To never let dd out to play

[Rainbowdrops2021]

Dd is 8 and has recently started being knocked for and it’s shocked me, I wasn’t ready. I’ve told her she can have friends in and play in the garden and she’s now aloud to walk to a house a few doors down from ours but that’s it. She isn’t aloud to play in the street unsupervised and I don’t ever want her to. People always ask what is the right age to let them out to play but I don’t really want dd loitering around the area ever, as she gets older she will turn into one of those kids that the parents have no idea where they are or what they’re up to. She goes to dance and has friends and cousins over and we go to their houses, we take her to the park and out and about all the time but I just don’t think I’ll ever want her out unsupervised. So AIBU and has anyone else done this with their children? I should add my parents were really slack and never knew where I was and as I got older I would drink and get into trouble I think this might also be why I feel this way.

Mine are in their 30s now, I started to let them out from 8. They weren't allowed out with the kids that vandalised a neighbours car, shot our windows with air rifles, taunted the lady with additional needs, etc. Those were the 'popular ' kids on our estate! They were allowed with a few kids whose parents I knew and weren't feral.

But, it was:
where are you going?
To play football up the field with David..
Ok, you need to be back for 4.
Ok mum

where are you going?
Dunno..just out..
Back in 10 minutes, please
Why?
Because you don't have anywhere to go or anything to do so you can do that here.

Once they had a little more judgement for the company they kept they actually thought the ones just hanging around in the cold were losers!

So if you go back 80-100 years we have our kids responsibility for jobs. So growing up on the depression on a farm and you'd have to milk the cows or help the neighbours from the age of about 4. As humans we're an incredibly social group of people who actually thrive on being social and being given responsibility. (This actually means we shouldn't have phones or social media. But I digress!)

So not giving your daughter trust or responsibility actually goes against us as humans.

It's actually in a nutshell. Not healthy at all to not let her out alone till she's an adult. There will be huge impacts on her life if you do that.

My kids played out at that age. By y6 DD was allowed to cycle on the cycle path to a friend's. She's now y9. If she's out I still know where she is because she tells me. She has boundaries and if she wants to go outside them it's by negotiation.

She's 8 😂

As long as she is playing with friends at home and socialising through activities I wouldn't worry too much, she is only 8. I was allowed out from about 5, no supervision, horrendous when I think about it. I still got to meet up with friends in my teens and have great fun.

Around us they seem to play out from 7 up. But it's a cul de sac, and the living rooms overlook the road
So they play but there's always a parent checking up every so often

Age 11-12 is the time they seem to start getting the bus into town shopping

Of course once they were at secondary school they went to friends houses by themselves or to the park but they didn't play in the street.

Lmao so naive. Teens don't need to hang out in the streets to get up to no good. They'll have had a fair few drinks and smoked a lot of weed all in the park. And definitely a fumble in the bushes. Yes even your angels.

Not at 8.

At 8 I wouldn't, when she gets to 10/11 in Y6 then she can have more freedom to prepare her for high school.

We live on a busy road so out two never played out. From about 7, they had the roam of the two local parks whilst I sat on a bench, so they were out of sight but would check in every 10/15 mins. My youngest is just 10 and can now go to the nearest park alone, plus the local shops. (5 minutes and one road with traffic lights ). My 12 year old has a perimeter of about 1-2 miles from the house - 2 local shopping areas, 3 parks, school etc. He has a phone with Life 260 tracker on it. So for us, it’s a gradual build up of freedom with lots of safety and independence lessons - so they were taught to pay for things in shops, order in cafes etc themselves from a young age.

However, we do check our 12 year olds phone and he knows this , we talk a lot about online safety. Our 10 year old doesn’t have a phone yet.

Its about building blocks, a step at a time.

Get her a payg cheap mobile phone. Tell her that she needs to tell you exactly where she's going and if they want to go elsewhere then she needs to ask first. And give her a time to be back by (you can get an alarm on the phone). Tell her that the first time she's not back by that time/goes somewhere else she won't go out again that week.

Look, my dm hated us playing out. Friends would come round to our house, as they did in the village, and then (as they did) want to move on and I would be left behind. Dm was convinced they did it just to be nasty, but that was the way they worked-spend some time at one house, then move on.
It meant that at school the others had spent time the previous night playing a game I had no idea about. Or a joke which went over my head. I had a constant (at primary school) feeling of playing catch up from the outside.
I wasn't brilliant socially, and that really didn't help. I kind of carved a niche for myself as the admiring friend who listened when they told me what they'd done (and no, it wasn't drink, drugs or anything bad) but it still left me on the outside.
I think it was worse for my siblings, who didn't actually care, because they're far less sociable than me. But I think part of their problem was that they didn't have the opportunity to learn how to socialise in a group.

