To think this isn't acceptable with a reception child

[Igottastartthinkingbee]

A school mum stands at the bottom of the school field and watches her reception child walk along the path up to school. The entrance to reception class is through a small fenced garden where there's a big tree. Both of which obscure the view of the entrance plus the fact that the bottom of the school field is also downhill from school. There's no way she can see her child actually go into class. I see this almost daily. The mum also has two younger children (3yrs and 1yr) who are not with her when I see her do this. Their house is very close to the bottom of the school field (but not inmeadiately adjacent to) so the only reason I can think that she doesn't walk her child up to class is that she's left the other two children alone in the house. I know I could well be wrong on this count but why else would she not walk her reception child up to school?

I know there's not a lot I can do about this but it worries me. Both for the reception child and her younger ones.

I went to school in the 80s and it certainly wasn't normal in my school in London, actually I can remember one of my friends being allowed to walk to school alone in year 6, so 10 or 11 years old and we were all jealous.
I certainly wont allow my child to walk to school alone until secondary school and that's pretty much standard in our area and in our primary school they do not allow children to leave the school site without seeing a parent or older sibling to collect them.

I can't see the problem. At that age I and almost all my peers walked to school alone, and that's still the norm in most countries I've lived in. This child isn't even walking to school alone, they're just walking from one part of the school to another, watched by their mother. I'm not sure what calamity could happen in the brief period they're out of her sight but within plenty of other people's.

As for the other children, it's not ideal if they are in fact alone, but not the end of the world either. I'm probably a bit more relaxed about that sort of thing than most though. I grew up on a big bit of land and lived on one when my DC where young. I suspect many times I was a fair bit further away from my house with DC inside than this mum is, while still being in my immediate backyard. So it's all relative really.

Reception is a bit young IMO.

I've recently started letting Ds2 walk in alone and he's in Year 2 and I'm not 100% relaxed with that yet, even though I can see him 90% of the way.

When I was year 1 I banged my head so hard I blacked out - I was sent home alone at lunch time - mum took one look and sent me back to school! Different times

It's perfectly fine , maybe chat to a few Germans/Swiss for reassurance.

I'm with you OP. Reception is too young. And the others being left at home, assuming they are, is way too young.

I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving a 1 year old alone on a different floor for too long - can't walk, falls over, cries, mummy doesn't come. Or 3 year old decides to do some cooking and messes with the hob or something.

Unless she's very poor I don't see why she doesn't get a twin pram, if it's too much trouble to get all three out the house and holding her hand

Sounds absolutely fine to me.
(We had to do similar when my eldest DS started reception (He's now age 12), parents weren't allowed further.
Nowadays they have to be dropped at the classroom door by an adult over 16, and picked up by a named person)

DC 1, 3 and 4 would have been perfectly happy with this this. Dc2 still (aged 10) needs taking as near to the door as possible and hugging and kissing before he goes into school.

(My mother, at 5, used to walk 40mins to school in the company of another 5 year old, OK it was a different time, with no traffic, but it shows they are capable at that age)

I wouldn't be happy with leaving other DCs alone in the house, but you don't know that for sure. And I have many friends who would do it.

I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving a 1 year old alone on a different floor for too long - can't walk, falls over, cries, mummy doesn't come. Or 3 year old decides to do some cooking and messes with the hob or something.

So people who live in two or three story houses need to stay in their child's room while they sleep?

Unless she's very poor I don't see why she doesn't get a twin pram, if it's too much trouble to get all three out the house and holding her hand

Maybe they're asleep? Maybe dressing them is a total dick for walking two minutes when she can just as easily watch him up the path herself.

If she's a parent in the same class as you... What are your school policies? Do they allow children to be unaccompanied or not? If this is recent, then maybe they're practicing for September.

Also, how can you see all this if you're taking your child to the same class, and view is partly blocked? If you keep looking back at her and watching her kid, she might think you're actually keeping an eye on him, instead of criticising her on the Internet and pondering whether you should report her to someone.

trolls we have a 10 minute window in which to drop children at school. I am usually coming back down with my toddler when I see said child walking past me going the other way. And then I see his mum at the bottom. School policy is that they do not let children out at the end of the day until they can see their parent or whoever normally picks them up. No policy as far as I know about drop off.

I'm going against the grain here but I would be concerned too (although for the record I am fully aware that I am overprotective). I would have a quiet word with the school, only because if anything happened to any of those children I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I hadn't done anything.

