Aibu to not let my 12 year old go into town with his friends

[WHYohwhy12]

So just that really. My son has just turned 12 and his friends keep going on at him about going into town. They went in on Saturday and were in town with no parents for five hours. They've now sent lots of negative messages about how he didn't come and being mean. I feel 12 is a bit young to be hanging around a town centre with other kids the same age. However would seem like I'm in the minority with his friends parents. I don't think it's helps that he is small for his age so looks about 10 where his friends are all really tall so look about 16. We live half an hour walk from town or a 10 minute bus ride. I just feel conflicted because I think 12 seems quite young he's also been assessed for ADHD which I think muddies my opinion

We are talking about going to town. This level of control will absolutely lead to lying or social exclusion. Don’t kid yourself.

Think it depends on your town. My daughter is 13 and we live in a big city. She is deffo not allowed to go to town yet!

Do you live in a small town OP? Where I live it would be unusual for a 12 year old to be hanging out for hours with his friends in town.

what is he going to do? Just hang out? For 4-5hours.

That would be a no for me, if they were actually doing something cinema, bowling etc then I’d let him but just to hang out… no

Ten minutes away I think should be fine for a 12 year old and i think it is a positive thing for his safety to be able to go into town.

I'm in London and my DS is 13 and I kind of wish more of his friends were allowed into central London. I should add DS looks very young, and has ADHD but we are keen for him to start being out with friends, but this has been difficult partly as, like a lot of neurodivergent kids, a lot of DS's friends are also ND and their parents either aren't confident, or the kids themselves aren't confident, to be out without parents, but we are working on it.

My NDN ferries her DD to and from high school and she's 13!! Ridiculous. Children need to learn to be independent at these ages.

Please don't be like my NDN.

My eldest flew out to the US last year aged 17, used the subway in two different states, used buses and trains etc. Young people need the freedom to work things out like travel by themselves or they'll struggle to cope in the real world.

My DD was ferried to and from school until she was 16. There was no point in her getting the bus with a 15 min walk each way when I was working just down the road from her school. It’s had absolutely no effect on her independence - she’s fantastic at using public transport, any time we’re visiting a new city she’s like a real life version of Google Maps🤣 She’s now 20 and heading off to travel the east coast of Australia solo in 2 weeks!

It's very worrying seeing parents taking their children everywhere by car when a bus is available to get to school for example especially free bus travel in Scotland 🤦‍♀️

Mine is also just turned 12 (Y7) and nope, definitely not. It’s not even a thing her friends do. They still frolic around the woods and the fields and build secret dens. We’re very much country bumpkins. There will come a time for it, but it’s not now. BUT I would be teaching him not to tolerate any ‘friends’ treating him badly because he can’t come and do a particular thing.

I think it very much depends on the child. How mature is your son? What are his friends like? Is he easily led? Would he know what to do if there was any trouble? What exactly are they planning on doing in town? Is this a small market town? A city centre? What kind of area is it like? These are all questions you'd ask regardless if a child is ND or not. Hanging around a shopping centre, without any purpose, to me, is when boys especially, are likely to get themselves into trouble. Girls will go with their friends and look at clothes/makeup/shoes etc. Boys don't really do that. Only you know what your child is like, we don't, so it's difficult for anyone to give a definitive answer. I can say I was travelling on a bus 10 miles to the nearest big town at 12 years old, on a Saturday with my friends. We'd look at the clothes/shoes, or go ice-skating/cinema and have a McDonald's for lunch. This was back in the late 80's though, so a completely different era.

This is two separate things for me

• his friends sound problematic if they're bullying him like this so maybe there's that concern

• in most situations, with most kids and in most locations, hanging out with your friends somewhere a bus ride away would be totally fine. That doesn't mean it's fine for your kid.

My daughter is 12 but young for her age. And autistic. She is allowed to go into town (I live in a city and a 20 min bus ride from the centre) for a specific purpose or to meet a friend or whatever. She rarely does as she gets so nervous about it but does regularly walk up to the local shopping centre or go to the park with a friend etc. I think it's amazing to be a short bus ride away from so much as I grew up in a very boring place so am encouraging her to take advantage.

She has been cat sitting for a friend of mine for a year now which is taking a bus, letting herself into a flat (she had to learn this as we are in a house!), looking after the cat and cleaning up, etc. This has been brilliant for her and she has much more confidence now. So I think finding ways to move towards more independence is good, but it is at a pace that works for everyone.

Going to town to hang around for 5 hours OP said. And no my boys were not socially excluded because I didn't let them hang around for hours loitering in town with no specific reason.

Do you think if some kids are vaping all parents should let their kids do it, just in case they get teased for not vaping? Should parents just say yes to anything so their kids "fit in" with the supposedly cool kids?