At 8yo, mine would be called for, and then go to the other one's house. They'd take my old mobile, and message me before they walked back (always in the light) or message me when it was time for them to go (if after dark). Yes, there were times I felt panicky inside, when they took longer to come back or whatever, but they gained independence and also learnt when to say no and come back. I remember ds aged about 9 or 10 returning very promptly from going to play football in the park-the other boys had proposed "knock down ginger" on the way. He refused to play and came right home. Because he knew it wasn't right, he had the confidence to come back and told me why. I wouldn't have had that confidence at a much older age, because I'd have been afraid that if I'd come home early, I'd have had to explain and them dm wouldn't have let me out again.

Really depends where you live. We live in a new build estate with a big green opposite our house. My 6 year old plays out with his friends as I can watch him through the window. It's been great for building confidence and independence.

I also work oj a field where I have contact with the horrific number of dangerous individuals in our society

Child molesters or abusers meet victims or harm children in two ways on the whole
They are related to them or they groom them or view their images online

Children playing on their own street or nearby in a managed way with adults making sensible decisions about whete they are..if they are in a group etc . .are far far safer than those spending too much tinme online

Playing outside...if it is done in a measured way where childrn get more freedom as they grow older...is good for them and helps them navigate and learn how to be safe in the world they live in

I'm amazed at some of the replies here!

Playing out with friends in an estate - a cul de sac! - is fine, of course it is.

I wouldn't let an 8 yo roam around far from the house, no. But playing unsupervised, near to home, is important for teaching boundaries & self management in a gradual way.

Did I say it was 🙄

You need to read the book 'The Coddling of the American Mind'...

I used to go out and play around the neighbourhood with my friends in the 90's and we would ride our bikes/play ball games in the street and none of us turned into delinquents. All grew up to be perfectly normal. Did you grow up in a rough area? That may be colouring your idea of how she will turn out if you allow her to play out.

There's clearly a difference between not allowing your child to play out at age 8 (reasonable) and not allowing them to play out ever.

I grew up in a village. By around 7 I was allowed to pop to the corner shop on my own.

By 9 or 10 I was allowed to walk to school with a friend, and play out in the woods with friends. We had a den there, and a hidden packet of biscuits that we stored in an old tin. It was a little woods though, just a few houses away so not far, and we wouldn't have strayed beyond that.

From about 11 I was allowed to cycle across the village to my friend's house - a distance of probably 2-3 miles, and we were allowed to take ourselves off to a bigger woods, about a mile away from the house. That had a stream we played in and we built another den, a bigger, better one this time.

Then by 13 I was allowed to cycle the 4 miles to the nearest bus, and get a bus 15 miles to the nearest town on my own. By 14 I was allowed to get a train to a city 50 miles away, again on my own. I also cycled off round the countryside with my friends, easily around a 10 mile radius. Once I was in secondary school, my nearest friend was 7 miles away so I used to cycle there pretty regularly too from 13.

So 8 may be fine, but it's time to start thinking about what you're comfortable with because growing up happens whether you let them or not. Plenty of kids are allowed to play out without getting involved in anything dodgy or causing trouble, though I do understand why you're worried about that.

I would say though that the friends who weren't allowed any freedoms didn't know what to do with all their freedom when they got it all in one go at university. They made a lot of unwise choices then, instead of making small choices regularly from childhood.

not allowing your child to play out at age 8 (reasonable)

I'm baffled though, honestly. How is it usual to not allow an 8yo to play out, in a controlled situation like her road / immediate part of estate?

How mad to think at a certain age you'll open the door & usher them out, like at what, 10 or 11?

Small, incremental steps is the way to go.

@Augend23

I didn't mean you btw, Augend! You've given a good example of incrementally allowing independence.

@EarringsandLipstick - you're right, I probably should have worded it as "not inherently unreasonable" rather than just reasonable. There is clearly an age at which that would be inappropriate, and other ages when it would be appropriate. I think for me 8 is on the cusp of that because of road safety more than anything else. That's a different matter from the green someone talked about up thread, and a cul-de-sac may be quiet enough that that would be fine but I've honestly never lived anywhere with little enough traffic that I wouldn't worry about a child playing out in the road. It may be my lack of imagination though rather than the problem itself.

@Augend23

No, you make good points. Of course, ah issue of road safety is very relevant. I live in a cul de sac of 8 houses. From younger than 8, I was happy for my DC to be out unsupervised.

However, there's a green around the corner. I've never really been happy for my DC to go there - even as they got older. It's too exposed, lots of random kids playing, including older boys. Now mine are old enough, they'll head to nearby football pitches / park & I prefer that.

So I suppose context is everything!

Purely depends on how safe your area is and how it feels as a community.

I have a teen son and he doesnt go hanging around the street. However if he's arranged something with his mates he will go out unsupervised. My daughter is slightly older then yours and doesn't (nor does her friends).

You have to decide what works for your family unit.

Playdates for 12/13 year olds?