There's another thread on here at the minute where a posters DH left their two youngest children aged 4 and 18 months home downstairs while he walked 6 yo dc to school next door. The mother was asleep upstairs. The general consensus there was very different to this, posters worrying about the poor dc left alone and how you mustn't turn your back on an 18 month old for a minute, because it was a man at fault. Trust your instincts op.

I'm with OP, this doesn't feel OK. Trust your gut.

It's not the 70s or 80s. OP please tell the teacher.

It's not the 70s or 80s

Ok, I no longer live in the UK. I live in Mexico where a lot of children are stolen for nefarious reasons and my dd says she won't be allowing my dgd to go anywhere alone until she is twelve. But does that same stuff happen in the UK, more than it did in the 70s or 80s?

The 4 year old walking alone up the hill would not bother me in the slightest.

Personally I would not leave a 1 and 3 year old alone at home together unsupervised. But it's not clear that this is what's happening here.

Actually the prime targets for child abduction are 12 year old girls...

There's very little logic to a lot of people's decisions about how closely to supervise children, and some people seem to be far more concerned with how their parenting looks to others, and how being vocal about judging others makes them holier than thou, than with actual safety...

Sorry I know the whole "in Europe they do it better" thing is irritating but I can confirm that yes, here in Germany, there are a few (minority) of kids who're walking a short distance to kindergarten on their own. Not my two, I'm always slinging them in the car at 2 minutes to circle time because they took 10000000 hours to eat some breakfast

toomuch it does depend where you are in Germany. We are too, and our kindergarten won't let Kindergarten children arrive or leave unaccompanied - they will let a school aged sibling accompany them though, even if that sibling is 6. It's about someone knowing they've arrived as there is a 1.5 hour window between doors opening and the start of circle time, so kids arriving in that window could go astray and the alarm not be raised til 8:30, when everyone has to be either there or having been called in absent.

School has a fixed start time though, and children aren't allowed in an hour and a half early, so if a child didn't turn up in this case there is only a ten minute window before they'd be missed.

From 6 the police tell parents at the information evening not to drive children as it's incredibly selfish to put everyone else's children in increased danger from traffic by driving your own, and to practice over summer so they can walk unaccompanied as the children who are walked to school til they are older miss the teachable moment for learning road sense and are almost always the ones who end up getting run over because they've been messing around or not paying attention as pedestrians when they finally walk to secondary alone...

If she is watching her child enter the school I can't see a problem tbh. I am sure the child is sensible enough to know which classroom to go into. Like a pp said she may be standing where she does because she has a baby monitor that she can hear the other 2 on if they are still in bed, or because her dh needs to get off to work so she has to get back quickly. I had a 4, 3 and 1 year old and the amount of faff to leave the house was incredible.

Please don't interfere. She is not letting her child out loose on their own, she is watching them almost to the door.

She is probably building up their independence little by little. She does not need you sticking your beak in or "helpfully" offering to undermine her parenting decisions.

Save it for when you see a child actually being neglected or abused, not just someone making a consideres decision that differs from yours.

Also you have no evidence she is leaving her other children alone. Zero. That is just stirring.

Oh and tbh, if you think she should accept your parenting standards rather than her own, you'd better be prepared to accept other people's criticisms of you. Imo it is much more dangerous in real terms to allow kids to eat sugary crap and get too little exercise. Do your kids watch tv? Do they play outside every single day rain or shine? Do you let them eat refined sugar regularly? If so I'd judge you much more harshly than I would her.

But I'm sure you'll splutter that that's different, your parenting is fine etc etc.....

I don't see the issue, at DD's school you aren't allowed past the gate after the first term of reception anyway. At my school we have several parents who do similar to this mum, some because they are building up independence, some because it's easier for them and some because it's what the child wants to do.

As for the children being home alone, how do you know? maybe a neighbour or another parent sits with them for 5 minutes, or maybe rather than adding getting 2 toddlers up and dressed into school mornings, which can be hectic enough as it is, the dad watches them whilst getting ready for work and mum needs to get back so he can leave.

I wouldn't do it with my kids, but each to their own I guess.

I do wonder though, to the parents who don't think it is a problem that she may be leaving a 1yr and 3yr old alone in the house, if an accident was to occur and one if the children were seriously harmed while she was out, I can't help but think we would all be asking why children that young were left unsupervised in the first place?

Rebellious would you leave a 1 and 3 year old taking their afternoon nap while you hung out washing in your garden? Or would you wake them and take them into the garden?