Should a 5 year old be allowed out alone?

[bigyellowtaxi]

Am a regular but have namechanged...

Have I been unreasonable? Something happened this morning that I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable about - and I'm not sure what to do next.
My DD was at a party this morning, and after, as we were driving away I saw one of her classmates (a boy, age 5) walking away from the party, he was probably 200 metres away from the party venue when I saw him. My first thought was that he had wondered away somehow without waiting for a parent to collect him, also he is new to the area so that increased my concern.
I stopped the car and got out to ask him if he was OK (he knows who I am), he said that he was, and that his mum had said it was OK for him to walk home alone. I asked him where he lived and he pointed to a nearby block of flats. So I watched him go in though the main front door, left and went home.

After I came home I was speaking to a friend, and she was horrified and thinks I should tell social work, if not them then the school, and if not the school then speak to the mum about it directly.

So my questions are:
Was I unreasonable to stop and speak to the boy - should I have maybe kept out of it? - I wasnt the first parent who had gone past him on the way home. Or was I unreasonable to have let him go from me? I half considered walking with him back to his front door.

Also what should I do now? My instinct is to do nothing. I think that it is unusual to let a 5 year old out in that way ( I have never seen any children that young out on there own before), but maybe not so unusual I should do anything about it. I think Social work would be a total overreaction, I'm not sure what it has to do with the school, and I cant see anything good coming out of a chat to the mother.

What would you have done? and what would you do now?

thats ok then.
no I don't know what arragements were in place. and of course a 4 year old in the middle of the road is fine.

This si the first year that ds (8) has been allowed out on his own. We live in a very quiet village on a narrow lane (without pavements). At end of this is a new housing estate with a small playpark where lots of children play. ds is now allowed to go to the playpark, call on one of his friends or go to another grassy area on the estate to play - but ahs to tell us exactly where he is going. I also this year let his (nearly 6) yr old sisiter go with him - but to the playpark only.
However that works for us because of where we live. It may not be possible elsewhere. Just because one 7 year old is allowed out on their own dos not mean that all 7 year olds should be.
I do need though to have a chat to ds about "stranger danger" - the other night he decided to walk with dd back from the park on a different route where they can be easily seen from a very busy road. My dd trips up a lot and is given to drama queen crying when she does. SHOULD a car stop and someone offer assistance or a lift home, ds is quite likley to say yes - and that does worry me.

Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that the country is full of paedophiles just waiting to pounce - taking photos, putting them on the internet, luring children into their dens of iniquity with lollipopa. Sorry, as I said, I forgot. Yes of course, this is a brilliant reason to curtail children's freedom, not let them have any independence, watch them all the time, tell them they can't go out without someone to "guard" them, like that child on A Child of our Time" and make them fearful and suspicious so that they can't have an innocent conversation with a lonely old man in a shop without being told off for talking to strangers. I think it's brilliant how they manage to keep all these terrifying incidents out of the papers, isn't it?

Gordon Bennett, what sort of a society are our children growing up in?
Anyway, I'm off to drop my 12 year old at the station. She's going to catch a train into town, meet some friends, go shopping, go swimming, have some chips, then come home. She'll walk back from the station alone - it'll take her 15 minutes. Hope she doesn't get abducted by aliens......

Isn't it sad that we as a society don't take a collective view about ensuring the safety of the children in our community?

(Mumsnetters excluded of course! ) If a child is seen out on his own, instead of thinking that we should be looking out for them, society at the moment immediately appears to look to "blame" the parents for "allowing" the children to be unsupervised - instead of taking a soceity based view that we all have a responsbility.

maybe it goes back to Maggie tThatcher sayign "There is no such thing as society"

And maybe that's why I as a Scot resist that view!

The trouble is that a lost child will probably have had this utter cr*p about stranger danger drummed into them to such an extent that he'd be too scared to ask anyone for help!

this is the same as the "would you let your kid walk to school" 'debate' that ensued a few months ago.

there can be no resolution becuase it
a) depends on the child - all children are different, some are more aware than others, this can be affected by parenting ofcourse, but even within the same family i am sure youwill agree there can be siblings where one is more sensible or aware than the other.

b) where you live. Community is a factor - i used to live in a northern community where is my kids farted - some nosey bint community member would grass tell me what they were up to.

