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?

If you keep it up, with a health high protein and low carb diet. Lots of water. At least 10,000 steps a day. Lifting weights. And avoiding sugars and processed foods then you should lose weight.

It's fine. I did it for nine years, including nursery for DS.
And when I moved to a house that was a four minute walk from a new school, I was absolutely bloody delighted. Because walking for twenty minutes with the rain in your face, with no option to give it a miss, is no fun at all, especially when the rain seems to switch direction for the return leg and blow right into your face again.

This is similar to the school run I had. It got a bit tedious after 9 years, but it was a great way to get exercise. I don’t know if you’ll lose weight, but I always seemed to gain a bit over the summer holidays.

It’s a great idea to walk and 20 mins sounds perfectly normal.

We lived 1.25 miles from my dd’s school. Luckily some of it was pathways so she could scooter those bits and I’d jog alongside, carrying the scooter when it got too busy to use it. Then I’d do a swift walk or jog back.

Where we live many people walk the school run as parking near the school was hellish and roads narrow. Due to traffic I found it would sometimes take longer to drive home than simply walk, so we just got used to walking by default.

It’s nice when lots of people walk - we would join up with dozens of families as the routes converged closer to school.

I have lived in London and another city and the vast majority of primary schools I know of have small catchments so most people walk - why would this be odd?? I have a 20 minute walk to ours because we moved half way through so didn't get the nearest school. I like it it's good for my lazy child!

It would take 10 mins if you cycled

My school run is this length! Whilst I don't mind the exercise in theory, after 6-7 years of it I am so over it and ready for it to stop when DD goes to secondary in Sept! It's been a hell of a winter and I find the stress of mornings awful and when I get in I just want to flop and am freezing. Almost at the end now.

Perfectly normal I think! Although judging by the looks I get at nursery drop off, maybe I’m in the minority 😂

Our daily is:
30 mins to nursery (3yo and I)
20 mins further on to work (me)
20 mins back to nursery (me)
30 mins home from nursery (3yo and I)

We do this 3 days per week. Then I do 35 mins from home to work and then back again another day. And the other 3 days 3yo and I do at least 20 mins each way to town/gymnastics/swimming etc.

I don’t drive so we’re just used to walking everywhere. When I walk DS to nursery in torrential rain (west coast of Scotland 😅) I get looked at like I’m off my head 🙈

Very average I think, that’s similar to our walk
and I quite like it after being sat at my desk all day

20 minutes to and from school is fine for your dc.
40 minutes x 2 for you plus a dog walk should help you lose weight if combined with a healthy diet, especially if you're not used to walking this much.

I rarely take the car, prefer to walk to stay fit and get some fresh air.

I was doing 30 mins walk to school from when my DC were in Reception. Including a massive hill.
Very do-able in decent weather. Miserable in heavy rain!
They now have school transport due to EHCPs, so not an issue, but I'm definitely plumper and not as fit as I was.

Do you live on the motorway?!

Not one single person walks to primary school? Sorry - I'm a bit tired and not thinking very broadly, but that's surely very unusual isn't it?

My neighbour drives her car to work - 0.2 miles away, 5 min walk.
She told me it's cos she doesn't get up early enough.
I literally didn't know what to say.

@CharlotteBog I’m not in the U.K., may be that? Seems a very U.K. thing to do, im
in a suburban area, I don’t see one person walking with their kids

Good lord, surely it’s quicker to walk. I despair.

It seems fine, healthy even, for an adult or a kid over about 8. A bit much for a younger kid, though they’d soon adapt and a scooter would make it a breeze for most. But I don’t think it’s that common, even in the UK. When my kids were in primary very few people seemed to walk more than about 10 minutes and plenty of parents drove less than that. We lived a 4 minute walk away so it would be unfair of me to criticise, but the traffic around the school was shocking and made walking harder (and also less sensible to let kids walk on their own).

Our walk is 30mins there with the kids, 20mins back for me. Repeated in the afternoon. My four year old manages and it's usually a great opportunity to chat with them. Sometimes they drag their feet and it's a bit of a pain, but overall it's a positive experience, and helps build healthy habits.

Perfectly normal school commute. I used to get DC1 to use a scooter so I could walk at a more normal pace and if necessary tow her home for a bit / up a hill if they were running out of steam.

Other countries can be a little odd, but even in the UK where I am now everyone seems to drive. The school continuously forget to set out arrangements for drop off and pick up where it's not by car and it's changing for whatever reason.

Bill Bryson describes watching his American neighbours in bemusement driving their kids to the end of the drive to be picked up by a yellow bus [A Walk in the Woods] on returning back to the USA after 25 years.

you'll be fitter!

Just, for your DD's sake, make sure she has really waterproof clothes and wellies.

It's miserable sitting in school damp!

Do you not have a buggy?

Would have thought 3 year old would be pretty tired on the way home. Especially in grim weather

Why on earth would that be too much? For who? You? 5 year old? I'm so confused?

20 minutes is fine for a 5 year old.

Depends. I think it's more a time issue. I looked at an old Strava from when my children were little and I didn't drive, I would routinely walk 20 miles a day (I worked in the evenings in a job where I stood up/walked around, nursery run, gym, school and back). Wish I had the energy of my early 30's still.

Sounds fine to me, at the minute ours is a 40 minute walk each way with youngest 7 and is alright with a little snack after school. Before we moved it was 30 minutes each way which he was walking as soon as he was out of a pushchair at around 3 (although it did take longer).
If they start walking as standard earlier on they don't know any different and don't mind it, mine will happily walk an hour into town with me now, but definitely wouldn't if I had a car.

What country do you live in. Do you have extreme weather?

We have similar for DD

She will mainly Scot on her scooter and I'll walk sometimes pull her along.

And yes when she started in reception I lost a lot of weight doing it.

It was only a pain on exceptionally wet days.