To think 11 is not too young to travel on a train alone?

[Tellmeifimwrong]

Please settle a debate! Happy to hear all opinions.

Is 11 years old, starting y7 in Sept, too young to take a one hour train journey, without parents but with a slightly younger child? Put on at one end by an adult and met at the other end by an adult, with a phone and data, and train staff informed? No behavioural problems or SEN.

You are over reacting.

I have nephews and nieces of different heights including when they were 11 and 12.

When I went out with them individually and was behind them members of the public treated the shorter ones as if they were between 8-10 rather than their age.

By this they were looking with concern for the adult they were with and questioning them then me.

With the taller ones at the same ages they were adultified even if they were less mature.

If the child is short but mature in nature then they need to learn how to deal with people thinking they are younger. In the case of my nephews and nieces when possible they tended to go out and about with at least one peer, a sibling or an adult to be left alone.

Also your assertion that you 'knew what to do about sexual harassment in your day' is disgusting and victim blaming.

@OliveOilly Well done you Olive for your victim shaming and your wonderful, sensible little noggin. Dreadful I was such a failure and taken in by a predator.

I’m sure all the women who’ve been groomed, groped, flashed, assaulted, raped, or indeed murdered by predatory men lament that if they’d only seen the danger it all could have been averted.

I couldn’t move seats as I was by the window!! Even to this day I sit on the aisle seat because of this. And I did tell my mother who thought it sounded an innocent encounter. She must have been an idiot too.

Well done for your superior parents!

@RobinaHood So young people involved in county lines fighting on trains?

Personally I think the real risks are other teenagers targeting them. So I would tell them to lie if asked if they are travelling alone and say their parents are a few seats in front. And to sit near other people, not in a carriage alone.
That is a more realistic scenario than adult abducting them.

What a judgy comment...🙄🙄

Definitely not

That is, they are definitely too young to ride alone.

@RobinaHood But we did. It does not make sexual harassment okay, but it is common, so you have to learn what to do. That includes spotting dodgy men and moving away, never sitting in an empty or quiet carriage, etc.

My son started travelling to school on the train when he was 11. He gets two trains, he was absolutely fine. Many DC from the same school get on the same train so they end up in a large group heading to school. I did take him on the route a couple of times before he started

Half of all young women on British streets have been harrassed. And nearly 40% of women have had unwanted sexual behaviour on public transport in London.

I personally think that the level hasn't actually gone up, but the reporting has.
Talk to anyone over 50 (oh that would be me then) and the amount of sexual harrassment and unwanted sexual behaviour used to be the same. It just didn't occur to us to report it. (and the London tube is much much worse for this than other trains in my experience)

But I have 3 kids who have used the train since they were 11, and the only issues they have is with other school kids.

I am not actually arguing for the OP to let them do it. I have said in pretty much every post that I think they should wait unitl they are secondary school age as a base line, and then assess the indivual children and the route.

But I get so cross with this whole over protectiveness of modern parenting, where a sensible 12 year old can't use public transport.
I am so glad that my kids - two of them now 18+ are able to navigate themselves round the country/world confidently. I went to school with a girl who had never been on a train alone aged 16. My friend and I (who used to go together to stay with my auntie in London as teens) were just open mouthed. She hadn't a clue.
I say with confidence that put the 3 of us on our own on trains aged 16 and I know the one that would get into trouble and it wasn't me or my friend.

No, they learn by riding the train with adult caretakers, seeing how it all works, and then riding alone when they're old enough.

Forcing an 11-year-old out of their comfort zone won't suddenly give them the brain of a teenager or young adult.

we knew what to do?! Did we?!
I don't remember EVER having thought about sexual harrassment as a child - it was all swept under the carpet and normalised!

The younger child needs to be mature enough to look after themselves and help the other child out if something happens to them. And vice versa with the older child.

This is what is meant by the older child not being responsible for the younger child.

@Coffeetree I assumed they had already been on trains with adults before.

@AskMeMore DC has ASD I am absolutely not going to put them at risk trying to follow some neurotypical gradually increasing independence crap. They’d be dead or seriously hurt.

I would still probably be a very cautious parent even if I had NT.

I don’t think people being careful with their kids should be judged negatively. I am bringing up my DC the way I see fit, doing what I know to be best for them.

If other people want to let their children roam for hours or pop them on public transport before the age of 12 it’s their business. But personally, not for me.

@Twonewcats then you were let down. I was taught what to do - basic stranger danger. Christ we had lessons on this at 6 years old in school! The Tufty club. I was taught more every year both in school and by parents.

I knew this thread would become about sexual harassment, in real life your problem is more likely to be what most people encounter on the train from time to time- a group of teenagers saying’what are you looking at’ to them (as I had a few weeks ago) a person rambling at them and freaking them out ( which happened to my friend) or as dh had last week, a druggie anti masker getting in the faces of people who are wearing masks shouting that Covid is the government’s way of trying to control us all

@Robinni If your child is more vulnerable then things are different. But parents who do nothing to teach their kids independence are not helping them. They go away to university at 18 knowing nothing about protecting themselves and are very vulnerable.

Well yes in a way we did "know what to do" --I.e., what everyone told us to do, which was put up and shut up, and accept the fact that we were second-class citizens. We were expected to act resilient and to blame ourselves.

Normalise being shocked by child abuse.

Not what I said AT ALL - I said "sexual assault". Stranger danger was taught to kids as a danger of sexual assault.

I was in train from London recently and there was a group of children year 8/9 upwards going to a well known private boarding school in Lancashire and they had an adult chaperone.

@stayathomer I agree. The biggest risk is other teenagers/kids. Either having a go or trying to steal from them. The same as at school or on a walk to school.

AGH - was not taught as sexual assault

@Dixiechickonhols Some parents are very over protective and would happily pay for this.

DC has ASD I am absolutely not going to put them at risk trying to follow some neurotypical gradually increasing independence crap. They’d be dead or seriously hurt.

Oh drip feed much!!
Of course that's bloody different.
You were saying that no child should do this. That is 100% not the same.

neurotypical gradually increasing independence crap
here's the thing, for a NT child it isn't crap is it?