AIBU to let my 7 year old walk to his friend's house alone

[welshweasel]

My 7 year old (8 next month) is desperate to be allowed to walk to his friend's house for a pre arranged play date. Friend lives less than 5 minutes walk away. There is one road to cross (20mph speed limit with pedestrian crossing that he knows how to use).

I'm keen to let him to do this but my friend was horrified that I might allow this. Am
I totally out of touch with what is reasonable?

I was out playing independently at that age, as was DH. My two older DC also were out playing at that age locally with friends, had to cross one little road to get to the park. You can't smother them forever! My eldest also walked the two minutes walk to school from aged 7.

But we can all name towns, roads and family's who have lost someone in a car accident.

And yet no one gives that a second thought when they get in a car.

Nor do they worry when they don't use the car seat correctly or move them out of a car seat too early, all too busy worrying about The Stranger.

Children are not getting the opportunity to build resilience as they are not getting a chance to play outdoors from a young age. I was never in at this age. Was outdoors playing with friends.

On the negative side of that, one of my DC (aged 8) was sexually assaulted by another child (aged 7) in a one off incident when playing outdoors (even after going through personal safety rules with him). Police involvement years later as my DC didn't make sense of the incident immediately due to his age. Perpetrator under the age of criminal responsibility so the case was not taken any further.

My other DC who played outdoors has not had any such incidents happen and benefitted from time outdoors.

I can understand though why many are hesitant to let go and give their DC independence at this age.

NSPCC doesn't say that at all about home alone. You've misread or misunderstood their guidance.

As for going out - they don't advise on an age for that but have a handy checklist to go through to understand if your child is ready. And it's child dependent not age dependent.

Context is everything. We live in a nice village. At that age both my children had friends a couple of streets away. I used to walk with them to the road they had to cross and then watch them go over the road. The host mum would then open her front door and watch them come the last bit of the way.

Then we built up to me standing at the corner where I could just see the road crossing, watching from a distance and then the mum letting them in. We built it up bit by bit.

There are some really fevered imaginations on this thread.

I didn't imagine my cousin's death at 8 and her funeral.