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?

At 5, ds was crossing the (quiet) road and going around the corner to the postbox - a (normal walk) maximum 3 minute walk, but which ds, on the first occasion, took 10 minutes to complete as he was so abosrbed in having that time and space on his own .

I did check on him from a distance and since then, like somoen also on this thread, would sometimes deliberately find things for him to post, as he thrived on this wee bit of responsibility.

Since even younger, he has played outside in our large garden unsupervised, ie I will be some where around, in the house or elsewhere in the garden, but I can't necessariliy see him.

He's known his boundaries and what he is or isn't allowed to do - so even though we don't have a gate, I've never been worried about him going out of the garden without first checking with me.

He is now 7.5 and we have started on occasion letting him walk to school. We followed him the first few times and even now, he knows we might spy on him, to keep him on his toes. It is a 10-15 minute walk, which involved crossing two quiet roads, one busier road (with a Lollipop man) and one awkward junction where we have kept on the "quieter" side of the road as it is safer to cross on that side.

This summer we are going to let him go to the local park on his own with friends of a simialr age. Again, the first few times we will surreptitiously spy on him, to check that he is following our guidelines.

He is already asking if next year at sechool he can walk home sometimes after school on his own. I have told him that if there is definitely going to be someone in at hime then we will consider it.

I passionately beleive that it is important to allow children these small increments of freedom so that they can learn to judge/assess situtions for themsleves.

I founbd it interesting in the last episode of "Child of our Time" that Poreffsor Winston, who usually just makes observations about how the "2000" cohort are being brought up, for the first time was much more explicit in his criticism of the lack of freedom that we are allowing oru children and the impact that that could have.

In terms of the OP - I think she was right to check that the wee boy knew what he was doing/where he was going - but that beyond that, any SS or school involvement is OTT.

Duchesse, did you know that in Kent, there is a new initiative on the go, where you pay £50 a year per kid, and they can travel on the bus all over the county, any time of the day or night, up to the end of yr 11. It is being rolled out across the country pretty soon apparently.

Wow! I hope that's true! That would save sooo much money. It's always struck me as odd that London kids get free travel whilst ours don't even get a child reduction... Bloody Stagecoach.

We live in Kent, and its Stagecoach here. I think it is a council/enviroment/goverment thing.

Flipping brilliant. Does it matter whether they're at state school or independent?

dd has just said that her friend uses hers on the train too.

no, anyone - any school.

I also found it interestng that Professor Winston was very critical of the lack of freedom and worried about the possible outcome.
My DSs find me over protective and yet I very liberal compared to some of the posters on here.
When I was 7 I walked over a mile to school with other children but no adult. We roamed all over the village and just had to turn up for a meal. My mother hardly ever had to go to the village shop, she just sent me with a list.

Maybe because I am an older mother (47) I am determined to give ds the same freedom I enjoyed when I was young.

Yes I am concerned about traffic, which is why from as soon as he could walk, we have been encouraging ds to judge for himself when it is safe to cross - getting him to tell us when we could cross. And when he is allowed to to the park on his own this summer, it will be via a speficif route, which includes a pedestrian corssing at a set of traffic lights.

I am even thinking about letting him to the local shops soon for bits'n'pieces - it would involve him crossing the street where there is normally a lollipop man, but when we come home from out of school care, he crosses it using his own judgement and always errs on the side of caution (drives me up the wall, as he will wait for sooooooo long wating for the road to be totall clear - but then, I must not hurry him )

once again you didn't read my post. I said that the nearest bus stop to the school is 10/15 min walk from it BUT, the bus doesn't go from my village so dd CANNOT catch it. As i keep saying we have NO public transport here.

Yes there is a folder for each class in the school on a table at the end of the day, yes you go in and sign your child out. Yes they ring you on yr mobile if you forget. Not 180 cars every day, prob 140ish as some children board.

