Is 9 to young?

[FocusToday]

My husband works from home on a Monday. We live around the back of my DS primary school - I have googled it and we live 112 metres from his school.
Do you think the summer of year 4, so will be 9, is old enough for him to walk home from school on his own?
For context he won’t be crossing a road and the front door will be left open for him to get into the house. My DH has a team’s call every Monday from 3pm till 4pm but will be able to hear him come into the house.
My son goes to after school club atm but doesn’t really enjoy it.
We have not spoken to him about it yet. My husband thinks its fine. I’m not sure.
Would the school even allow this though?
Thank you!

More than ok, our school let's them walk from year 5.

My youngest has recently turned 10 but has been going to the shop at the top of the road from the age of 8.

My DD is 8 and in Year 3, and I would trust her to do this now (but school would not let them at this point). The thing I think is a shame, is that there are loads of kids at her primary school who live in the same village as us, about a 10 minute walk to the school, and I so rarely see kids walking alone. If lots of them did, it would feel more than norm, and also a bit safer.

Mine walked home alone at that age. I had to walk home alone when I was 8.
We had just moved house and I got lost trying to find my way back. A lovely girl from school helped me. It's very strange that my DM thought it would be OK as she was extremely overprotective. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere else on my own.

So do you think that all other countries that allow kids to walk by themselves have a much higher rate of neglect then?

No idea, but I don’t think it’s always helpful or relevant to compare what we do on this one issue, with other countries who have very different cultures, ways of bringing up children and living life overall.

Well seeing as we seem to be the outlier in the world at this then surely we should have significant differences in the rates of neglected kids. I wasn't aware our culture is that significantly different from the rest of Europe tbh. If you thinking Asia or Africa maybe, but Germany?

Having lived in the US and 3 European countries before settling in the UK, I’d say that the UK is very different from those places, especially attitudes towards raising children, giving them independence, education, family, work life balance etc. If you want children to walk home from school earlier in the UK and be by themselves after school while parents work, like they do elsewhere, then you have to raise them differently from birth. You can’t just expect children to be capable because it suits your circumstances despite not preparing them like they do in many European countries.

That is true, you need to raise children quite differently to give them the skills and confidence to manage things like walking alone at younger ages but it's not like it's something Brits can't do.
The bigger barrier in Britain is people thinking it's unacceptable and judging parents who do.

I think it has to be a whole society culture change for it to work though, not just a few parents doing it and then expecting schools to make exceptions to their rules which are based on the majority of children. I can’t see Brits changing how they raise their children on the whole.

Well that's how the change happened in the first place, from a more independent childhood to a more restricted one by more and more parents getting more and more restrictive over time, so it could happen the other way but that'd be harder.
Does make me wonder why it hasn't happened that way yet in other countries though, they've all had their share of tragedies related to lone children.

But the schools seems to be the ones discouraging independence. I've raised my own kids to be independent from birth and my DD is trying to with her child but the barriers are school and nosy members of society. Perhaps the schools should be encouraging independence rather than restricting it.

Children ARE perfectly able to do stuff if over cautious parents and teachers taught them rather than preventing them.

I got the bus to school at 8. My mum got the ( school) bus from age 5, from 7 they had to use the public bus. Society isn't doing anyone any favors with this nonsense

They've obviously changed in the last couple of decades to the current way though. Why I don't know

Totally depends on your area and your child if it's ok.

However, schools don't actually get to decide if they allow it or not. They can request that children are collected until Y5 or whatever they'd prefer, but it's actually a parental choice.

If they have genuine safeguarding concerns they can deal with it that way if a parent is doing something they feel is a genuine concern.

However in 20 years working in different schools I've only known once that the school stuck to their guns and referred on as it was a genuine safeguarding issue

It's because it's not actually something LEAs or schools can insist on.

It's a parental choice.

I think it’s fine, my DD has been walking with a friend since summer of year 4, we’re just a few minutes from school too.

it won't take5m. It's 100m. So, a minute. Appreciate OPs love and concern for her DS but this is such an obvious 'it's FINE' to me.. he's not a toddler.. They grow up!

£5 for a one minute walk? I wish i could earn that minutely rate!!

Why not 'helpful or relevant'? Surely one can only learn by comparing with alternatives and analysing what results different arrangements cause? No point in comparing oneself to oneself?

Isn't that actually the point though? Children should be raised to have appropriate levels of independence for there age. The idea that a 9yo can't walk 100m should be laughable...

Personally I'd be fine with my dd walking that distance but I suspect her school wouldn't allow it and it wouldn't be worth trying to argue with them. I'd never leave my door unlocked though, I'd give her a key. I've known of burglers trying to access random doors and if your DH heard anyone coming in he'd assume it was your DS, they can be in and out before he'd realise.

For me it’s not so much about being able to do it on an ordinary day, it’s about having the maturity to problem solve if something went wrong:
EG he came home and nobody was there
somebody followed him/scared him on the way home.
he fell over and really hurt himself

Maybe test out giving him a little more freedom first as see if he can solve problems without adults getting involved first.

I think speak to the school as ours is only from year 5

Those are the kinds of things you need to talk regularly to your children about, checking they still remember what to do from time to time, even before you start giving them more freedom. But I think a 100m walk home from school is pretty much the smallest step towards freedom for them to practice this, what else is smaller than that except walking ahead of you on walks?