Some people do not have the luxury of community and so then the other part of this is geography - near a road, not near a road, country side, public transport, facilities nearby ( parks etc)

as each of us is different, we can only speak with our experiences informing us - those experiences will be informed by the above factors.

In general back to the OP, i think that most parents would agree that whatever the circumstances 5 years old is extremely young to be allowed to walk home alone from a party - even if the distance was a short one.

as an adendum i would like to say that i think Mabs has conducted herself spendidly on this thread despite there being some rather pointed posts in her direction.

what your 7 year old might or might not be able to do or where they might be able or not able to go - is largely dependant on he factors above, and we can only therefore speak subjectively about these things.

Whiel I agree with you in priciple Custardo - that it all depends on the individual situation/child/epxerince - there is still a societal change that has happened, in the UK at least (for exmale, it is apparently normal for very young kids still to walk to school in Swizerland/Germany etc) which has resulted in the average distance a 7-8 year old can roam unupervised being dramatically reduced in the last 20 years.

In resposne to Posieparker: I live in an area where a 15 year old was abducted and murdered in a notorious racially motivated incident. It happened about 200 yards from ds' school, literally just around the corner.

Yet I still feel safe in this area: the fact that something horrid happened a couple fo years ago doesn't mean it is going to happen again.

The mother of the boy who was murdered was brilliant: she said she didn't want it to damage the community she lived in and refused to give agitators the time of day. It's that sort of courage that helps build communities that yuo are proud to be part of.

I don't go around worrying about paedophiles who may or may not be photographing my ds - it doesn't direclty impact on him. I am teaching him about stranger danger - or rather, a variation which is "Don't do anything you haven't checked with mummy or daddy". I don't want him to mistrust all adults.

There are worse things I want to proect him from - like the sectarianism that exists in the city, which ds jsut doesn't understand yet.

5 is way too young to be going home alone after a party.

My DS is 5 and is not allowed to play out alone. We live semi-rural in a quiet cul de sac but I sit out with him if he plays outside as our garden is open and cannot be secured.

It only takes a couple of seconds for a child to be distracted, run after a ball etc and not worth the risk.

Not sure what age I will let him out alone but he will be much older.

Sometimes i wonder if its just us in the UK who are so worried about kids being out on their own?
In lots of European countries young children walk around by themselves and go to school.
When my brother was much younger (1970s) he managed to get out of our flat, walk 2 miles to another block of flats, just so that he could ride in the elavators!
He was only 3yrs old and this was in Switzerland.
The police brought him back home, and they never procecuted my parents, they just thought it was really funny.
Suppose, if that had happened nowadays at least someone would have stopped to keep an eye on a child that was wandering around.

The one example of sexual abuse that I am aware of is also close to home: without going into details (to maintain thier anonynimity) it was a close family member who found out discovered that her (now) exp had been involved in inappropriate bevavoiur with other family members. All future contact with their kids had to be supervised.

My best friend (GP) really gets onto her high horse about this: the majority of abuse cases happen within the home and not faceless strangers. Antoher firned who is a socal worker working with survivors of abuse gets onto the same high horse.

Another thing i've just thought of, they say lots of kids are carrying knives.
Do they do this to be part of a gang? Or is it because parents are teaching them to fear the outside world so that they only way they feel they can be safe is by carrying a weapon?
When i was 11yrs old i had a penknife, but i only used it for making things out of wood in the forest.
Used to spend hours making dens with my brother and would only come home when it got dark.
If kids are not given independance they will start to fear everything because they are not allowed to experience danger and having to use their wits.
And yes, most paedophiles are known to the familly. My mum invited one into our home as he was so convincing.
Luckily he never got round to really hurting us, he was just grooming us.

