Is it o.k to let your 11 year old daughter hang out on the local park?

[Sammy900]

Reasonable - Of course it's fine, all the other kids are, can't keep them locked in forever, got to start somewhere, build up trust time, etc

Unreasonable - No way, don't send her to the wolves, she isn't street wise, way too young, gangs of teenagers, creeps and weirdos, county lines, worst place possible to hang out, etc

Hi

Just looking for advice, preferably from parents who have been through this before or are going through it. My daughter is 11 in Yr7 and it's time to give her some more freedom. She's had sleep overs at friends and gone to friends houses etc.

She has a phone and has been walking to and from her new secondary school with her friends so far so has been getting used to that, but not really across the park, just sticking to the streets.

Recently she has been asking to meet with some friends after school on a Friday on the park and we have a few concerns but also don't want to be strict over-bearing parents and realise we need to allow her some time out of the house to just hang around with her friends.

The issue is it's getting darker and as a local urban park usually does, attracts older kids/ teens most likely a bit of dodgy this and that going on, Friday night after dark is not safe I don't think.

She then asked to meet some friends in the day between 2-4 - we said o.k this sounds fine..who are you meeting? Bit of a sketchy answer, umm I think so and so is going, maybe ...then I asked if they could call for her so we know who it is - nope this isn't the plan. Then it turns out she wants to meet a boy in her year group and it is just going to be those two. I feel uncomfortable about this as A) never met him, not sure where he lives or anything - this is a new friend she's met at school...B) She's not yet even tried hanging out with a few of her girl mates on the park yet.

I've said no to this this time until we know who he is and she said they both understand and perhaps mums can swop numbers and arrange something. I don't want to make her feel embarrassed if this is a new boyfriend by monitoring everything and introducing parents and all that..but equally need to know where she is who she is with and safeguard her.

How the hell has this all crept up so soon!!

How does everyone else deal with it. What are your thoughts please

Cheers

Not all kids are up to sex acts and all sorts in year 7/8/9. Or even 10 or 11. I expect my post upthread about my dd hanging out with friends including some of the time her and one or 2 boys will probably have some people thinking I am incredibly naive.

Not all teens are the same and my dd tells me pretty much everything about herself and her friends and as I’ve always had a very open door policy with her friends, they tell me lots of stuff about themselves and come to me for advice - the girls that is… As for the boys, the friendships are more recent but they are all kids we have known since dd started primary and I know their parents. The boys also know about dd’s medical conditions and look after her so she’s actually quite protected with them. They aren’t getting drunk or smoking weed around her etc. Yes, there is one, who she hangs out from time to time, who vapes and I think some of dd’s friends male and female have had a bit of weed. Ok some of the boys get drunk at parties but that’s an entirely different setting. At 16 she wouldn’t be having sex in a park as it would be much easier to do that at his house. I think she’d find that concept disgusting actually. However she is in year 12 and hasn’t even had a boyfriend yet.

If I judged my dd by what I was getting up to at her age and younger, I wouldn’t have let her do half of what she is allowed to do. But she’s better at keeping herself safe. Part of that is personality, another part parenting and another part the education she’s received at school in PSHE.

With respect, you are normalising vaping, drinking and drugs. I wouldn’t want my teens around any of that, regardless of age, and especially not in a park after dark.

I suspect a lot happens that they are simply not telling you, so that you don’t worry or prevent them from going.

I am not judging you - it is your choice, but you won’t know what they are truly experiencing until there is a knock on your door or a very big issue that comes to light like a pregnancy or a charge for possession.

The point is you don’t actually know what they are doing, what they are being exposed to as you are not there.

In your place I would be phasing out the park visits. And encourage them to do something more constructive with their time.

Instead of hanging around the park vaping they could be learning a new skill or sport, doing extra maths lessons, joining a drama group if they are sociable and stretching themselves.

Surely at 16 your dd should be flat out preparing for the first set of A level exams?

I think the way you’re reading it is that dd is hanging around the park to all hours with kids vaping, drinking and doing weed. She was walking around and at the park in the summer several times over the very long summer break they had this year. A lot of them were over the summer seeing as they’d just finished GCSEs and it didn’t get dark til late. We live in a village. I said in my post upthread that I go for a walk in the park after dark sometimes so I know what goes on down there - not much and no dealing. No one even does those NOS canisters round here.

Dd has just started her A levels. The last thing she needs is pressure or to be chained to a desk right now. I trust her to manage her time as she’s good at that. Dd definitely doesn’t participate as she doesn’t want to. She also has to be careful with herself as she has a medical condition.

