To insist my 12-yr old collects nine-yr old from school

[Bigroundpear]

My nine-year-old is in year 5 at a small inner-city state primary a five minute walk from home. School policy is for children to only be able to walk home alone from year 6 which I fully accept (though I don't particularly agree with it).

Last week I let the school know that my 12-year old (who is in secondary school and travelled alone from year 5 for 40 mins each way - different school) would be collecting nine-year-old from school today. School emailed back to refuse because their policy is siblings who collect must be over 14.

I emailed back to say I will be exercising my parental responsibility, that it's up to me what happens to my child outside of school and I will not be there to collect, but my oldest child will. My kids have done this same journey alone together often (school is next to a supermarket they visit together frequently), I have risk-assessed this and feel confident that though of course there are risks, everything that needs to be is in place to prevent them coming to harm. I have prepared both kids for all eventualities with the school today, including that they may call social services (not bothered about this, know SS won't do anything).

I think the school is over stepping the mark, and should release my nine-year-old, however I'm sad I have put office staff in this position.

AIBU?

Glad you got it sorted.

I'm another one whose ds went to school in Scotland (inner city Glasgow) and ds was walking to and from school on his own from about age 8 (10 minute walk).

Iirc, they only expected in Infants (P1 to P3 - roughly age 5 to 7) to be picked up. Thereafter they assumed that parents knew their own child(ren).

My children’s school has a policy from y5 to walk home alone is fine with written consent held by school. A friend was sending her child to the wrap around on an addiction basis due to her job being unpredictable but then school changed rules to pre booking only and pre booking pick up time. Hard when you’ve an ad hoc job and hard for others when traffic is unpredictable. My friend gave her daughter a key and told the school they’d forced her hand to have her walk home on her own (y5) to a briefly empty house into her older siblings arrived in from school. That’s how it went. They’re all at secondary now. My daughter started walking mostly from y6. Funny though that she still went to well around and left in time for me to be getting home around the similar time but it was getting her used t using a key, being home a short while and for me not to have to panic when the traffic was bad that I was overstaying the end of wrap around time. The school club woman wanted to call me a few times to make sure she got home safe as it worried her. But she was walking home on nights I wasn’t at work also and no one was bothered!!

I not sure what their policy was on siblings. I never asked. My elder daughter never did the pick up but even now they’re at secondary together they don’t walk together. They don’t massively get along so I e never left the oldest ‘in charge’ of the youngest. They now get home before me by about an hour and just sit in separate rooms!!

I agree with you. My little sister and I used to walk home together when I was Y5 and her Y3. We followed strict instructions on which routes home were allowed and which were safe adults if needed.
I think schools over step on areas they don't need to and under step where you'd like them to do something!

No wonder we are breeding a world of snowflakes if this is how the school are treating them. FFS they are more than old enough to be alone at home for 45mins. My 6yr old DS would technically be fine on his own for that long, he gets himself up on morning gets food and plays his play station or watches TV till I get up which if I've been on night shift can be 2-3 hours. I also will not be raising a lazy useless man.

Silly policy. My friend has 2 kids the same age as yours and the elder kid regularly collects her sister from school and walks her home

you know your own kids capabilities

Hello. Really sorry and want to apologise as I thought you wanted this to be a long term arrangement - totally got it wrong.

I think one week is fine. I just felt apprehensive about a 12 year old having to look after a younger sibling after school 3 days a week long term.

Also just to let you know I am a foster carer and am very adept in the area of children feeling forced to ‘parent’ younger siblings and I do feel for those in that situation as I have seen the impact it can have long term.

However one week is understandable and we all have work and childcare issues to contend with.

I don't think your eldest should be in a parental role. It's not their fault you're a single parent. They didn't choose to have children.

Yeah walking a 9 year old home from school occasionally because the school won't let them walk on their own classes as being in a parenting role

in Sweden circa 1993-1997 I was walking home from age 6/7 with a key necklace around my neck

Walking home from school with your sibling is about as standard and normal a child role as you can get!

I’m another Scottish based poster finding the north / south divide on this baffling.. ds1 walked home alone from p4 (ds2 at nursery in the opposite direction) and collected ds2 from when they were in p6/p2 respectively (primary 1 dc had to be released to a parent). I get that it is a different culture in some ways, but objectively Scotland isn’t any safer than England surely? Taking into account similar communities, urban v rural, etc?

