To let 7 year old walk to and from school alone?

[RLE2]

DS is in year 3, we live about a 10 minute walk away from the school. We live in a quiet area, he won't be near any busy roads, the only roads he has to cross is our road and the school road. The school road isn't too busy as it's only people going to the school using it and our road is empty apart from neighbours. Is 7 too young? It's not unheard of for year 3's to walk by themselves at his school but most still walk with a parent, a few don't

@Helendee

I know, yes strangers can indeed be a threat to children. But the problem with putting it that way to a child is that abusers make a point of befriending a child and then the child no longer sees them as a stranger but as a friend. The child then goes off with them willingly. That happened to DSis and me as children, when I was 8 and she was 6.

Well of course you don't solely teach stranger danger without the discussion of other threats from people they know. It's not one or the other.

Just ask yourself a few questions.

If your child didn’t arrive at school and some 6 hours later you realised he was missing (don’t rely on text from school to say he hasn’t arrived, because if that worked 4 year olds wouldn’t be left shut on the school bus for a whole day) how do you think you’d feel?

If he did get snatched, run over even just shouted at by the local village idiot, how would you feel?

I really, truly don’t understand parents who have a family then can’t be arsed to do anything to raise their family. Walking your child to school is your responsibility. If that’s too much for you, why become parents?

Age 7 definitely not ..

Im sure my year 3 wouldn't even remember the way and there is like 3 turnings she needs to do! But she is quite behind.

I think social media has a lot to answer for when it comes to parents extreme caution. Over the past few years I have seen loads of Facebook posts shared on my area and they will say something like 'my child was approached by a man in a red car outside the gates of X school at 3.20 on Thursday, the man had a southern accent (I'm in N Ireland, they are ALWAYS described as having a southern accent) and the car registration ended in 1234. Parents, look out for your children, mine had a lucky escape'

Then a couple of days later, I'll see an almost identical post and this time they'll have been outside a different school, but it's the same day, the same time, the same car and the same accent. Then a few days later the story will go round again but it's yet another different school. And so it goes on.

Then the PSNI will say they have investigated and there were no reports of this having happened, nothing was reported to them, no adults in the area witnessed this etc and that whilst it's a good idea to be vigilant, they have no reason to believe that there is any increased risk. But THAT post only gets shared by a handful of people whereas hundreds of people shared the scare stories.

My DS walked to school with a friend the same age when he was 7. He is now 9 and walks up and down alone. Same situation as you though about 5 minutes away.

NannyRed it's harder work to prepare your child gradually and effectively for independence than just to babysit them and not let them do anything themselves. Parenting is an active process of teaching skills with a clear aim of independence. I don't understand people who just babysit instead of actively bringing up capable, independent children who grow into confident, fulfilled, self reliant adults.

Personally I find it harder to teach my children skills when I'm not actually there.

PCohle That's deliberately obtuse. Clearly the teaching is done building up to the first time they walk alone and on an ongoing basis when you are together.

So many people keep their child within arm's length and treat them like babies until they're secondary age and then suddenly expect them to make a huge leap in capability in September of year 7.

Primary children are vastly more teachable when it comes to life skills than pre teens and teens.

Secondary school pupils suddenly given responsibility and freedom in one big leap are often very reckless and eager to show off to peers.

The community police officer who does the starting school talk where I live always does a q and a on building up to walking or taking the bus alone and emphasises the importance of starting this at 6. Every year he points out that the teens involved in traffic accidents as pedestrians are the ones who were overprotected and not allowed to walk themselves while they were young enough to take the road safety lessons they get at kindergarten seriously. He emphasises that while children are walking with a parent they never actually take the responsibility on, it's a role play situation, they need to be given the responsibility soon enough after the role play of learning with parents and the kindergarten lessons to be in the rule oriented 6-8 year old phase. Once hormones kick in you've missed a window.

The idea is to actively teach the skills from a young age so they are ready by the time they start school (obviously not with a UK school starting age which is so young). In the UK the expectation is walking alone and being home alone for reasonable lengths of time by secondary school age so parents teach in time for that expectation, in other countries the expectation is just moved up a few years so parents teach according to that timeline, still the same teaching (but the UK method has the downside of children getting their first taste of independence at a peak risk-taking age which increases the risk of traffic accidents and suchlike - 7 year olds are much more likely to follow the rules)

hah crosspost blueskies

But, as has been mentioned repeatedly on this thread, children are incapable of accurately judging car speed.

I actively taught my children road safety from a young age (letting them decide when we should all cross etc) but they cannot be taught a skill they are developmentally incapable of possessing. It has nothing to do with responsibility or any sort of "teachability" window.

I didn't let them cross roads unsupervised until I was confident that they could accurately judge how quickly cars were moving towards them - that happened to be around secondary age to be honest.

Blueskies - there is a huge difference between letting your first year of primary school child walk to school on their own and waiting until they start secondary school before letting them! Lots of people on here have said that the transition normally happens in the upper junior years 5/6 which seems more sensible.

I don’t think I would at year three, though some children in our school do the last portion of the journey on their own. I’d think year 6, if you live in a place where traffic etc is not a nightmare and obviously it’s a safe area. My children started going to the local park alone in year 5, which I’m sure some would consider too young. There is some research about kids right to roam - basically saying they should roam more freely for lots of reasons. It’s a personal decision.

Our school allows it from year 5 so no, I wouldn't. I have 7yo twins and wouldn't feel happy sending them alone. They're little for such a short time, I'm not convinced 7 is the key age for independence. From 9/10 dd1 started a bit of this but only regularly now she's 11.

Everyone always quotes Germany in these threads. When I was 12 I went and lived in Germany for a few weeks and all of the small children were dropped at school or were on a school bus with an adult and the older ones walked from 12. This was a small town near Dortmund.

Yet despite the British approach, British children are more likely to be killed as pedestrians than German or Finnish children

PCohle this is about s quiet route, not about crossing busy roads!

I'm finding this conversation really interesting, thanks, latest posters.

Is that true, @Natsku?

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/roadsafety/sites/roadsafety/files/pdf/statistics/dacota/bfs20xxx_pedestrians.pdf

I found this interesting summary of pedestrian road deaths in Europe. In 2016 (the most recent available) 7% of all pedestrian deaths were children (0-14) in the UK. In Germany it was 5% and in Finland it was 10%. Although in Finland there were only 29 pedestrians deaths altogether. In Germany there were 500 deaths altogether and in the UK 463.

I didn't mention busy roads?

Cars use quiet roads too. In many ways I feel safer when my kids cross busier roads where there are traffic lights / crossing guards, rather than quiet roads where they are solely reliant on their own judgment.

www.childsafetyeurope.org/injurytopics/roadsafety/images/pedestrian-graph.gif

AssassinatedBeauty there are more people altogether in Germany than the UK though.

M0therofdragons I don't know anything about Dortmund, Germany is a large country and the variation by state is enormous, but a 9, 10 or 11 year old would be mortally embarrassed to be dropped off by parents where I live. Year 5 is secondary school (not middle school in the 3 stage school sense, secondary in the sense that is the school which the pupil attends until they leave school), the school years are different but my young for her year DD started secondary at 9, nearly 10.

Sorry but just no. Not at 7 years old. And I'm a bit at your thinking that this would be ok. No no no.