To let DS play alone in the garden

[morepepsimax]

I haven’t actually done so yet but he’s just turned 4 and seems much more grown up.

The garden is secure but if he really wanted to get out of it he could. It’s big and runs sort of parallel to a long country road with no pavements and cars go very fast down it. So that’s a worry. I don’t honestly think he would go out onto the road and the gates are closed but if he really wanted to get out he could.

What do others think? He isn’t always in sight when in the garden as there’s a front and a back.

Could you get some chicken wire? Wouldn’t take much to attach it/take it off in a couple of years. Would stop him being able to climb over the fence.

Could you mark off part of the garden using paint on the grass? In no terms to cross that line, no excuses, if he ever crosses that line he won’t be allowed to play out there again. As others said, if he believes he’s been constantly supervised, he’s more likely to behave.

It’s a sorry state of affairs if people won’t let their kids play in the garden until they’re 8. No wonder so many kids are obese.

Yes, he wouldn’t be able to crawl through but could climb over.

We have a farm gate. Ours is secured so the twins can't open it. Then we have chicken wire on the inside so it cannot be climbed. Originally I tended to stop a puppy escaping but works equally well for children! I let them outside but always watch from a distance. However they are together and do have older siblings plus a Doberman to guard them!

So could you attach a frame to the gate and cover it with chicken wire so that he can't climb over?
Have to say it sounds too risky letting him play out alone if you can't make the garden completely secure.

Blimey Dobermans terrify me, never mind a possible intruder -
good guard dog to have though!

My DS at age 4 would definitely have found his way out

If he can move around from front, back and side, I would tell him to only play in a certain area like the back garden or wherever and if he can’t listen to that instruction then he isn’t ready for being left alone to play outside.
Four is still young and definitely to soon for freedom

How high is the gate and is the garden visible from the road? Our dd is 4 and does play in the garden by herself but there’s no way for her to get out and no one can see in or get in as the gate is high and locked. If the gate was low enough to climb or strangers could see in/get in there’s no way I’d be letting her play out by herself.m for at least a couple of years.

My son is 4 and I let him play out in the garden alone in the summer when I have the back door and french doors open and I’m sat downstairs within earshot. BUT… our garden is small, surrounded by a 6 foot fence with one 6ft lockable gate (not slatted like yours), and we don’t live near a main road.

My son has climbed over a slatted gate just like yours (supervised by me but without any help). I definitely wouldn’t let him be unsupervised in a big garden with a climbable fence like yours; my son would see that as a climbing frame!

Can you change the gate to one that’s not climbable?

My nearly 3,4 and 6 year olds would definitely escape that gate and would definitely not need to climb it… they’d just go through the gaps. they can squeeze through even the smallest gaps when they want to. The gaps would provide foot holds if they all fancied a climb though.
how high is the gate? If you replaced it with a solid panel as shown above, then it shouldn’t be a problem.
my nearly 6 year old is a climber but all she’d do is hang off a 4ft panel rather than try to scale it,
unless he’s very tall?

Just found your gate picture, no I wouldn’t let my Dc age 4 play out by herself with that gate. That’s way to climb and quite short, and anyone could see into your garden and get in easily. I wouldn’t risk it. I’d wait until much older with this set up.

I let mine play out the garden alone at that age, but I kept within earshot and mostly within sight. I'd cook in the kitchen (which overlooks the garden), and I'd potter around down stairs whilst looking out of the window periodically, but wouldn't sit in the lounge and watch TV for example.

Our gate isn't climbable, but it's also not locked. Neither is our front door when we're in. It's never occurred to me that they might leave the garden because they wouldn't. My supervision is to ensure they don't do something stupid/dangerous/don't get hurt.

My kids are absolute sticklers for rules about things like this (less so about tidying up etc 😂). They've never run off/gone too far, and I have 100% confidence that they would not leave the garden. I'm not being smug about my kids btw, they are very tricky in other ways. My eldest refused to hug her grandparents on her 3rd birthday, for example, because it was against covid rules (that time you could meet in the garden but not hug!) I've literally had to tell her to stop policing people 😂

Only you know your children and what is safe for them. I'm probably more relaxed than most other parents on here, but that's because of the kids I've had. Different kids and I'd probably be a lot more worried.

Gate looks waist high to an adult so tech low

So yes could climb it

Equally looks like just a catch up lock so tech anyone could open /walk in

So no garden isn't secure at all imo

Get a proper tall 6ft gate /trellis on top if need be

Garden needs to be secure

@morepepsimax
We live rurally.
The DC have probably been playing out in our garden independently from about 4 1/2. They have a mud patch and diggers, a sand box and diggers… a play shed. Scooters
But no water toys.

Our garden is secured by a gate and fencing with vertical planks so the DC can’t climb over them like they would a horizontal planked fence/gate.
You could put a board of wood or vertical planks on your gate to make it less climbable.
Otherwise, make like my mother in law who has added plastic bird spikes (they’re blunt! Not sure how they’re effective!) to her gate to stop the pigeons landing on it and tormenting her dogs and the added bonus is the grandchildren don’t climb the gate now… or not!

I would not worry about a stranger taking him. You are as likely to be killed by cows.
Only you know if he is fine in the garden. Some 4 year olds would be.

I wouldn't let him.play out alone with that gate. At that age my son would have seen climbing that or getting through that as an achievable challenge!

It's cold now and he probably.is.fine.not being outside. I'd spend the winter months fixing up and securing the garden so it's small boy proof. Then he can play out in the summer.

but that’s my question really - when is this something you can relax with?

With any child under 10 (or older depending on the child) your thought process should be 'just because they don't (usually) doesn't mean they won't' (do something completely out of character).

Children are unpredictable by nature.

Christ you do not have to wait until over 10 years old!

I didn't say you have to wait till they are 10, don't be ridiculous! I said children under 10 are unpredictable and impulsive in response to the op asking when could she relax! She is right to be thinking of possible scenarios especially given the gate and the road.

In a secure back garden I would let my 4 year old play by himself, but in a garden that runs next to a road or that strangers could see him, no. (Not necessarily because of a fear of strangers snatching him or deliberatelyluring him away, although that is a concern, but because my 4 year old is so curious he would try to engage them in conversation or possibly want to follow them up the road).

Yeah, I don't think you're wrong to want to let him play out and wander around and not be constantly in eyeshot, OP. I think he would most likely be fine but it's true that kids sometimes do random things that are out of character so he might climb the gate and go out in the road - if he saw something particularly exciting out there? It's hard to know what will set them off. It's the speed of the road that would make me not want to take the chance. I know the kind of roads you mean and it would be so dangerous. But if you chicken wired the gate then I think it'd be fine to let him wander round from front to back while you were inside with the little one. If he wants to be outside, that's a good thing.

Still flummoxed at a front and back garden that can’t be fenced off from each other?

When my children were a similar age, they did play outside on their own but I always had the back door open and I was in the room with the door, the garden was fairly small and all of it was in my view, there was no gate just high fences and we were not a corner house. So all they could do was play in the garden where I could see and hear them - no access to the front garden other than climbing a very high, smooth gate with no bars.

It was a very different set up to the OPs garden and I would not have allowed them out alone otherwise. Most of the time I was in the kitchen getting a meal ready or sitting on a chair in front of the back windows watching them.

When they were older, 8 to 10 ish and wanted to play out the front with the neighbouring children, I used to sit in my garage with the door open watching them, my next door neighbour was a good friend and we sat together chatting away for hours! Mind you, my eldest son was no angel so I tended to check to make sure he was behaving properly and not being silly or nasty to his siblings!