As for normalising these things, I am not normalising them. I am being realistic and saying that some of dd’s friends will likely have tried weed or vapes and one year 13 she sees occasionally does vape. Some of her friends have been drunk at parties. That doesn’t mean every time they go out they’re going to get drunk, smoke weed or vape.

Dd has a history of being scared of everything and everyone. I actually want her to see that it is ok to not be perfect as she’s a perfectionist to her own detriment. She is in private school as she couldn’t cope in mainstream and the kids at her school are so protected it’s unreal. The school just doesn’t have a problem with drugs or vaping. I think a lot of it comes down to catchment as it is in a very small market town and a lot of the kids live in rural locations.

If anything, dd actually needs to be pulled a little away from this world but still be protected as only being part of this world is making her scared of the real world. One of the lads she always hangs with the times, when they go out goes to her school and would give her his shirt off his back. They’ve decided together that they’re siblings.

For me, these are all calculated risks I need to take as a parent because she is mentally unwell but too scared to access therapy so I’m having to do it for her. Part of this is to see the world as a less risky place. And this is working, slowly. She’s gone from being scared to be in parts of the local city you need to walk through to get to the bus station to being confident enough to walk to the bus station with just one friend, who lives in a different location, and get on a bus by herself (in daylight hours) from the city to home.

And dd is learning plenty of skills. She had to give her hobbies up for a while due to anorexia. But she is now back dancing regularly and horse riding less often. Both at a skilled level. She has completed D of E bronze and silver and is signed up to do gold. The only sticking point to that right now is the expedition as she is still emanciated and not eating an ideal diet albeit eating enough to be very slowly gaining weight.

As for pregnancy, just no. She is nowhere near ready for anything like that. And she has had a number of boys after her recently and has chosen the boy, who she knows is fine with this. Does she want to go out with one of the boys, who wouldn’t be? I think possibly yes. But she’s too scared and this is a good thing as I think they’d probably just get bored of her. With anorexia you often emotionally regress, which dd has done. She is contented with the boy she’s chosen and is just about to ask her to be his gf, which is a big thing for her as she hasn’t had a bf yet. He is absolutely smitten. Right now she needs safe and protected but as much as possible under her terms rather than mine. The way she has set her life up she has that all round.

Thanks for your post. I know it is meant to help me into understanding things aren’t perhaps as they seem. However, dd is very open about what is going on her world, naively so actually and things would get back to me. Dd’s friends are very protective of her and have been instrumental in getting her to eat again. There is no way they’d allow her to put herself at risk. Dd is so lucky to have such supportive friends. And they are friends, who are willing to talk to me with any concerns they have for dd.

You are her mother and you know what is best for her. You have used the word protected often, so I am sensing she is fragile and vulnerable. It’s only going to take one awful event and she could be in real trouble, so I wonder why you are supporting her going to high risk areas with less than salubrious friends?

You describe her private school as not being part of the ‘real world’ just because it’s different from your life. And you are exposing her to the grim realities of other settings is somehow good for her, it keeps her ‘in touch’ and rooted in your reality not hers. I would really question why you think it’s a good thing?

Perception is everything here, and it’s very individual based on our own childhood experiences.

You seem to think by exposing her to all sorts it will reduce her anxiety, but the cause of her anxiety might not be rooted in her environment but her fears of her medical condition, her body image, the pandemic fall out, school bullies, other trauma. By encouraging her to be in high risk situations you are really running the risk of something happening to her, and compounding all the issues she is facing.

I am not suggesting wrapping her up in cotton wool, but finding other strategies to deal with her anxiety. I am trying to say kindly as a girl from the park myself, help her raise the bar for herself, she is better than this. There is not a great deal of respect for girls in these places, some are deeply misogynistic- others are downright dangerous. She will need some very hard edges being in that environment, are you ready for that too? Best case she will toughen up in ways you hadn’t anticipated…

@Errors yes but not if county lines predators are hanging around and drug dealers and pedophiles.

Parks are littered with exactly those types of people paper. Gunning for easy unsupervised prey.

I think people are being hysterical OP! I had my first ‘boyfriend’ at that age. We used to hold hands and I once gave him a peck on the cheek when we were sitting in a tree we just climbed. I didn’t actually properly kiss a boy until I was 15 and was 18 before I first had sex!

It was different in the 1940s 😁

I’m not saying let kids hang around in parks after dark in areas that are known for this. But it’s well understood that young kids are now over protected in the real world and under protected online. It’s one of the reasons for the massive uptick in teen MH problems and why we have grown adults going to Uni who are falling apart being away from home as they lack any resilience.

