To expect a 10 year old to manage a 15 minute walk

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DD does an after school activity. I usually pick her up and walk her to it unless the weather is horrible in which case we get a taxi. Another girl in the year above also does the same activity and yesterday her mum asked if I'd be able to pick her up and take her with dd. I said that was fine but unless weather bad we'd be walking. Her mum said "Assumed you'd taje a taxi or drive, don't think she'd manage the walk I'll make other arrangements" and walked off.

The girl in question is in the school gym and net ball team so I've no reason to believe she has any physical problems.

AIBU to think mother was being rude and her dd could easily manage such a walk?

Calleigh I get where you were coming from by not choosing that club. It's a little different to the OP - a ten year old walking with one other ten year old and an adult.

Another Londoner here. DCs could walk that distance and more from a much younger age. It is our distance (1 mile, 15 mins) to tube / sainsbury. I hate driving, and so boys walk or cycle most of the time.

Maybe her daughter is lazy / mum wouldn't walk / daughter would be able to manage but would make a fuss??? All a bit odd.

this must be a joke surely? ? my dd2 (2) walks further than this without complaining, if we are only going under 20mins walk away and werent in a hurry I don't take buggy. she regularly walks the 35 mins from playschool. ..

as for adults not walking im in shock. I feel incredibly lazy when I get bus home from supermarket loaded up with food shopping when ive bought too much thats only a 20min walk. no wonder so many adults and children are obese in this country with attitudes like this.

I used to know an able-bodied, healthy woman who drove half a mile to the station every day on her way to work. She didn't have a heavy load to carry either. She now drives her daughter (also able-bodied and healthy) a similar distance to school every day. Not surprisingly, the little one is looking a bit chubby and her mum is very overweight. All in London, so it's not as if we're talking about dangerous country roads with no pavements.

I also remember escorting my son's class on a walk round the local area. I would think we might have covered a mile in total, maybe nearer two, but at a very gentle pace with lots of stops. The children were 6/7. Many of them were struggling with walking that much, and this was about 15 years ago.

Sad really.

Utterly ridiculous!

You can build stamina in kids for walking from a really young age. DD was 16months when I was pregnant with her brother. We lived in a very hilly city. I used to really struggle pushing her in the buggy up this hill, it was easier to get her to walk. So I started getting her to walk and every week she lasted longer before needing the buggy. Nowadays at nearly 4 she can walk for a lot further than a lot of other kids her age because she's used to it and has kept it up. She regularly does 2/3 hours walking with me into the next town along the river BUT I've pushed her to achieve that because we are v rural and I'm not getting buses all the time. A ten year old that can't walk 15 mins is shocking as are adults that drive everywhere. I don't drive though, and public transport is expensive so I walk everywhere if I can.

My boss's wife drives to her local shops and health centre which are 5 minutes walk from her house. Literally 5 minutes!! It takes longer to drive because she has to go around the roads, but she will not walk.

When my daughter was a baby, I walked round to an NCT coffee morning. It was drizzling. Inside I asked another mother where she lived and it turned out she lived on the same road. 'Handy for you then, you didn't have far to walk in the rain', I said. 'Oh, I drove', she said. 'I don't like to walk with her in the pushchair on the city streets, there's so much pollution.'

Fine for my child to have to breathe in her exhaust fumes, though...

How does the other girl get their currently? Does mum think it is further than it is ...?

The only other reason I can give is if this coincides with the day the girl has her double bass lesson, and also has to take PE kit and masses of homework home, so making the walk a little more challenging ...

This is depressing.
I've just moved to a new area where no one walks. I am struggling to make new local friends because after toddler groups people have to go move their cars from car parks and so can't come for a walk to the park or for a coffee.
It's sad imo that people feel they cannot walk due to fitness, time etc - I bet they would enjoy it if they did.
Best part about walking slowly with a pram is doing a nosy in people's lovely gardens!

YANBU to think that a healthy 10 year old could walk a short distance.

My 7 and 5 year olds, both have hypermobility and my 5 year old DD has a congenital heart condition, do a 40 minute walk (each way) to kickboxing 3 times a week. After school we walk the 40 mins to the club do a 45 minute physically draining kickboxing class and then walk the 40 minutes home. They also do kickboxing on a Saturday morning but we do drive then as DH is home (I don't drive). DD2 might occasionally moan about it but will still do it.

I don't understand why some people are so scared of walking or making their DC walk, especially if there are no underlying health issues that could make it difficult.

Unlike the competative walking going on on this thread I am the world's least enthusiastic walker. I dunno, I just find it boring. But even I would do this without thinking about it

I'd like to add that I do run instead. Somehow that's different

Sorry to burst the smug London bubble. They walk the least in the UK(?) But that same source says the national average is 47 minutes/day, which seems to contradict the other numbers. I imagine it's a very uneven distribution, with 25%? of people walking 2+ hours/day pulling the avg up although median stays fairly low.

I can't find the news story, have read some astonishing % (70%+?) of women who work FT taken no regular exercise whatsoever, either. Most adults are just shockingly unfit. So don't be surprised that they can't imagine their kids walking anywhere, either.

You could get run over while walking on to the road to get the car door open.