Because we are making them incapable by infantilising them into their teens it seems.

Well done OP on two fronts. Firstly standing up the school’s massive overstep and secondly, for ensuring you will raise independent, responsible and capable young men.

We are doing our children a huge disservice with the increasing tendency to helicopter parent. How on earth do people think children will learn and develop the skills and confidence they need without being given the opportunity to do so.

Walking a sibling home from school is not the same as parenting them. Come on now!

That’s how you reach responsibility and independence. You start small and work up.

Our (tiny village) school let's year 4 children walk home alone, and year 3s in the company of year 6 siblings. Unless the area is particularly sketchy I think the school is overstepping.
I personally don't let my 9 year old walk home alone but if I had a 12 year old to collect I would be ok with that.

40 mins each way! You need to have a good look at yourself. Are you just being lazy?

Yeah, I used to make out it was no bother to my mum as well; I knew how much she struggled working full time after my Dad left.

I suppose the school dont have a right to comment on what you do

I see where you are coming from as a parent and what you trying to achieve (independence, responsibility etc). When my parents split up i went from getting lifts to having to get myself everywhere walking/cycling/bus. It made me very independent and had not problem sorting myself out.

But on the other side of that i was that child at 13 looking after 3 year old brother and as we got older having to lie to leave school early to pick him up and being late to school as i was dropping him off.
At the time i thought it was great missing school but now i resent how much responsibility was put on me how much i missed out on because i had to help out.
When i wanted to get a job and earn my own money it had to fit in with babysitting, i was relied upon all the time it was so frustrating.

Your 12 year old might be happy to do it but dont make him the sole one to pick up the slack

I'm sorry about that but we are not in any way struggling & I have no reason to think she is lying. She still refers back to it nostalgically.

Well I personally think that’s fine, well actually I think the 9 yr old would be quite capable to walk himself home, get a glass of milk and some biscuits. If there’s a huge problem like lost keys he can sit in the garden and wait for you for 45minutes, or go to a neighbours.

Probably not PC I expect but at age 12 I was babysitting one family (a 4 yr old and 6 yr old and the 9yr old when she was home) overnight. The mum used to come home pretty late so usually mid afternoon until mid afternoon the next day. Nothing terrible ever happened and that was for a woman I knew. Then at age 13 I applied for a different babysitting job advertised in a shop I used to get there before teatime until midnight onwards, mum was working in a bar, but worst bit about that was I had to walk home in the dark at 1am so was pretty scary. And no I don’t think that part was OK.

And no don’t even bother asking why my mother thought that was ok or that I was definitely safe! The only child in any of those circumstances needing to be looked after a bit better was actually me….I was babysitting to pay for shampoo and clothes for myself as my mother decided I didn’t need those things. I was made to leave home at 18 and had my own child so I was always very responsible.

I think school are being really ott. Kids from my school can walk home alone from year 4. A year 5 should be able to go home alone if parents are ok with it.

There's a 9 year old in my kids class that is collected by 11/12 year old (year7) sister. They walk around and collect the 7 year old sibling aswell.
All3 walk school together and home again. Its about a mile or just over.
From year 3 you fill in the form to say how they get home, whether that be adult, sibling pick up or walk home by themselves.

I have a 15 year old that can't walk by herself, let alone be responsible for someone else. But i know 9 year olds that have no trouble. Its down to the individual child not the age, and only the parent knows if they're capable or not.
You are defo not being unreasonable

I agree with your reasoning - but like everything, there has to be a cut off age - and theirs is 14. I don’t think you’ll win on this one. Sadly you would have been better off not telling them, then they prob wouldn’t have even noticed.

Sorry but I see it from the schools side but not to be an arse or to pass judgement - I run a brownie pack and we are not allowed to release a child to a sibling that young even to walk across the other side of the road, it falls on us and our insurance and if we’d released a child to a sibling of that age and something happened we would be shut down and potentially in a lot of trouble, this could be the same with the school and that’s why I understand where they’re coming from. They may have a waver you can sign I don’t know - we don’t and it is just strictly not allowed although could also be due to later time. We have had attempted abductions in the area however this was all in place before that happened. Xx

I was walking home alone from the age of 8!

To be fair, countries where children walk unaccompanied from age 6 tend to have far safer pedestrian/cycling facilities than we do. German or Japanese kids don't have to play chicken with the traffic to get over the road to school.