It's a tricky one. My slightly older DS has been going to the park since he started secondary school but it is just a group of lads going to play football when it's light (they go to the leisure centre when it'd dark) I'm sure nothing else is going on (he's had his phone in his bag when I've tried to ring him to pick him up so I've used the tracker app and just found what park/field he's in and it was just the lads playing football)

I think I'd fund your situation a bit tricker, because it's a group of randoms not really doing anything. Unfortunately I don't know what the answer is.

Yeah, I’m not that old. We are talking 2000s

Of course this is fine. Few ground rules:

1. Stay together
2. Make sure they have enough money for a hot chocolate
3. 2 hours is probably enough, definately home before dark.

Please don't normalise tracking your children, they need their independence, you need to build trust and commincation.

This reads like a sensible response and a happy medium to me

No one suggested tracking on here from what I can see.

How do you propose and ensure they stay together? They have free will.

What difference will hot chocolate make if the dealers in the park target them?

It gets dark at 3.45pm in the winter so how does that work?

Independence can be achieved in shopping centres, cinema visits, school trips, using public transport in the day time, visiting a city and having a few hours to discover it alone. Why does it have to be achieved in urban parks?

Have you actually ever been to a park like this Neurodiversity? I think maybe not, your post is incredibly flippant and dismissive. Bordering on offensive.

You trust them. Novel concept, I know.
Your post is bordering on hysterical

I don't know what you mean.I was an urban teenager who spent time in parks and I have 2 now adult DCs who also spent time with friends in parks, perfectly normal.

How is that flipant ?
Yes it is a pain when it gets dark early, but I didn't want mine hanging about after dark- my choice.

Someone upthread did suggest location trackers like life 360 that is what I reffering to as tracking.

Sorry the hot chocolate thing means they can go and warm up for a bit and move away from any problems.

I have to say that this week during the day most parks are full of families and yes 9-13yos hanging out. Most self respecting drug dealings don't hang about hoping for passing trade.

It highlights a staggering lack of insight into what actually happens in parks today and for a good long while.

You are totally dismissing the county lines operating, drug dealing, gangs, knife crime, rape and sexual assault, child abuse, trafficking and pimping, violence and intimidation. It’s completely passed you by that pp on this thread, with lived experience, are warning of these dangers.

Why on earth would you choose to expose any child to this? Yes, it might be part of the world we live in, but these predators trade on neglect and naivety.

I have spent 20 plus years working in the justice system and I honestly wish people would educate themselves on the actual realities. Before your children become just another statistic. I am exasperated.

Her friends are not less than salubrious. They’ve all been to my house. I think my post upthread may be confusing. When I said none of them are getting drunk or smoking weed around her, I think that has been read to imply they smoke weed. I didn’t mean that at all but I can see how it could be read in this way. Quite the contrary - they don’t buy / smoke weed and don’t regularly get drunk (as I said some of her friends do get a bit drunk at parties).

I am the girl, who got drunk down the grimmest of pubs at 16 and younger, whose friend used to go off and leave me to have sex with randoms every week without fail when I otoh was known as frigid as I wouldn’t sleep with any of them. I am the girl, who used to walk down dark alleyways over canal bridges to get to said pubs so I can tell the difference. The beautiful city park for example is not safe even at dusk and I thought all parks were like that one.

A year ago dd was the girl not allowed down the park after dark when a lot of the kids her age were down til 9.30 pm. But I went to the local park alone this time last year one evening when things with things were getting tough and was astounded to see a couple of boys, who couldn’t have been more than year 5 playing in the dark alone with torches at about 8pm. They came over to me and asked me if I was ok as I was just sitting motionless on the bench. Dh was also worried about me. It is just so different down there to what I had imagined and I started going down in the dark for a while all before I allowed dd down. The kids in our village are known as being coddled by the wider community, which also comes from the primary school, so it all fits that they’re not up to no good.

So no, dd really isn’t getting hardened to a life of hard knocks or anything. That isn’t my intention at all. She always knew the difference between the city park and our village park. It was just me, who didn’t. And as her mum it is my responsibility to expand her world so that she can heal and grow.

Well of course that would be the case at 11am, but it’s a different place after 5pm. Why not head there at 7pm a Friday night? And see a different world open right before your eyes.

Hence my home before dark comment.

So 3.30/4pm November to March?

@Savingthehedgehogs agree with every word. Of course they can be independent it just means in different ways.
That may include a park sometimes.

Is it o.k to let your 11 year old daughter hang out on the local park?
No, it fucking is not. 'Hang out'? How much trouble do you want in her life?
Daylight visits, with friends and/or supervised, strictly timed 'Back here by four'.
I live in a 'nice' area. Park issues include groups of lawless teens, drug use, rapes (including of a four year old).

@Mummyoflittledragon that's all well and good but like everywhere else fhe park is OK until those people turn up