Letting children out of sight at a park

[Bbqchicken]

If you meet up with a group of friends and their children at a park within walking distance of your home, take picnics you have a lot of laughs play games drink etc. Would you let your primary school age children go off out of sight while you sit chatting with friends into the evening? AIBU to think it's irresponsible? If I did that and anything happened to my child age 7/8 I'd never forgive myself.

1 child on their own, no. A group of children, yes.

Also depends on the maturity and general behaviour of the children.

Agree, having said you can have them i your sight or as you say playing in front of the house & someone can still try & take them.

Child abductors plan these things. They also study threads like this to find out how lax parents are and what we are prepared to put up with.

Do they

It only takes thirty seconds or less.

As you say that can happen when you are watching them or they are not far.

@stayingpositiveifpossible

Your responses are so illogical I don't know where to start.

@stayingpositiveifpossible

You sound incredibly anxious.

Your children will pick up on that

My kids have walked to and home from school since they were 7/8. Allowed and encouraged by the school.

Independent play is a huge part of growing up.

I feel a bit sad for the kids who never get to experience it.

Life is full of risk, driving in a car being a far greater risk than a child being abducted.

Christ, it's a risk for women to walk down the street in day light. Will you tell them not to do that as teens/adults?

The risk of them being harmed as an adult is about the same as them being abducted by a stranger in a park.

If you’re asking this I take it you’re in two minds about this. Only you know your child so go with your gut

Thanks so much for your reasonable, thoughtful contributions, @mommandme ; the examples are really interesting.

Ha.

You know next to nothing about me and my child/young person so don't make assumptions.

In a general sense I am a far more adventurous parent than you could possibly imagine.

To conclude my involvement on this thread - what you really want to hear is
you are right.

Since I don't believe you are, with my over fifty years of knowledge and experience - and are obviously deaf to any alternative viewpoints I would say

JUST GET ON WITH IT
AND DON'T BOTHER STARTING THREADS ASKING FOR OTHER PEOPLES OPINIONS.

I do know at least one other thing though.
I certainly wouldn't allow you to come anywhere near my family with your ignorance!

I agree now you have explained the size of it OP, particularly with a pond there!

I thought at first that you meant a small playground type of park, where the DC can’t go far out of sight anyway

Depends on the kids. I always let mine out of sight, but I knew they would be with their friends and wouldn't wander off from the park altogether.

Some of my friends have kids who like to wander off completely alone at a young age and would also go into the road if they got upset, so they watch them.

It's a bit different when they are of an age where it's an unnecessary risk though

It would depend on the park to be honest. And the children. And how many other people I knew at the park at the time. So many variables.

@stayingpositiveifpossible - <puts hand up> I’ve completed level 3 safeguarding training and worked in roles where I dealt with safeguarding referrals, for both adults and children.

My DC walked home from school alone from age 8. I am not negligent. The school were aware and allow children to walk there and back at that age. I made my own assessment of the situation, based on how close to school we live, the route taken, the DC involved in the group, the maturity levels of DC..

You can do what you want and then you don’t need to justify it. But you don’t get to tell other parents what is right and wrong, and then get stroppy when you are asked to explain your reasoning, and start banging on about being a school governor and the safeguarding knowledge you believe you have.

Absolutely not. I live in a very nice, upmarket area with low crime, but the park has huge problems with dodgy people hanging round.

I would feel perfectly fine with this at age 7 or 8 if they were with friends. Kids walk to school themselves and often go out to play round a council estate out of sight.

In this case the parents are relatively nearby and can judge how often they need to check on them. Many parents give their kids a time to be back.

usually this begins with trust building between parents and kids where they are talked to and explained the distance they are allowed to go , starting off small eg you can go to the next block or tree and come back in 20 mins, gradually building up distance and time. If they break the rules they go back to the start or whatever.

this build maturity, trust, responsibility and independence

@stayingpositiveifpossible

my local school absolutely allows children from age 7 to walk home alone so you are completely incorrect in that regard, and I think they are more qualified to make that judgement than you as a mere parent governor.

