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AIBU?

Daughter walking home from school

209 replies

MrsL86 · 17/01/2019 11:05

My 11 year old daughter has recently started walking home from school alone. It is less than a mile & she was desperate to do it. She starts high school in September where she will have to get a bus to & from so we thought we’d start giving her a bit of independence now rather than throw her in at the deep end in sept. This morning I received a call from who school saying a concerned parent had been into school because they saw her walking home alone. School we’re asking me questions & making me feel like a bad parent for letting her walk home. I can’t stop thinking about the phone call & im now panicking if I have done the right thing. A lot of people I know have said they let their kids walk home in year 5 (she’s in yr 6) so I didn’t think she was too young... thoughts?

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FurzeandHarebells · 18/01/2019 17:04

are all the children on here walking home by themselves going home to an empty house?

Why would you assume that?

I work from home part of the week. On days that I’m WFH they walk.

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Amallamard · 18/01/2019 17:09

The majority of our yr 6 children walk home alone. The children are allowed to walk home alone from yr 4, they just need parents to fill in a form giving permission.

I let my children walk home from when they turned 10, towards the end of yr 5. I wouldn't have felt happy for them to progress from being constantly escorted to having to get a public bus and walk to and from school by themselves. Walking from the very local primary school to start off with seemed like a nice step in between.

Unless there is more to it, like bad behaviour or perhaps getting bullied when the other parent saw them, I can't understand why the school felt the need to call you about it.

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Looneytune253 · 18/01/2019 17:30

are all the children on here walking home by themselves going home to an empty house?

To be fair though in y6 I would say a child is more than capable of going home and being on their own for a short time.

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sirfredfredgeorge · 18/01/2019 17:31

are all the children on here walking home by themselves going home to an empty house?

No, why would they?

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memorial · 18/01/2019 17:41

Errr my yr 6 11yr old walks home alone every day. 3 days a week I am at work. She will be alone 2 if those days for an hour or 2 till my 17yr old gets home from college. There are some people needing a serious grip here. No wonder we no have an incapable snowflake generarion.
She is also capable of making tea, roasties and all manner of things by herself

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memorial · 18/01/2019 17:42

Toasties not roasties...but I'm pretty sure if I showed her how she'd manage a toastie too

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5pmsomewhere · 18/01/2019 17:45

Goodness! My year five and year three daughters walk to and from school most days. Crazy interferening parent xx

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FurzeandHarebells · 18/01/2019 18:01

To be fair though in y6 I would say a child is more than capable of going home and being on their own for a short time.

I agree.

Certainly I do know 11yos whose parents ^couldn’t% leave them alone at home and also some who wouldn’t be happy left alone but for your average 11yo there really shouldn’t be any massive difficultly about being home without their parents for a while.

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RiverTam · 18/01/2019 18:07

I didn't assume they would but it's a possible reason why schools might like to know who's going home alone. We both work f/t out of the home so even in year 5 I wouldn't want DD leaving school at 3.30 to be home alone for a couple of hours.

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AlliKaneErikson · 18/01/2019 18:18

Absolutely the norm here in yr 5 and 6. DD is year 4 and I would trust her to walk home if there wasn’t a road with no lollipop person/crossing.

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AlliKaneErikson · 18/01/2019 18:18

NB they’re not allowed to walk home until yr 5.

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howabout · 18/01/2019 18:26

If both parents work FT outside the home beyond normal school hours then I understand a more cautious approach just because as a parent you wouldn't be familiar with the route your DC would be walking at the time they would be walking it or who else would be there.

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schoolsoutforever · 18/01/2019 19:01

I walked to and from school from the age of 5! The nonsense of concerned (or busybody) parents complaining about this to the school makes me cross. My 11 year old walks to school. She's perfectly able, confident and willing and it's a good thing. When children have no independence they struggle at secondary.

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Subtlecheese · 18/01/2019 20:17

"Concerned" parent is overstepping normal social boundaries.
There is no attached and they were walking in the middle of the road/ being harassed then they are saying
"a child walked home uneventfully".
A child of 11 should be working towards independencentre and adulthood.
Walking home, going to the shops, meeting friends at the park, cooking a meal, cleaning their own space, doing laundry, managing their own hygiene.
I'd be more concerned about a child NOT demonstrating some of these skills by 11.

