What to do about new estate we’ve moved to?

[Applepastry]

We’ve recently moved to a new build estate. It’s directly next door to a council estate (no issues with this as my mum was brought up on one and lots of my friends were and are from council estates. Everyone seems friendly enough.
My main concern is that all the kids play out in the street, I totally understand with the ones who are 7 or 8 +
However there are 4 and 5 year olds playing out alone, without any adult supervision at all. My DS is 5 and he doesn’t have older siblings. These children will often come and knock for him and he asks to play out with them when he sees them all out on the street. I have been going out with him, but he asks why I have to go, when none of the other parents do.
They all wander up towards the park which is around a corner and you can’t see it from the estate. When I’ve been up there, it extends quite far and joins on a stream and woodland. I’m not comfortable with my 5 year old going up there out of my sight.
Other parents don’t seem bothered and just say “Oh I wonder where G is…he must be at the park”

I’m not a helicopter parent, but AIBU about 4 and 5 year olds (one was 3) being out in the streets by themselves? Some wandering in and out of other houses and into the road?

I just don’t know what to do about my DS as he’s keen to be accepted in this new area and wants to play out with them. He’ll definitely stand out with me or his dad hanging around.

Can’t believe you are asking really, common sense tells me 5 is way too young to be out of sight playing near a wood. I can imagine a number of things that could go wrong.

my 4 year old nearly 5 year old , wouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere alone not even out the front , no way . Maybe he’s younger mentally than others that age , anyway it’s not so much him I don’t trust it’s a random passing weirdo , it’s not worth it ever . Not these days . Not ever .

We have a small park near us. It’s a mixed area. I used to take my kids to the park and be the only adult there. There’s often be a good dozen other kids of all ages. There would be 5 year olds shimmying in the bars of the swings rather than sitting on the swings. They’d be chucking rubbish about, shouting and swearing at each other. I witnessed a couple of very young kids appear without shoes. I was absolutely gobsmacked. One funny moment was something happened and another kid said ‘you’re meant to say ‘shit’ when you hurt yourself!’ One kid trying to teach the other when you swear. Lol. We didn’t often stay long at that park as it was small and my kids often felt intimidated as they all seemed to know each other from the same street/estate whereas we didn’t know them and were the only family with kids on our street. As my kids got older (I’m talking 10) they would ask to go round to the park themselves so with the eldest 10 and the youngest 7 and one phone for them to take I would start letting them go but they often didn’t last and would come back with stories about some of the other kids ganging up on them and throwing stones at them etc. once they got older we did realise that my kids knew one or 2 from school but they were hanging round with others who weren’t from out school. I recall even last summer when my youngest, then 11, went to the park with a couple of her friends she had round from school. They lasted half an hour and came back as they were worried that these same kids were causing bother and they didn’t want to be part of it.

My youngest has stopped hanging round this park altogether and meets her friends up at the shops to have a wander and sit in a different bigger park. She’s sensible and will leave if she knows there’s bother going on. They actually went and reported some kids with BB guns shooting other people in the park or as they went passed. They went to the shop security who took them to the police based on the shop who then went over to the park to chase them off/have a word.

I totally get why OP doesn’t want her 5 year old hanging out at the park where she can’t see them. Especially if you don’t know the other families they well. They could get caught up in alsorts of bother.

I disagree with "the not these days" it's been happening for ever!

Absolutely no way ! I would not be comfortable with this below age 11 tbh

Don't let him, too dangerous

I'd find the contact details for your local Safeguarding Team and mention your concerns. They may be families there are already concerns over.

Too potentially hazardous. That's very young

Yeah. Hard No! I get it, about forming local friendship, but safety first

No I would not let my five year old play out with kids I don’t know out of my sight. Just no. Be the parent. Find him other things to do.

Please follow your gut instinct, I am a lot older than you and I remember Jamie Bulger taken by children not much older than himself. Children of that age are not old enough to think rationally and are led by peer pressure, an older child might think it is an innocent thing to take a younger child into the woods or down to the river to see the tadpoles / frogs, hunt for bears etc and once there they miss their footing and end up in the river, it literally takes 2 minutes .

Totally agree. Some things just are what they are. Sadly you just never know what might happen and if OP is uncomfortable it will be for a reason.

I was out at that age (in the Eighties) but my mum got me a watch and said I had to come home every hour to check in with her and there were strict rules on exactly how far I could go, which increased as I got older. If I wanted to go outside those boundaries, I’d have to come back and tell her where I was going. I remember thinking that all of that was really unfair as none of the other kids ever had to do any of those. If she’d come with me while I was playing, I’d have been mortified.