If you look at goosey's earlier link - for attempted child abductions - which are usually sexually motivated- the majority over the last few years have been strangers. Which is a change from previous years.

To the OP (as i haven't read many of the other posts) I don't think its that bad, the mother clearly trusts her child to be sensible enough to walk home on his own (and yes i realise its not all about him its about other people possibly praying on him too) BUT who knows what the situation was, his mother may have been very ill and unable to leave house and father at work, if new then doesn't know anyone well enough to ask, she could have been giving him a bit of independence and watching him from their flat window - any number of reasons for letting him walk on his own

Also is this in the UK? as i think in some countries its quite common for young children to walk on their own

I think you did the right thing to make sure he was alright and got home ok, i would have done the same thing. next time you see her just have a chat with her and see if she's ok, i know you said you have tried but she may be shy

However if its a common thing to see this boy walking about on his own then i would re-think what to do

I did think about that jimjams - but then realsied that that is providing statistics about abductions - not about how much abuse takes place. In the vast majority of cases of abuse, no abduction needs to take place

Also, when you dig into the numbers in that link, the number of successful stranger abductions in that year was 68. Devastating for the families involved - but still a much smaller number than, say, the number of kids killed in a road accident and as a proportion of "accidents" befalling children, abosultely miniscule. I'd also be ineterested to know how long those successful abducsiotns were and what happened to the children involved.

I agree but abduction is more relevant to this thread than how many children get abused in their families surely? Traffic accidents too.

I don't let ds2 out alone because of traffic. I agree completely with custardo that it depends on individual factors. I don't think what I do is remotely unusual because I have never seen another child of his age (or considerably older) out alone anywhere near here.

We cannot allow 68 incidents, however dreadful to dictate our behaviour. I don't know the statistics, but I am prepared to bet that more than 68 children a year are badly hurt in accidents in their own gardens, or playing sport or riding horses - are we going to stop them doing these things too?

I don't think many people are suggesting that abduction is their greatest fear. Certainly its not the reason that ds2 doesn't play outside in the street.

my dd1 (5) has now finished her homework and wants to go and play on her bike with the boy from next door (6)

am i suppposed to stand and watch them fgs??????????????????

So if abduction isn't what people are frightened of, what is it? We've already agreed that children shouldn't be allowed out alone if there is a danget from traffic, and you're discounting abduction as a concern. So what IS going to happen to my 7 year old between my front door and the letter box?

seeker. I'm with you! I think we'll all have to agree to differ and use our own perceptions of acceptable risk.

Although to response to jimjam's comment about never having seen other kids her ds' age or even older out and about - that is the very point we have been making: WHY are children no longer allowed out, WHY has the radius that they are allowed to explore unsupervised reduced so dramatically (as illustrated in Child or our Time) in the last 20 years???

I don't think anyone has said that your child shouldn't be allowed out. I think people have said that if it is not appropriate for their child to be out because of lack of awareness of danger/traffic/living in the middle of nowhere and having nowhere to go etc (delete as appropriate) then it isn't the end of the world and they don't think their children will be damaged for life.

I rarely care what choices other people make around parenting. As long as it doesn't impact on others then they can do what they like.

The people who have been told they are wrong on this thread are the ones who don't let their children out. No-one has actually criticised people for letting their children out alone (unless you are projecting a great deal).

And before people start on me and my 9 year old - 2 children with his condition were killed last week. One escaped from her garden and was found dead in her neighbours pool. Another escaped from his house for half an hour (he was an older teen/young adult) and was killed by a train (he was walking on the tracks). Hence our house is securely locked from the inside and play in our garden is supervised (as it was before these incidents).

Seeker - there are always the bears that appear when you step on the cracks Don't forget them.

I don't think anyone is going to convince anyone else on this subject. I am a non-worrier, dangerously so in some people's opinions. Others are not. If you worry there is little anyone can do to reassure you I guess.

prettybird- I said in my area- in the streets around her. I've seen plenty of kids elsewhere in the streets. I my area its easy- the traffic is very very heavy. If cars were banned I'm sure the streets would be full of children playing again.