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?

Sorry Mabs, but I can't see how going on a long haul flight where she is going to meet a parent at the other end is going to teach a child anything about independence. IME children on flights are looked after by flight attendants. Independence is about looking out for yourself, making your own decisions etc. Not many decisions to be made on a long haul flight.

I can understand that you live in such a place that your dd becomes dependent on you for transport. But you did actually start off with saying that you didn't see why any 7yo would need to do anything without his parents. And that's where a lot of us take issue with you. Because we don't understand why we should not encourage our dc's to learn survival skills, just because it wouldn't be convenient for you.

I can see perfectly well why my 7yo (well, actually 8 since of Monday) needs to pop round the corner to see his friends, I can see why he needs the independence of being able to run round to the corner shop, or to walk to school with his friends. As for my 11yo, she is, sadly, in a wheelchair, but before her medical condition deteriorated, her independence blossomed through such acts as going down to the library on her own. If you live in a town, there are countless such opportunitites- why should we not take them?

As for the idea of a 7yo tripping in the road- well, how is that different from his 44yo Mum tripping? Don't see why a 7yo should be less steady on his pins, or less capable of picking himself up and going home and putting a piece of sticking plaster on.

With disabled dd, it is harder to give her independence, but I will be looking into it: after all, disabled or not, she is still likely to be off to uni in 7 years or so, maybe at the other end of the country. As a university teacher who is frequently horrified by the dangers incurred by clueless modern students, I emphatically do not want that to be my dd's first experience of taking decisions for herself. Universities are dangerous places; I don't want that to be her first taste of independence.

About the 5yo in the OP, it really depends. My ds's 7yo friend frequently pops round with his 5yo brother in tow to ask ds over to play; I'd estimate the distance to be about 50 metres, but it is around the corner so parents can't watch. But the area is quiet and they know how long it will take him to get to ours and back.

for the record, children of airline staff are not looked after by attendants on flights.

My 7 year old would be unstable as he has cerebral palsy, however, that is not relevant as I would not let hinm trot around the streets alone even if he didn't have SN.

Message withdrawn

I think it is essential for a 7 yr old to do things without his mother. Your DCs have an immensely privileged life style Mabs, but there is no freedom to learn by their own mistakes.

gosh. i grew up in rural cumbria and my sister and i were sent out on a morning with our bikes and our packed lunch we made ourselves andsent to play out. maybe into the woods, up the lanes, round the plain, back by tea time.

maybe mabs you see it differently because you have you have quite an age gap between your children, so they wouldn't go off together perhaps. and they have no friends near by to play with.

interesting Orinoco,glad i'm not alone. we HAVE to sign our children out until Senior School , yr 9, they are not released otherwise.

Yes I have a big age gap so they don't have much in common really. That is no-ones business but my own tho.

MABS - I think what you describe is a major downfall of private education, in that the catchment area is widespread, requiring far more parental ferrying about, and pupils' friends live far and wide and can't socialise again without some level of parental involvement, even if only a lift to and fro. I had this situation as a teenager and fervently disliked it.

I've made a very deliberate choice to live in an area with my dds able to attend local schools, dd1 can transport herself to and from school and to her friends' houses (dd2 has SN so can't do this). This is what I felt was so lacking in my life at that time -it affected the whole of my teens and impacted on my independence and ability to socialise.

MABS - do I understand you? You have to sign your children out of school until they are 14? Seriously? Doesn't that seem even slghtly over the top to you?

I keep on coming back to the why? What do you think is going to happen to a child walking home form school or to the letter box?

I am glad it wasn't just me seeker, I was podering over the logistics of signing children out of school. It must be a very small school to make it possible!
Up to 6th form I have had to sign mine out if I have taken them to an orthodontist appointment or similar but even at junior school it wouldn't be feasible at the end of the day-everyone would be jostling for the list, some would be going home with friends, childminders or grandparents (who didn't know the system) and a lot of children walk home alone.

Sorry-pondering.

whilst children are at the prep school, up to end year 8, they have to be signed out every day. That is normal around here for independent prep schools, i know of 4 others the same in east/west sussex as i have friens there. in fact locally i don't know any prep schools that would allow a child to walk home alone. Not a small prep aas someone asked, around 180 pupils.

If you child leaves school at 5 and you have not signed them out, you will be telephoned within the hour to check that you just forgot to do it. I know this as i have done it!

In the college (well known),ie senior school from yr 9 - no you don't have to sign them out as i said previously. However, as she will have no other way of getting home, i will drive to pick her up. Unless people are seriously suggesting she walks home alone across fields for 2 hrs in the dark!