Am not getting into petty squabbles about what a prep school is, or what a senior schoolis. In the true traditional public school system,senior school or college as it's usually called always starts at yr 9, not yr 7.

my ds wasn't alowed out alone until he was 7. even that was in shouting distance. I still pick him up from school and he is 16. otherwise his day would be sooooo long(all stops soon )

I am astounded at having to go into school and sign out a child of 13 years!!
My local school has the teacher by the door in key stage 1 and lets children go when they see the parent, childminder, grandparent etc. In key stage 2 they go out themselves, a teacher is on duty and if anyone isn't met they take them to the office to wait and they try and phone.At
secondary school they leave at the end of the day and would go to the office themselves if there was a problem. I really don't think the signing out is doing the dcs any favours! I would have been really cross. When my DC was at secondary school, I had 2 toddlers, this means that in the pouring rain I would have to get two DCs out to go and sign-or are you supposed to leave them unguarded in the car while they go and guard the older one? Surely a 13 yrs old (or younger)could cope with saying that no one had turned up!!!

I am merely telling you the stystem, and as i said , i know several other prep schools exactly the same. If i pick up other kids at other prep schools,yes i have to drive to get them too, i go in to sign them out as a matter of routine.

The school is marvellous, i don't see it as any sort of problem at all i assure you.

Yes 2shoes, you are rightly doing it for your son's sake for whatever reason, not coz you are being neurotic.

My 4 year old plays out on his own.
We have a communal garden at the back of our house. Only accessed from the few houses that back onto it. If the 'big boys' are out - there are 4 of them Fabio, Tyler, James and Brody, ds is allowed out. I can hear them from the garden, and/or I can see the whole communal garden from the window, where I sit and mumsnet.
Also, as I am preping veg, ds will ride his bike, on the paved area, patio/cul de sac, walkthrough, bit infront of out house.
I appreciate that the days of going out all day and only coming back for dinner, as I did, and dh did, riding our bikes, in the summer holidays, and effectively being 'missing' from 9 am - 5am, - I appreciate those days are long gone.
But, REALLY ????

MABS, when I went to uni at 18 I lived in a house with 5 other people. The one who struggled the most and needed help a lot was the one who'd had no freedom at all.
The rest of us had, we'd all been abroad without our parents by then and I frequently used to stay with a friend 2 hours away who had her own place and had been doing that from age 16.
Wrapping your kids in cotton wool does them no favours in the long run as my friend at uni learned when she needed rescuing from the middle of Bristol after missing the last bus. She was too scared to look for a taxi as she'd never had to do it alone before

muggglewump do you know where mabs lives????
it is hardly in a built up area with masses of buses. She is hardly wrapping them up in cotton wool. just enabling them to have a very active social life.

thanks 2shoes, but clearly they do not comprehend where i live at all I know the kids are not wrapped in cotton wool, and i have the perfect reason with ds' disability, but i choose not to.

2shoes, I think MABS is wrapping her dd in cotton wool. I think alot of other posters think so too. But she does not see it that way.

Yes, but she seems terrified to let them do anything.
It was the post about why would a 7 yr old need to be out alone that got me.
I guess I feel strongly about living in a place where DD has the freedom to explore as my parents did it for my brother and I

well dear having met mabs and her lovely dc's I can assure you she does not wrap them up in cotton wool. she just looks after them.

and if she was. no way would she let her ds go to the park even if she was there.

And the not mixing with the likes of the village people .
I grew up in a tiny village in the middle of Dartmoor. I initially went to a private school, before going to the local comp. I couldn't wait to run down the hill and play with the boy and the girl in the village, come the weekend.
Her dd doesn't need any more friends - wierd comment.

they do everything they want to i assure you. What are you suggesting i am terrified of letting her do pray tell?

They do everything,far more than most,just that i drive them there. Anyone who knows dd would know that she is far from wrapped in cotton wool, but is a bright, mature,clever kid. Funnily enough, having a disabled sibling has that effect on a lot of kids,they grow up fast as they have to.

I am not the only poster who has said that they would not want their 7 yr old out alone either actually.

You are the only poster who has asked why a 7yr old would want to do anything without their mother. I appreciate that your 7 yr old is disabled but that is even more reason to try and give some independence, although probably in a more supervised way.

read her post she said she did.