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HRI290417 · 18/01/2019 21:41

I work in a primary school and year 5 and 6 pupils are permitted to walk home with parental consent.

You are not a bad parent. Don’t worry! X

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Aragog · 18/01/2019 21:44

At our local junior school children are allowed to walk home alone, without a parent, from Year 3, so long as it is normal school finishing time.

DD's primary encouraged children to walk in Year 6 to prepare them for high school/secondary. We lived too far from school for that but used to drop dd off a bit further away to let her all the last bit herself or with friends.

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KarmaKiller · 18/01/2019 22:52

My 8 year old walks to and from school himself, less than a mile, only one road to cross which has lights and a lollipop lady.

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mollysmammy · 19/01/2019 06:36

I walked to the bus stop, which was quite a walk (I lived in a tiny village), when I started high school, so about 11/ 12. I probably would do the same for my Daughter when she gets to high school, but only because a lot of the children who live close will be going to the same school, so they'll be a big group of them walking to and from the bus stop. If she was on her own I would want to collect her from the bus stop until she was a little older. Having said that my Dad was getting planes when he was nine, alone. It's a sign of the times though, I'm 30, I'm a keen trail runner, which often takes me off road , and my Dad still tells me not to go to isolated areas, and to keep to where people can see me. As a parent you always worry about your kids even when they're all grown up!

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Rezie · 19/01/2019 07:41

Genuine question. How does parents walking kids to and from school work? Does working parents hire a nanny for the 1 mile walk or are there rules on kids being alone for a few hours or is it ok if they come with the neighbour kids and their parents?

I'm from the northern Europe and we start school when we are 6-7 years old. Parents usually use their annual leave to walk the kids to school for a few weeks and they start walking or taking the bus on their own.

We live close to several schools in South East England and often I walked past them when school was ending. I was in uni and wondering that if me and my partner would settle to this child friendly and expensive area how we would do it. No way could we afford to have a SAHP and hiring someone would be also very expensive.

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Makegoodchoices · 19/01/2019 07:43

Our school encourage walking (in friend groups) at Year 5. They have road crossing ‘lessons’ at the end of year 4 - I suspect because a few children may have always been driven to school as the area is rural.

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Petrilorcheese · 19/01/2019 07:47

I went through this with my DCs primary school it was made clear to me that they werent happy my y5 child (summer term) was walking part of the way home alone to be met by older DC. I was told I had to buy him a mobile otherwise they would report me to social services.

I was coming home from school (to an empty house) every day at lunchtime when I was 10. And most of my friends walked to and from school unaccompanied from the age of 6 or 7, but now children are so over protected I know plenty who are still driven to 6th form/ college daily and at 17/ 18 have never done a journey on their own.

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anniehm · 19/01/2019 07:54

For goodness sake, she's 11 not 5! My kids went alone from age 8. In many countries kids travel alone from when they start (admittedly older than ours around 6) My friend was told she mustn't walk her kids in Japan!

I'm surprised at the school contacting you tbh

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Evilspiritgin · 19/01/2019 08:38

Our school requires a written note from yr 5 saying that a child will be walking home by themselves

The trouble in this case is we don’t know is the other parent is being a busybody or if she/he has seen something? I went to primary school in the 70s so used to walk to and from school from the age of 6 (about a mile). What the school nor my parents didn’t know was that from about the age of 9 I was being bullied by some girls from the year below me, to be fair the school wouldn’t have cared less about anyone being bullied back then

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pandoraphile · 20/01/2019 12:44

There was a parent who literally lived across one road from the back entrance to the school. You could practically touch the house. But because it was across a road the school insisted that she come and collect her Yr 8 child every day.....

It's a private school though and there's a similar system at my other dds senior school.

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PrivateDoor · 20/01/2019 12:54

OP this is very strange. You say that dd was desperate to walk home alone which to me indicates that it is usual within the school - otherwise why would she be begging to do it? If it was not allowed she would know and presumably therefore would not ask to. It sounds likely to me that her friends walk and that is why she wants to. Is there something you aren't telling us with regards to the route? Or was she actually seen behaving badly or crossing a road unsafely or something? I feel like this isn't the full story to be honest.

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