We also live in a very small rural village. My children don't go to the local school either, but we made very sure we lived near a bus route.

Once we have deposited them 2 miles away in the slightly larger village (which is a walkable distance anyway just logistics in the morning make dropping them off easier), they have access to town via a bus every 1/4 of an hour. A weekly rider on the buses on the route is £11.80 per child- for three children we will be paying £130 a month. That is the price of their freedom though. And with the way diesel is rising in price, I'm not even sure that we'd save money by driving them in in rush hour, and certainly if you factor in my time (I'm self-employed) the 1.5 return trips twice a day would seriously not be worth my while (3 hours a day commuting, gulp). So bus it is, and rather a lot more freedom than they would otherwise have. Three miles away is a station that would enable them to get to town by train.

there are no public buses that go right to my children's school,thats even if we had a bus stop here. The nearest bus stop to the school is a 15 minute walk from the school, and doesn't go from here anyway.

everyone drives the children in the prep school.

Ah well you see my daughter is 13 and in yr 8 as well but she is at senior school. She and her brother have a 20 mn walk at the other end through Exeter, although sometimes if they have lots of bags they take the bus into town and back out again as they can take from right outside school and save themselves the walk.

down here and traditionally in independent sector public schools (harrow,eton, winchester, brighton etc) pre prep is til end yr 2, prep end yr 8 and senior from yr 9 onwards.

i feel very sorry for you mabs, that you live in such a dangerous arera. we live in the country too and its very safe here

I know what a prep school is, thank you. This is Devon, not Mars.

What? Are you saying that a 13 year old girl is incapable of walking the 15 minutes from bus stop to school?

No wonder there's an obesity epidemic and global warming...

"Everyone drives the children to prep school"

Does no-one think of car-sharing? What is the school doing about encouraging sustainable transport?

Are you seriously saying that 180 parents have to park their car, go into school, get their child, find the correct form list, sign that they have the DC and then someone has to check through and phone anyone who hasn't signed? If so it seems madness-what happens if you forget to sign and go shopping afterwards and on to a friends-do they calling the police?!

If the person posting was able to stop and chat to the 5yo child then a nutter would have been able to do the same.

Where on earth have peoples' common sense gone?

A nutter could talk to my child on various occasions during the dsy, cheeset
some of us value the possibility for them to have a bit of freedom, develop independence and skills for dealing with tricky situations, rather than worrying about the incredibly unlikely possiblity of a paedo walking past and deciding to snatch them

otherwise you get teenagers and adults who have no basic clue about how to look after themselves and deal with the world

it's happening all over
it's not good for society

hear hear F&Z. So refreshing to find I'm not alone. Have to say was never a fan of the "stranger danger" concept. Have always favoured the "always check with mummy/ daddy/ person on charge of you first" concept over avoiding talking to anyone one. I find the stranger danger makes for hostile children and adults, and undermines whatever shred of society we're already struggling to hang on to.

And should say that my children have been in mildly sticky situations on occasions since starting to take the bus in September 2006. They have seen raucous drunks, weirdos, grumpy people and many types of people on the bus. They have had to deal with changing situations, have had to improvise. They have been the victims of an attempted mugging and assault (attempted b/c they only had £1 on them between them -haha and my son defended himself rather brilliantly thanks to his strength and judo training; the lads obviously thought private school uniform= utterly loaded, how wrong could they be...) at the hands of some lads roughly the same ages as themselves, which I must say they dealt with brilliantly (compared to the two children who were with them, who freaked out utterly for months); my daughter made me proud by refusing to be freaked out by the vile behaviour of some older girls in a queue once, and explained it away to her friend, who genuinely thought she was going to be killed.

I would feel far worse about all of this is I spent my time trying to shield from learning how to deal with situations like these, rather than trusting that they at 13 and 14 have the common sense to deal with it. So far they have not proved me wrong in my trust in them, and they repeatedly make me very proud of them for their ability to deal with situations like these.

I think it is good to assess the situation and deal with it. I remember looking for a road some years ago and we stopped to ask the only people around, 2 girls aged12/13-one said 'we are not allowed to talk to strangers'and so we had to say 'fine' and muddle on by ourselves. We were a couple in a car with 3 children in the back, including a baby (no room to bundle a DC), they were on bikes and could have pedalled away if we had opened a car door! It turned out that the road was next on the left-as quick to say as the unfriendly sentence they managed!