To worry when 10yr DD went for an early run alone

[BelleBoyd]

My DD woke me early this morning saying she was going for a run and left. She kept to our road and was back in half hour. Is this ok? Just seems unusual behaviour? She hasn’t done this before and doesn’t run usually as a sport.

theDudesmummy Even with your additional post, it’s still OTT to pick up 14 year olds from school even at 5pm in central London.

Wow, only read some of the thread, but some strong reactions here!

My DD is 10 and in the past couple of weeks has started taking herself off for bike rides alone and trips to the park for alone time. At first I was a bit freaked out, but now our neighbour is back and they go together. SHe has just suddenly got sick of the toddlers next door haunting her and had to escape. She has just suddenly matured (along with her mate).

When she goes back to school I have given her her first pocket money bank card and said she is allowed to walk down to Starbucks with her friends after school. A lot of the kids were doing this last year anyway. Her school is big into independence.

I will also start letting her get the bus to school if she wants. Probably start letting her go up town when she is 11.

I did all of these things and more. At the age of 10 me and my mate would walk the dogs down the park for hours every night of the week and most of the weekend. My parents barely saw me.

My 10 year old lad frequently runs a 3 mile route alone. He is quite mature though and enjoys his alone time. I gave him my old Apple Watch and he tracks his runs through Strava. He takes his phone for music too so I always have a means to contact him.

Your username is apt @Bateshotel 😂😂

I'd be concerned yes but because in my home Town there's some perverted fuckwit on a bike targeting female, early morning, joggers. He has sexually assaulted quite a few over the last few months.
So if my (imaginary) dd just took herself out of the house without waking me properly to ask my permission then I'd be rather pissed off with her.

You may think it OTT. These children had seen schoolfriends shot at, had been forced to hide in a fridge in a shopping centre shooting incident, and knew of people who had been killed because they stopped their car at a red light. It was not OTT at the time. I only mentioned it to highlight how there can be a big difference between things "then" and things "now". I grew up in the same province they did, and my mother went to sleep while we played in the streets...and that was in the era of the Soweto riots...perceptions just change, that is all I was saying...

BTW, where I live now (rural Ireland), if my 10 year old was not autistic, I would have no problem with him going out on his own in the immediate area for a run/cycle...but given his disabilties I will wait a bit longer for that...

You didn’t mention South Africa in the first instance.

I said that I grew up in Johannesburg, but no, I did not make it clear that my stepdaughters also came from there...

theDudesmummy In that case, why even mention it on this thread then, which is about children gaining independence who have not been brought up in South Africa?

I’m assuming the OP is not in South Africa.

The pomt I was making was: The danger kids being out alone were just as severe when I was growing up, as were the dangers of swimming in crocodile-infested rivers, or kids hanging off the back of a a pickup going 100km an hour, but they were perceived differently. By the time I was became a stepmother I had an entirely different perspective on risk from the perspective my parents had.

I’m just about to drop my 13 year old in town with her friends and I won’t worry while she's out
I wouldn't be remotely worried about that either, but how is it comparable to a 10 year old going for an early morning solo jog?
Op didn't know at the time that she intended to just run up and down her own street. I'm very surprised she did that, tbh. And a bit sceptical, truth be told.

@Bateshotel you'd barricade the door to stop an 11 year old taking some exercise?
This thread just gets more and more bizarre

Thisismytimetoshine You have taken that sentence out of context as another poster and I were discussing independence in growing adolescents, hence why I mentioned it. I wasn’t comparing it to the OP.

But feel free to be awkward.

My point was not about South Africa, it was about how much things have changed in terms of how parents perceive risk. Does no-one else (not just in SA, anywhere) remember sitting the back of a closed car while the adults filled the air with smoke? No-one would dream of doing that now...

You were comparing it to kids who grew up in South Africa, but whatever...

I don’t think I’d let my 10 year old out alone in South Africa but I would in the U.K.

No I was saying that I grew up in the 1970/80s, in the same place that my stepdaughters grew up in the 1990/2000s (wherever that happened to be), and totally different norms applied regarding the parental perception of risk, the risks were mostly ignored in my case, although they were broadly the same.

You are still talking about South Africa though right?

I grew up in the 90’s here and it’s no more or less dangerous.

You grew up in the 90s where?

Not everyone lives in England, Pablo. There's a big wide world out there.

The U.K., I do apologise.

Talking about "here" is so insular.

Yes alright @Thisismytimetoshine 😂😂

Given that the vast majority of posters will live in the UK I don’t think PablosHoney was particularly remiss to say “here”.

But I do agree that bringing children up in the UK is completely different to bringing children up in SA so I don’t really think that posters point brings much to the thread!