I walked out of my gate, looked both ways and then got hit by a car. I'd walk for maybe 30 secs.

It's no excuse not to walk places.

With no health problems i dont think its unreasonable to expect at all !

I agree with other posters some people are just so reliant on cars and just downright lazy.

i live about a 5 minute walk from the local school....it snowed lately (a small dusting of snow) of course a lot of people couldnt drive in the snow aparently. My neighbour messaged me on that morning to ask was i sending ds to nursery, of course i was there was barely any snow and it was opened, she said there was no way she would be (god forbid !) WALKING dd to nursery so she was keeping her at home !

Thing is most mornings she drives past me when they are leaving the estate in the car and i still manage to get in before her on foot because the traffic and parking around the school is a nightmare !

I dont drive and have no need to ever learn to drive because i can walk almost anywhere i need to go and use public transport. I have health conditions that make it very painful to walk somedays but i can still manage to do it and my ds who is almost 3 always walks everywhere now. Theres been days we have walked for hours with him and he has absolutely no problem at all because its all hes ever been used to. A 15 minute walk to him would be nothing !

And then we wonder why we are a nation of obese children ...because their precious parents wont let them walk for a few minutes which is actually very good exercise !

It's around 2 miles to school and between 3 and 4 miles to the beach, in the summer we often go to the beach for breakfast with other mums and kids so around 3 miles or just over and then a mile back to school.

My youngest is 2 and half, he walks to and from school most days. We walk there and back 3 times a day so that's 12 miles a day walking. Ok he often is carried, we sometimes get a lift or I drop in on route to a neighbour but in the better weather this is the norm. Nursery ds 4 and a half walks 8 miles a day. We don't drive.

Some folk hate walking. Or aren't in the habit of walking. If your used to it it's fine.

YANBU most people should be a ok walking for 10 minutes.

I don't much like walking. I constantly scan for dog crap and find the air quality (car pollution) in built up areas makes me feel sick. I am not so stupid to not see that by driving, I'm increasing that, but I'm buggered if I'm walking though everyone else's fumes to make mners think I am a great walker. I used to walk every day to work, 2-3 miles ish. Was fitter than now, but my God it was freezing in the winter - not like you can choose when you go for a walk - you have to do it for when work, school etc starts. I also occasionally got caught in torrential downpours, against which an umbrella was useless. I also had to buy one of those masks that cyclists wear for air pollution as (London) air was so utterly filthy.

YANBU
I walk around 1-2 hours a day (school run, don't drive, enjoy walking). A lot of people would never consider walking - most of DC's friends are driven short distances to school. Walking requires proper shoes (no silly heels or flimsy ballerinas in the rain), a proper coat / waterproof, comfy clothes as you could, God forbid, sweat... Walking is also more testing of your parenting skills as your kids aren't strapped to a seat! Some people just like driving door to door, it's their choice.

BTW YANBU to get a taxi in atrocious weather. Today's school run involved horizontal rain and wind gusts so bad I could barely hold the baby's buggy. My clothes are still drying on the airer - all this with proper attire... there's nothing virtuous about walking in really bad weather - I would have driven if I had a car!

What do you mean most adults wouldn't walk that far? Yesterday I walked to work (30 mins), and then to meet my friends for dinner (40 mins) and then home again (30 mins). I would never drive such short distances especially as the traffic where I live is abysmal and it would take me just as long.

Agree that many people don't walk. I walk 40 mins twice a day to and from work and people are routinely surprised to learn this. It takes the same to catch a bus (London) and is the only exercise I get! But in fact I don't think it's totally unreasonable if the mum is eg worried that her daughter will be tired out and starving hungry after a netball match or something and will have a limited time for dinner and homework before bed. I myself get buses and taxis when I'm tired for distances I'd walk when I'm not. But it sounds like she was a bit rude to just walk off without an explanation after you'd offered her a favour.

I usually walk to and from work most days, three miles each way. I do some of my best thinking on those walks.

People are lazy.

People are lazy a lot of the time. They drive themselves to places they could walk to, drive their precious DCs everywhere, and don't for a moment consider the negative effects of this.

We tend to walk or cycle everywhere locally. It's just easier, nicer, healthier and often faster. DH, myself and both DC have healthy bmi s. Some of our DDs friends never walk anywhere, one would phone to be collected from our house in her teens. A safe walk on quiet residential roads, less than a mile.

Like a pp, I love looking in other people's gardens, seeing the trees coming into bud and then leaf, watching the progress on an interesting building site, etc. You don't see any of that if you're driving.

It's no wonder that levels of obesity are going up at such a rate.

We walk all our Y1 and Y2 children to local places - all a good 10-30 minute walk away at least, some further. Every one of them manage it fine. So definitely not too far/too long.

I admit I use the car a lot, even when my arthritis isn't playing up - but I wouldn't think anything of needing to walk somewhere of that distance and no way would DD not have managed it at any age.

Yanbu my 3 year old (almost 4) walks/ scoots but mostly walks as the hills are too steep walks almost 4 miles in total to pick up her brother with me! We leave at 2.35 and don't get home until a couple of hours later! In total today she has walked about 4.5 miles as she walked to nursery earlier!