I used to go out all day with no specific plans or goals, but I never did anything stupid, and no-one ever did anything stupid to me.

We let our 12yo do that, as long as with at least one friend, and not after dark. I'm not overly happy about it, but theyre in Year 7 so are out and about on their own anyway

Depends what you mean by town. City centre or a nearby town? In my house the kids don’t go anywhere unless it has a purpose so loitering around town wouldn’t be allowed. As it is we have a great out of retail park so she goes there rather than town. The boy wouldn’t go shopping or loitering but has been in town swimming and then to Greggs and the park from year 8.

In my house the kids don’t go anywhere unless it has a purpose.

What a dreadful way to live!

It depends on the person, friendship group and location. We don’t have a county lines issue in my village. My 16 yo dd definitely isn’t doing this neither are any of her friends. And we let her go to the park at night if she wants to. The prerequisite is at least one boy and he chaperones her home if after dark. They just walk and chat, hang, go on their phones etc. I know this as I walked around and about late in the evening a couple of times and realised how safe it is for her so relaxed the rules. If the boys want to come to ours, as they have been doing this winter, they’re welcome to stay and leave at any time at the weekend or in holidays as long as they don’t disturb dh and me.

As others have said, depends on the kid, the friends and the town. My 12yo ds went ice skating with a pack of his friends just before Christmas. Afterwards they had plans to go to Wagamamas. Myself and another mum had stayed at the skating to catch up over a coffee, so we told the other parents we’d see the kids got to the restaurant ok (10 min walk).

We asked the kids if they knew the way, and said as a test we’d hang back a bit and let them go on their own, to see if they could handle it (they’re quite a sheltered lot). At the first road crossing the bunch of idiots all just wandered straight out into the road in front of a car because the ones at the front hadn’t looked properly and the rest just followed like sheep, because they were too busy wittering. They only stopped in time because I bellowed STOP at them.

So they were told they’d failed spectacularly, and haven’t done it since. To be fair though, they haven’t asked to. They seem to prefer hanging out at the local rec and mucking about in the stream and woods anyway. I think this lot need another year of ripening.

So many variables … but at 12 I do think 5 hours is a very long time without any adult checking in on them.

We live in a big city, DD has only ever been into the city centre twice with friends, the first time I think she was 13 so most of her friends would have been 14 already.

At 12 she did start going to our local suburban centre by herself but never for more than two hours or so at a time. Very often I would hang around in the vicinity, I couldn’t be bothered going home to then come back only two hours later, better to just sit down with a coffee or run some errands. But it meant I was in the area if needed!

I found that her friends’ parents at that age spanned the whole range between “I really don’t care what my kid does” to “I am an extremely over-protective hovering parent” and I was probably in the middle, maybe slightly towards the over-protective end of the range.

My clearest memories of that age are going into town on a Saturday afternoon with a friend or two. This was in the mid-late 90s, so well before the era of kids having phones. If there was an issue, we either just sorted it, or found a phone box.
I've no idea what my parents thought about it, but you have to cut the apron strings at some point.

and I disagree with several posters on here- I think 'hanging about' with your peer group is developmentally necessary and an important part of growing and learning how to manage difficult situations.

It's the classis teenage conversation isn't it? Parent will be like 'Where have you been?' and get the answer 'hanging around'. 'Doing what?' 'Nothing' 😄

Depends who that "peer group" are there are lots of kids in the average school year group, some of whom will get up to no good "hanging around" in town. Know who your kids are with and what they are all getting up to, make it your business.

I think 12 is about the age that you go to town (depending on what "town" is like) but I think it is strange to not ensure your children have some food money or food with them if they will be gone over a five hour period.

I loved those days of hanging out in town, not doing much in particular but enjoying the freedom of being without parents and just walking around, chatting and looking at things. We could easily pass hours without getting bored or into trouble. I would not deny my children that pleasure and step towards growing up, though there's nothing to do in my town centre so to go to a town with shops beyond supermarkets and a jewellery shop they'd need to take the train an hour to the city and that costs enough that I doubt my DD would want to do it.

Depends [to my mind] if you think he is still very young for his age and therefore a bit vulnerable to being manipulated.

5 hrs is way too long. No way I'd be letting my yr7 wander off unsupervised for that long. Going into town needs to have a purpose and a time limit. Otherwise they are just being a nuisance. I'd rather suck up the hassle of having them all here. And not to be sexist, the boys are hardly browsing the nail varnishes in Boots so what is there to do for 5 hours unless there is a games arcade or similar?

Summer is coming so if you want / or he does to be able to allow him to meet his friends to play football and hang out in the park for a few hours, you need to start somewhere.

How embarrassing for him that you won't let him go into town in Year 7 with friends