Most children don’t get abducted the same way most children don’t get killed in car crashes or falling out of trees. Life is about balancing risk with experiences and our role as parents is to prepare children for being responsible for their own safety not being spoon fed or their whole lives.

you can parent whichever way you wish but you should not be telling others how to parent. It is probably just the case that their children are more emotionally mature than yours

I think it's fine if you've done the work and gradually allowed them bits of freedom. There are lots of kids these days that wouldn't cope with that because they've never been out of their parents sight.

It's essential to put their safety first which includes teaching them boundaries and what to do if something goes wrong and you aren't immediately there. That's what will keep them safe, you won't be there all the time so they need to learn skills gradually. You can't just fire them out the door at 10 and start there, it has to start way earlier. With mine, they played in the garden, then in the street, then at the park. Now they're confident adults in the world.

I've had heart stopping moments when I'd allow my son to play out, then I couldn't see him for a moment because he'd gone up a tree. It's all part of it. It's much more risky to have a child with no idea what to do , than start young and teach them some safety strategies which will change and develop as the get older.

@stayingpositiveifpossible

I didnt start the thread.

If you dont want to discuss your totally ott anxious opinion then you probably shouldn't comment. Especially not when you're calling other parents negligent for no reason other than your own anxiety.

@theyhavenothingbuttheaudacity

Allowing child at that age a level of indecent an unnecessary risk.

Its very necessary

I completely agree.

I wouldn't have a massive issue with this age 7/8 (so yr 3) especially at this time of year with the long summer evenings. Assuming a familiar park (so they knew not to go in the pond !). I know someone who still shadows their DCs on the play equipment aged 7 and nearly 10 !. Swimming pools do not insist on am adult in the water after age 8, I would (and did) also ;
leave a similar aged child home alone for 20 minutes whilst I went on a run
I have also left a child of this age in the play park while I accompanied their younger sibling to the toliet/ went to buy ice creams in another part of the park,
Allow them with a friend to look around shops unaccompanied (with me in a different part of the shop eg. leave them in the toy aisle in a big supermarket) and make small purchases unsuppprted.

As someone else said this is important to foster independance.

Mine goes to the park with her friends and she's 9. We live in a semi rural area though.

No I wouldn't but I have been in those scenarios with other parents in the park as I live in a very liberal area where it is cool to seemingly not care where your 4 year old is hiding, let alone a 7 year old!

I worry about my 15 year old and will insist n collecting him in the car if he is going to be walking home on his own after a party. My concerns are justified as we live in a very middle class area of a city but sadly there are many people with aggressive personalities that are on drugs probably and unpredictable. I was heading home at 4.30 with my 10 year old DD and we live on a residential road where the end is the entrance to a wood and a man was staring at us as we drove slowly past him, he was heading the other way but turned around and headed towards our house, I was in the car and he went past ducked down and flashed a grimacing smile, in my window, he then carried on going in to the woods but would stop every few seconds turn around and stare. My 15 year old offered to come out and help with the shopping as he was in the house saw this behaviour on his bedroom window and was worried, I told him to stay put as I didn't want him hurt or knowing where we lived. He then saw a Mum with a young child and turned her attentions to her she was about to walk in the woods but changed her mind. She went the other way and the man in the woods decided too come back again and seemed to want to catch up with her, a man pulled up to pick up the Mum and child so he didn't get to them. I worry that DD comes across that and she would know not to go with him but that might make no difference. Only last week I took DD to her piano lesson which is located in the city centre and a man on the empty pavement said to me , 'bloody women', I had done nothing at all and was nowhere near him but he was virtually spitting it at me. I said too him, 'excuse me?' Then he just raged at me, 'slut, slut' again at 4.30 on a summers day.

You're never more than 4 meters away from a nonce or something like that.

@Topgub an 8 year old walking home from school isn't a necessary risk though. Parents should be taking them there and back. They aren't even allowed to go to school and back unaccompanied at our local schools and doing so would certainly trigger a safeguarding referral

TBH OP I think you’d be better off determining your own parenting and leaving others to theirs. We all do it differently, kids are all different levels of maturity. You’ve already said they are great parents then you stick a but in. You might no agree with it but my daughters had a little freedom like this and they are far more confident and safety aware because of it. They knew where I was and to come and check in. And I would be able to visualise them most times. If not, I take a little walk and check on them.

@theyhavenothingbuttheaudacity

I dont agree it's a risk at all.

It certainly wouldn't trigger any safeguarding concerns

There's no reason why it should.