Young teens/ preteens and dark nights

[SweeetFemaleAttitude]

If you have a child fairly new to travelling about on buses/ anywhere a bit further what’s your attitude as the nights get dark?

Do you carry on as before, allowing them to come home in the dark from after school activities at 5:30/6 ish or do you meet them/ pick them up as the nights draw in?

In the summer it feels fine having them wander home at 9pm! I don’t know if I’m being silly, it’s the same time. We have street lights and clear pavements (city). It just feels different to be travelling in the dark.

ibu-carry on as normal, curfew is a time and nothing to do with daylight hours

yanbu- you change the rules in winter a bit

My DD is 12. Not done busses yet but she's out well into darkness. Not a bother on her, but we're a fairly enclosed estate. You've given me a kick up the proverbial to start getting her used to busses tbh. Thanks! (Not v helpful, sorry 😔)

Apart from my v irrelevant ramble there (ahem), we'd have DD in earlier in winter. Not crazily early, but the dark does make a difference.

I don't like my daughter being out when it is dark. I tend to collect or drop more where I can.

She is 15, sensible and doesn't wander the streets. But I still don't like her being out in the dark if alone.

I would collect my twelve year old after dark and I expect them back home before it gets dark if they're out at their friends on bike.

DTs are 12, they have to be in before dark at the weekends if they are out unless we have pre-agreed to pick them up later. They are not out roaming the streets / in the park in the dark.

Getting home in the dark on the bus is unavoidable as it gets darker if I am in the office, I don't like it though.

I collect DS and his friends if they have an after-school match or activity that gets them back after dark. They walk home in the summer when it's light.

Mine are 11 and 14. The school bus gets them back to our village about 4pm. If they are out after that, for a club etc, DH or I will collect them in the darker months. It’s probably my own paranoia but there’s too many hiding places in dark corners and I’m not willing to chance it just yet. They both meander along in a world of their own, not at all aware of surroundings. If they were on a bus that is well used and not far to walk from the bus stop, and they were used to the journey, that might be different in the early evening.

When mine were that age, if there were some reason for them not to be leaving school until 5.30 / 6 for some reason, then I'd be inclined to go and pick them up if I could, simply because that's a really long day, combined with the fact that mine would then have a long walk home on their own (as opposed to 3.30, when others would have been walking home this way).
Not particularly because it was getting darker - as, like you, I am in a City and there are street lamps etc and it doesn't really get very dark or lonely.

But then, I wouldn't have them just wandering home at 9pm.

Re walking in the dark (and often cold and rain) vs walking on a warm, sunny early evening, I'd treat them the same as I'd like to be treated if that fits in with what everyone else were doing / it were realistic. I quite like a walk in the warm sun. I'm not keen on a walk in the cold and rain. If convenient, I'd appreciate a lift in the cold and dark a lot more than in the warm and light, so presume my dc would too.

I used to collect DS if he had after school activities otherwise he used to go home through the woods in the dark!

I think it probably depends on the journey - are they getting on a bus from a busy town centre stop, full of people coming home from work, and then getting off again at the top of your street for a two-minute walk down the road to the house? Or are they waiting at a secluded stop with hardly anyone around and then walking 20 minutes through a poorly-lit housing estate? I think that feels like two quite different things safety-wise.

Ds in Y8 gets public transport home after club activities. We live in a city and there is no one else to collect him as I'm out at ds2 piano lesson.

DDs friend used to come to us one afternoon a week, and then walk home (10 mins, main road through nice village). We started off with a rule that if it was dark, either her big brother would come for her or I would see her home. Then we graduated to friend ringing brother to say she was leaving so that he was expecting her, or if he wasn't in, DD walked with her and I knew when DD should be back.