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 live/lived on outskirts of London.
I did similar at that age and loved it!

What i didn't realise was my mother was actually 100m being me like...

Maybe this is the compromise!

Agree.

Stranger danger is bollocks. (Or at least so mathematically insignificant to be not worth calculating)

These things don't have to be all or nothing. Give him a little independence at a time. In this instance I would start with, "I have to walk with you until you've crossed the road and then you can finish the walk alone." And strict rules about never going anywhere with someone, what to do in case of a problem etc.

We did a similar thing with walking to/ from school, started young with a short part of the journey alone. Gradually built up so that by age 10/11 they were walking the whole way alone.

Also I 100% agree with kids walking to and from school and getting independence, but walking to school at age 10/11 (all my kids’ schools will only allow this when kids are in years 5 and 6), when there are other kids and parents around is completely different to a 7 yr old (who could be in year 2!) setting off to cross roads on their own. Kids’ brains are at a different stage, on the whole they’re much more articulate and confident by then. The whole thing with independence and self-sufficiency is that it has to be done in stages and appropriately, otherwise if things do go wrong it’s simply unsafe.

No I wouldn’t and mine walked home from school at 8. The difference for me is that, it’s winter now and darkish even during the middle of the day. Less people on the streets and there’s safety in numbers. Walking five minutes home from school with 200 other kids and parents milling around and a lollipop lady helping cross the 20 mph road is a world of difference.

I would do the walking behind him thing.

We've covered this before- but schools can not dictate when a child walks to school.

Agree with pp, people worry about strangers- it is family and friends that statistically you should be worrying about.

Yes I would allow it. DD has been walking to her friend's house alone, and then on to school together since she was 7. This is normal in the European country we live in.

Too young

Absolutely not, April jones lived in a lovely rural village and was outside for afew minutes before being snatched. You may trust your son but you can’t trust anyone else. And for the ‘I did it as a kid’ people the world is a much worse place these days sadly

my dd has a friend a similar distance and I used to walk her to the end of our road and watch her until she went around the first corner which meant she was only actually alone for a few mins. Now they are 8 they go back and forth to each others houses all the time but parents always let each other know when they are leaving/arriving so that if they take longer then they should someone can go and see where they are.

I started letting middle child walk part of the way home from school alone at just turned 8. He had a quiet road to cross (with a crossing) right outside the school, then came up a long straight road and I waited where I could see him coming. It was fine. Over the next few months he gradually started doing further bits of the route alone.

I think I'd want to see him handle the crossing a few times before I let him do it alone - showing road sense and judging the speed of anything oncoming.

As an addendum, because I can't see the edit function - with the above I was definitely on the 'massively overprotective' end of the parenting spectrum in the country we live in.

Also my kids school lets kids walk home from p4 so plenty of kids walk home alone at 7. It’s still really normal for kids of all ages to play out unsupervised here as well (in the uk but very rural)

No.

My ds is almost 8 and I would not allow him to do this. He has a friend who walks home alone from school who is 7. Other parents and myself, are constantly telling him not to walk on the road and watch out for that car reversing out the drive.
One day he was walking backwards and fell into the road. Some days we take the longer route just so he can walk with us for a bit longer.

I know you trust your ds but at 7 they can still do plenty of silly and dangerous things.

Thanks all, plenty of food for thought. I'm not concerned about abduction, being stabbed, coping with fighting teenagers or stray dogs....

My main concern would be road safety - it's a straight road, 20mph but cars generally do closer to 30mph, this is far the most risky issue, although mitigated by the crossing (I wouldn't consider it without the crossing).

I think I will follow behind him a few times and see how he goes.

This perfectly illustrates that there is no safe age to go anywhere. So even you should stay locked up at home.

Op, road safety is a very rational thing to worry about, and by far the greatest risk.

I think your plan is good, just keep teaching him about road safety and let him take the lead when you are together, ask him to let you know when it is safe to cross and then discuss why, or why not, it was safe.

And also shows how the extremely unlikely and unusual informs decisions. The real risk is the road.

Agreed

My dc are 12 and 15. They were both doing similar walks to friends' houses by themselves at 8, and walked to school by themselves in Y5. I did a few practice runs with them, and trailed them a couple of times too.

I'm clearly a dreadful mother. 🤷‍♀️

Mumsnet is weird. 7/8 year olds should be capable of a short unsupervised walk.

I think the problem with these sorts of questions is that it depends very much on where you live. I used to let my daughter do a similar journey at that age - along very quiet residential streets with slow-moving (if any) traffic, and one small road to cross. The other mother texted when she arrived. Would I have made the same decision if the journey involved walking down a busy high street, crossing at a pedestrian crossing, past the local dodgy pub? Probably not.

So many on MN cannot see outside their own experience and think about what things might be like for people living in other locations.

I agree you have to give kids agency, I just personally think 7 is a bit too young.

Mine were confidently walking to school on busy roads by yr7, and navigating the bus network alone etc in secondary, but I would have said no at 7 to this due to their traffic awareness.

I’m also team no! Maybe at 10.