would always be something obscure like Kangaroo or Clarinet or Pink Mushrooms or a certain number and the person would be expected to say " The password is x" not just throw it into conversation. That way the child knew of it was a lie or the truth.

My friends who used this were ones with slightly more gullible/less streetwise children or who had different people do pick ups quite often. I think it was to counter the idea that lots of things are done by someone known to the family. It was changed monthly or something as well.

I think children often know their own boundaries and pursue them naturally when and where they feel safe, and its a good idea to give them reasonably free rein. I let my son who is 9 go where he wants, within reason, but alot of my friends don't. Horses for courses I guess.

I don't know how you would deal with parents having different views though.

Get her a phone? Then you can find out where she is.
The dad should really know which park they are at but other than that it sounds like your dp overreacted a little but he could have just been worried, it depends on if you have a sensible or childlike ten year old?