sending a nearly seven year old alone on a plane to Germany...

[emkana]

... for a holiday with her grandmother, for five nights?

Dd1 keen to go and not scared. Have never done this before, but as I understand it airline will look after child?

MIL so upset at the thought that she can't even talk about it.

Have to go now, but will check back later.

I'd go for it Emkana.

I haven't read all the replies but my mum once sent my sister and I off on holiday to stay with my godmother when I was about 6 and my sister 8. Ok, I wasn't 100% alone but we weren't with parents. It was fine. And we were away for 6 weeks! (nice break, mum?! ) I might be a bit nervous doing it with my ds (eventually, he's still a baby) but I wouldn't let that stop me as long as I thought he would be ok with it. And I don't suppose I'd be any more nervous than the first time I let him go away anywhere without me for more than a day.

emkana....re your post of Sunday @ 20:44...why did you start the OP in the first place when you have all the ideal perfect answers?

if my dd's dont behave today do you think it would be unreasonable to send them as cargo to their grandparents ?

I would have been as chuffed as anything to do this when I was a kid - if she is confident, good at speaking up and explaning problems if there is one, do it!

I must admit that as a parent, personally I would have flutters and jitters...but think it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and would give a child tremendous confidence having done it.

Kerry, you made it sound as if it was a well known fact that Lufthansa was involved in "some spectacularly horrible crashes", to quote you. In fact you didn't know of any and had to google for it. So that was downright nasty and also incorrect.

whispywhisp, I explained that in my post of Sun 6 Jan 21.40

And in the post you mention I was considering each point as I wrote.

I remember posting a thread a couple of years ago, about a friend's dd going to germany alone on a plane

I thought it was a bit scary and posted to see what everyone thought

the thread lasted about 20 messages; all of people who had done it themselves/ sent their children and didn't think twice about it, and I changed my mind and thought, oh, okay, you learn something new every day

I can't believe the way this thread has turned out

I think you just started it on the wrong day emkana

MeMySonAndI - No, not quite Hogwarts! There were about 5 boarding schools in the same town, and the schools clubbed together to charter the train - used to be horrendous - 4 girls schools and 1 boys school all mixing on the same train. I think they did it for the sanity of the general public, I dread to think what would have happened if we'd been sent on a scheduled train!

whispywhisp, I don't know how long you've been posting here before, but I'm such a MN addict I'm afraid that any issue that is somehow "controversial" in RL I cannot wait to discuss it on MN, even if my own mind is fairly made up. Nevertheless I have more than once revised in my opinion in the course of the discussion. On this occasion I must say that the "against" opinions haven't swayed me.

Cappuccino, you could have warned me.

Ok emkana - I've read your post of Sunday 21:40 whereby you state you have no reservations about placing a young child on a plane, on her own...then do it.

I personally wouldn't.

Do you know, it always makes the discussion more interesting IMHO when you actually give reasons for your opinion.

And she won't be alone, she will be looked after by airline staff who do this with 60 000 children a year, and nothing ever happens to any of them...

emkana - are you asking me why I wouldn't?

yes

I would seek experience, views or statistics about efficiency of various airlines / airports record on looking after minors, rather than crashes, anyway - it may be that some airlines are better at it than others - I guess you have a choice of BA or Lufthansa. I would also check that the airline has actual staff - rather than agency staff - at the airport, and stay in the airport until the plane had taken off.

(this does actually concern an experince I had recently with Lufthansa, when we were at the gate by the time a flight was cancelled, agency rather than Lufthansa's own staff dealt badly with the re-allocation of flights, information and commmunication, luggage was retured, we went back through passport control and I had to wait 11 hours for another flight....)

emkana - I simply wouldn't place either of my daughters on a plane on their own, despite the fact a member of staff would remain with her throughout check-in, the flight and arrivals.

I'm not going to get into the reasons why I wouldn't because, tbh, they've already been covered by a lot of these posts.

And due to the tone of your post at 12:34 - I'm not even going to waste my time!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

All parents are different. All kids are different. I fall into a category that wouldn't allow my daughter to fly alone.

Don't be so f-ing melodramatic KKM
Emkana will obviously do what is best for her dd and dd seems mature enough and happy enough to go

No thanks I've googled for crashes myself now and there's actually been four in the history of Lufthansa.

What about the point that Lufthansa looks after 60 000 unaccompanied minors a year?

And my mother would not be detained, and if she was, the airline would hardly abandon dd somewhere in an airport.

Yes and you can't plan for every complication of life either - but I'm not going to kill myself ffs!