Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 13 14

Original poster

To be VERY concerned about unattended 7 year olds?!

329 replies

Iamthedoctor · 29/04/2008 18:36

I am actually gobsmacked. For once in my life.

I have just been reading another thread and a couple of people have said that they allow their 7 year olds to walk to school on their own WITHOUT making sure that they go in the gates.

HELLO?!!!

DD is 8. There is NO WAY on this earth would I allow her to walk to school on her own!

Worst case scenario:

DD walks to school by herself. I don't see her go in. Some arsehole snatches her. I don't know about it until AFTER school, because the school don't ring me to say she hasn't arrived. Cue police/newspapers/radio/manhunt.

I feel very strongly about this! It's madness!

Fair enough, allow them to walk HOME from school (then you KNOW that they have arrived!), but PLEASE think about what you are doing!

OP posts:

cyteen · 29/04/2008 19:07

But it's a whole day where the child will be observed, monitored, interacted with...schools and teachers still do that, right? I'd like to think someone would notice.

kategarden · 29/04/2008 19:08

I used to walk to school by myself age 7 - from age 8 on I took the little girl next door too. I really don't think that things have changed that much except from the levels of traffic - and how much of an issue that is depends where you are.
On the opposite note, I despair of the number of parents who bring their children to school by car, even when I know that they live in the village within a 15 minute walk, or that the children could be on the school bus. I know that some people have to go onto work, but it makes the school gate a nightmare for those of us coming by bike or on foot.

kayzisexpecting · 29/04/2008 19:08

Iamthedoctor on Tue 29-Apr-08 19:05:31

My 8 year old does go to shop/friends albeit just down the road) alone, but I know she has got there.

But yet you moan that someone lets her 7yo walk next door to his school.

Original poster

Iamthedoctor · 29/04/2008 19:09

Pagwatch - are you talking recently?!

I nearly fainted at that!

OP posts:

SmugColditz · 29/04/2008 19:09

Worst case scenario of all

Aliens land, and TAKE PICTURES of your daughter going into school alone, copy and paste them onto alien peedo porn, and distribute throughout the galaxy to land eventually on God's desk, where you will be (literally) universally castigated for not being a perfect mother.

hatrick · 29/04/2008 19:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Original poster

Iamthedoctor · 29/04/2008 19:11

Kay, read my post.

I am merely saying that IF, God forbid, something happened, and the school didn't ring, it would be a WHOLE day before you would know about it!

If DD goes to the shop, and something happens, I know within 10 minutes, because she isn't back!

OP posts:

misdee · 29/04/2008 19:11

no hatrick they dont.

i used to walk to school with my sisters at a young age. i remember SGK collecting each of us from classrooms (only 1 year older than me) and us all walking home together.

at age 10 i was walking alone as younger bro and sis had moved to new school better catered to their needs, and SGK had gone to senior school.

Original poster

Iamthedoctor · 29/04/2008 19:12

Smug, do you really think you are funny?

OP posts:

misdee · 29/04/2008 19:13

tmorrow dd1 is walking home from school, but not to our home, to her friends house. so i wont know until 6.30 if anything is wrong [shakes]

nah she'll be ok. she finishes swimming at 3.40-ish, and will walk with a small group of friends to her friends place round the corner.

kayzisexpecting · 29/04/2008 19:13

Every school I have been to and I left 6 years ago has rang home if I haven't turned up.

Would you let your dd go next door?

pagwatch · 29/04/2008 19:13

I've just remembered this...
when i had to race to hosp to deliver DD there was no one at home to sit with DS1 (10)and DS2(8). DH left hasty message for neighbour saying my father was on his way but when she got back could she sit with the boys ( she was on her way home).
She arrived home , ran round and knocked only for DS1 to explain that he was absoloutely fine, that DS2 (who has SN) would be much more comfortable with just him in the house and he would call her if he needed anything

Fortunately she was very lovely and not at all offended.

FAQ · 29/04/2008 19:13

oooo - here's one that will make Iamthedoctor really faint, I have on MANY occasions left DS3 (11 months) asleep in his cot, and gone to pick DS1 up from school...and once in a while when DS2 (4) has been engrossed in something/in a foul mood left him while I popped next door to get him too!!!!

Strangely it takes me longer to go outside in the garden and have a cigarette than it does to pick DS1 up from school........

SmugColditz · 29/04/2008 19:13

It would only take a second for an unmarked double decker bus to drive onto the pavement, engulf your child, wrenching her from your helicopter-like grasp, and drive her away to be lost forever amidst measured responsibility and unadulterated glee at the unaccustomed freedom terror and confusion.

Do you send her on school trips? they are expected to be responsible for themselves at a surprisingly young age, so I hope you have her microchipped.

SmugColditz · 29/04/2008 19:14

Yes, I do, I actually think I am really funny, and so do a few other people, but I know I'm not to everyone's tastes. I don't let it stop me though.

pointydog · 29/04/2008 19:15

and if a double decker buuuuuusss
crashes into uuuuusss....

ChasingSquirrels · 29/04/2008 19:15

I think you are funny aswell.

FAQ · 29/04/2008 19:16

cyteen · 29/04/2008 19:16

Colditz - I lol'd

SquonkTheBeerGuru · 29/04/2008 19:16

I have to confess to also thinking colditz is fairly amusing

SmugColditz · 29/04/2008 19:18

Using the same techonology that Durty Peedos employ to hide behind the post of a child's swing, presumably, which is why we must not turn our backs even to conceal our hideously overpressured sobs buy a cup of tea and some wotsits a banana from the kiosk

kayzisexpecting · 29/04/2008 19:19

I have to agree. Colditz is quite funny.

FAQ · 29/04/2008 19:19

lol Colditz

pagwatch · 29/04/2008 19:19

IamtheDoctor
It was four years ago.
We had moved house and he had one term left at his old school before starting senior school here.
we spoke to the Headmaster. we set up lots of support systems including his having a phone for the journeys and the Head plus his teacher absoloutely agreed he would be fine. He was.

It was the right decision.I would do exactly the same again. He LOVED it. He even missed his stop once and dealt with that absoloutely brilliantly.

ranting · 29/04/2008 19:19

FFS, someone snatches them at the school gate!! Your child is far more likely to be run over by a bus than snatched at the school gate. My ds used to walk to school (with a friend the same age) at the age of 8. By 9 a very large group of them walked to school (a whole MILE) without any parental assistance. I guess by your standards all of the parents (me included) ought to be hauled up by our ankles and flagellated with a Daily Mail.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 13 14

Swipe left for the next trending thread