A lot of places I’ve lived since have had kids running in and out of our house and up and down the streets in packs. They all look out for each other and it works. But I can appreciate someone not being comfortable with that…at the end of the day, parenting is massively personal and you have to just trust your own instincts, which you seem to be doing.

Just think about April Jones. My husband was part of the teams that searched for her and he will never forget that awful experience.

We live in the middle of nowhere but my children go to school in a village and the oldest was almost 11 before I let him go to the park after school with his friends without me. My youngest is almost 10 and he started walking to the village park after school last summer with his friends BUT one of the other boys mums and I would walk there too (separately but it’s only a short walk) and sit on a bench for a chat while the children played for an hour or so within our sight across the cricket field. There are children in his class who live in the village and have been walking alone to the park since they were 5 or 6! There’s no way I would let my children have done that.

Stick to your guns OP, personally I think it’s neglectful to let such young children play in a public area unsupervised. My children have a lot of freedom to roam independently as we live on a farm, but that’s very different to being in a public place like a park / public woodlands where any weirdo could be. They are also close in age, roam together on our land, and have ‘country sense’ knowing where is safe to play and where isn’t. They aren’t streetwise in any way and would be hopeless on busy roads rather than riding their bikes around bridleways and tracks. Aged 5 they played out of sight but had limits on where they could go and knew never to leave our land, or approach gates, water or anywhere where the machinery is. If we lived on an estate they would only have been allowed to play in sight of me - it’s too big a risk to do otherwise.

Just think about April Jones. My husband was part of the teams that searched for her and he will never forget that awful experience

I am sorry for your husband and of course April's family but it needs to be put in proportion.
Roads are much more dangerous, but people don't think twice about driving. In fact a lot of parents don't even worry about car seat safety and move children to FF seats far too early, but have an irrational fear in relation to allowing kids to go to the park.

When I was a kid this was totally normal all the time. Yes even 3yrs old. Out most of the day with older sister (5) and our friends. In woods, rivers, roads, whatever.
It's just a matter of perspective, you're not used to it so freaking out.

Its many people it's weird that you monitor your kids constantly it's a form of infantilisation that keeps them from growing up and makes them dependant on you for ever.

Yeh but they lived to tell the tale and learned from it. That's why our generation are actually capable of handling life.

If 4 and 5 yos can successfully navigate hours and hours out of sight of their parents and also keep safe across streams and woodland without supervision then I’m glad for them but I certainly wouldn’t experiment whether this is safe on my dc.

Won't be long before they're stuck in their bedrooms watching crap on the internet though.

Honestly loads of them will be wandering around in wee gangs vandalising stuff, unfortunately.

I can’t let this pass. Whenever a group of my generation- 50’s- discuss the freedom our generation had it quickly descends into stories of missing children, sexual assault, grooming and worse. I wouldn’t say that equipped us to ‘handle life’ and your glib post suggests it’s not something you’ve thought deeply about- more a knee jerk ‘young snowflake’ response.
Out of interest what generation do you consider is so great at ‘handling life’?

Maybe put a table in your front garden with squash, plastic cups on it on a play out day..It may well keep some of the children nearer your house/the estate?
When I was an elder DC, I was 8-10 years before I was told to keep safe my younger DB and DSister. My DM would let us play out but with the principle "Don't go too far from the house!".

OP I would agree with some of the other posters on here that have said it is probably best if your little boy doesn't get into the habit of playing out with this particular group of children. As well as the shorter term issue that you've assessed him as far too young to play out safely unsupervised, you'll likely be coming up against issues at every milestone where those parents allowed far greater freedoms than you would have done. There might also be behaviours he picks up that you're not keen on, as you've already seen from how they behaved at your house.
And once he's got to know them it will be far harder to curtain the situation.

He's not missing out. Keep him safe and stick to what's best for his wellbeing

What a crock!

I didn't let my children roam the streets when they were youngsters.

They're adults now and far from "dependent on [me] forever"!!! Elder two lived away from home for years. One lived in France for a year, another is living in Italy.

That was an utter fucking disgrace that you were out unsupervised at such a young age, "in woods, rivers, roads" etc. Your parents were totally neglectful. You were fortunate you didn't fall in one of those rivers, or run across one of those roads in front of a car!! "Infantilisation" - are you mad? I certainly would not be vaunting that disgraceful parenting to anyone!

This literally has nothing to do with a council estate:/