To let an 8 year old walk alone 400m to school?

[hibbledibble]

I am wondering what is considered normal nowadays in terms of freedom.

1. At what age would you let a child walk 400m to school alone through a rural village? Quiet roads and safe rural community.

2. At what age would you let a child walk around 1 mile to school in a city? Rough area, with the walk partially through council estates.

Blimey, this thread makes me feel a bit panicky! My DS is 7 and will turn 8 in the summer, so theoretically old enough in the eyes of some of the PP to walk alone. We are very close to his school and the only road he would need to cross has the lollipop lady so it's probably ideal. I don't think for a second he would want to walk alone though, and the idea makes me feel very scared.

I live in a big city though, so maybe it's different. I don't feel like anywhere is safe. Perhaps we will feel differently in a year or so. I guess it's telling that none of his friends are asking about walking alone either.

I can do 1.6 miles in 20 minutes. I get bored so time myself and do different routes to see how they vary. I walk very quickly with a long stride though. With my children it takes 35- 45 minutes because everything’s interesting or worthy of bickering about. With an autistic meltdown outside of Primark it adds another 30 minutes.

400m isn't far. DS is 5/p1 and gets a school bus every day - the walk from the main road up to the school must be about that and the kids are expected to walk that without adult accompaniment, although there are plenty of other children doing the same walk/adults generally milling about for those who don't get the buses.

it's about a mile and a quiet area but school definitely do not allow it

I can understand them saying they won't release him (though I'm a bit hmm about school deciding anything over parent's wishes) but how can they say he can't walk to there? What would they do?

Personally, I'd feel safer in a built up area (with safe crossings) then a rural area.

Well I can't walk 1 .5 miles in 20 minutes its very up and down the walk marvellous that some people can I walk there and will walk back but its to far for my 11 yr old to walk on his own across several main roads his high school is about half the distance of his primary school so he will be walking there and back on his own.

Sorry x2boys, I wasn’t being judgemental. My areas a nightmare. People wouldn’t believe what goes on and the major roads are a nightmare.

We live a 10 min walk from school along quiet streets with two roads to cross. I happily agreed for our 8 year old to walk home from an after school club which was fine with the school but other parents mentioned to us they were surprised we had allowed it. I’d let him walk every day but he has a younger brother who is only 5 so feel we still need to take them.

My son absolutely loved the independence and I don’t think it was irresponsible to allow it

it's about a mile and a quiet area but school definitely do not allow it

I'd be challenging that. The school have no right to dictate things like that to you. Especially when you consider that the HT probably doesn't live in the area. Blanket bans are deeply unhelpful.

No wonder we have parents taking their kids to high school. They don't get the chance to build up their experience and independence at primary school.

They can't stop you letting your child walk to school. The HT at my girls school tried that. Even threatened to call SS on people. Funnily enough it all went quiet. Probably when someone from SS pointed out that parents deciding to let their child make the short, relatively safe, walk to school when they felt they were capable of doing so wasn't neglect.

Rural roads are stsistically the most dangerous - for drivers anyway. Not sure about pedestrians

We are in Austria and it is fairly normal here for kids age 6 and up to walk alone to school.

Parents are discouraged from going into the school with them

That's ok Donkey and yes to the autistic meltdown outside Primark ds2 has autism and learning disabilities and although he loves walking it very much depends on wether he wants to or not he doesn't go to his brothers school though so fortunately not involved in the journey .

Schools can't really stop children walking to school on their own although they may well have a policy of not letting them leave school without an adult until a certain age. At our school they can walk home alone from P.4 (age 7-8) if parents have given permission.

I'm gobstruck schools have any say in this. Loco parentis ends at the school gate.

DS2 is 9, nearly 10, and walks round from the school where I work to his own 2 mornings a week. He has to text me when he gets there (he remembers about 50% of the time 🙄). It’s less than half a mile and takes all of 10 minutes at his (very slow) pace. Never worried me, there’s loads of other parents and kids walking the same way at the same time.

I find these threads amazing. My local school has children from y1 and possibly yr walking home alone or with not much older siblings and no one bats an eye lid.

Drives me mad!

I find it amazing that people get so worked up about other people doing what suits them and their kids.

We’re 400m from primary and 1mi from secondary. Very quiet residential part of a big city. The secondary school route passes through social housing.

I plan to let ds walk to/from primary before the end of primary. Somewhere around age 9ish I think. Definitely for the last year (age10-11).

I wouldn’t dream of accompanying him to secondary. No child is walked to secondary by parents. He’d be mortified.

It is based on personal comfort with risk.
My DS will walk 0.5mile to secondary school in Sept and for me that is the first time he will be out on his own, so to speak.
I personally think 8 is a bit young to walk on their own, even 400yds (though would be comfortable with them walking alone and with me walking behind at a distance with them in sight).
Noone would expect to be kidnapped, run down, encounter a flasher/thief/bully or have another bad experience, but at 8, I just think you are less vigilant, have little concept of risk and are just not mature enough to process information and act on it. Children can have have independence without physically being on their own.

my oldest is autistic, so my views are somewhat skewed, and I do find it difficult to 'let go' with my NT DD.

DS will never be able to do the walk to school on his own.. DD will be 9 next month, and going into yr5 in September when her brother goes to secondary (specialist placement) So I will be starting to encourage her to be a bit more independent and rather than me dropping her, starting with the walking bus the school do.

When DS1 was 8 I let him walk from school to his DH's workplace after school 3 days a week. It is about 1 mile in a small town, although busy with traffic.

It does completely depend on the child though, as I would not have let DS2 do that at the same age.

There are some parents at my DD's school who didn't let them walk at all at primary. Then they were surprised when the kids encountered problems when they had to get themselves to high school using 2 buses and a 10 minute walk.

Children need experiences to build up their ability. They need little things to go wrong to learn how to cope. Far better than on a short walk to primary than on the longer trip to high.

I'm seeing similar now with some of the kids who are hitting 16. Not allowed out past 9pm, not allowed to go anywhere... then suddenly are nearly an adult so can do what they like and need to be responsible. And parents are now complaining "He's 16 and he can't even change trains" - well, that's because until a few months ago he was a child and you didn't let him go anywhere.

Who the hell lets their 5 year old child walk to school alone??

You need to go to Holland. Most kids are getting themselves to school independently not much older than that, often cycling

Schools won't let them out alone here under year five.

I used to walk 3.26 miles with an 8 year old daily in under an hour and as we have no bus service in a morning nearly all the 11 year olds at the local secondary walk between a mile and two miles in a morning. Taxi must cost you a fortune!

My sons a very young 7 year old and in p3, I wouldn’t let him walk the 1.5 miles along a busy road. Then up a huge hill. He has to much carry on in his head. I would prob wait till he was about 9/10 and in a wee group.