1 hour 10 minutes total daily walk to school

[Itsneversimpleisit]

Is it a lot?

Twenty minutes there in the morning, twenty minutes home.
Twenty minutes there in the afternoon, twenty minutes walk back

With a 5 year old

Is it a lot or average?

Ha ha, at least @Itsneversimpleisit was honest to start with.

I’m surprised anyone thinks a 5 year old walking 20 minutes is far. They need fresh air and exercise.

Op isnt worried about the length of the child’s walk, she is concerned about her own walk as she called herself lazy!

op, sounds absolutely fine and normal for walking in a day. But what job do you do? Have you the time?

Can you not tie the dog to the school fence it is it bit visible from where you drop her off? Are you then taking the dog on a separate walk?

It sounds like a normal distance, though I admit I drive it (I do have work or a baby with me). DD walks super slow it would probably take her an hour 😅

Don't underestimate OP the benefits to your physical and mental health if this regular walk (I really really miss the school run for just this!).

Would it be feasible to consider / when the weather improves - putting your fit kit on in the am and running home after? It's m excellent way to get the habit going. Couch to 5k could help?

Missed that ! Oops .. hmm well I suppose it depends , I had that walk when my two youngest were in school but obviously when weather was rubbish it wasn’t much fun

Also this

This used to be our school run, slightly shorter time wise but uphill there. I miss it.
I am so much less fit now I'm not doing school runs!

Just came on to point out your maths is wrong 😅

Seems perfectly normal to me.

Sounds great to me. I don’t get enough exercise since my dc went to secondary. The school walk was keeping us all active. It’s much harder to make yourself exercise for the sake of it.

It's perfectly fine, you'll get used to it.
I used to have to walk an hour and a half each way to take DD to nursery (1.5 hours at her pace, about an hour for the journeys I did by myself). Have the same distance now for DS but I can drive now (but soon we'll start cycling instead, save petrol and make DS get some good exercise)

I wouldn’t tie my dog to the school fence. You will get one kid who “loves animals” wanting to say hello and if something goes wrong then the OP would still be at fault. I’ve seen dogs left tied up outside cafes etc in the past and there’s often someone who comes over to fuss them even though they shouldn’t.

Totally normal. Ours takes 20-25 minutes with child in tow but I can do it in 15 if I’m on my own (and on the minutes). I hardly manage it these days with work and having to drive the older one to secondary, I miss it.

One of the highlights of walking a mile each way to/from school with my DC over the years was our daily conversations; it was crazy how much they evolved from Reception age to Y6. I genuinely miss it now that they’re all in secondary.

When my youngest was in Reception she’d take her scooter and I bought this lead type thing so she could be pulled if she got tired. Absolute game changer some days. And last, you will see physical benefits in yourself, OP. 4ish miles of walking 5 days per week is only a good thing.

Totally doable. I walk 45min each way to work and really enjoy it. I could cycle but that's less fun as I can listen to podcasts, music etc while I walk.

Less than a mile each way, what's the problem???

It will be lovely in the summer. Not so nice when it's raining hard. As a DC I had a 40 minute walk to school every morning and the same home in the evening. I used a kagool out over my coat if it was raining.

I used to pick up/drop off my DD from school on the way to and from work, and school was 30min walk away. this was when she was in year 6 though and we had the most fun, lots of talking etc not sure if would have been the same if she was 5yrs old, but we used to walk a lot generally even at that age.

Dogs are not permitted on school grounds at all at our school but any dog-owning families bring the dog on the school run. Surely this is a no-brainer. If the dog is small they carry it when they walk their child to the door, and if it is too big to carry they tie it up just off site.

You could consider fast walking then jogging when on your own without DC. You might lose a few pounds if it's additional walking you didn't do before.

In our area there were separate infant junior schools.
They were 20 minutes walk away from each other.
They started at the same time, but you could drop in juniors 20 minutes early, and the juniors finished 30 minutes later in the evening.

So child #2 and 3, had one at juniors when they started. Their walk was:

40 minutes walk to juniors
20 minutes dash back (up hill) to the infants.
In the evening 20 minutes leisurely walk down to the juniors. Then the 40 minutes slog home tired at the end of the day.
There were a number of parents who put reception children in buggies the first term, but generally by around the first half term they didn't need it.

I do this everyday and sometimes I end up walking it 8 times as we go back out for a dance club at night!

Stick your headphones on and it is fine!

Perfectly fine. But is there an option to drive if you or the child is ill or hurt? What about going back for performances and so on? What about play dates if best friend lives 20 minutes the other way? Worth thinking about that.