To make the kids walk 3miles to school?

[DHdoingmyheadin]

Due to ongoing roadworks, the main road through the village to my kids school is closed and will be for c. a month. We are right at the edge of where the roadworks are so we have two options:

(A) A 15 mile detour by car, down the road all the traffic is being funnelled down (a main A road that is congested even when the road through the village is open). Which I trialled yesterday, and took me 45 minutes each way. This was with no school traffic as schools go back tomorrow. So I’d be doing at least 90 minutes of driving each morning and DH 90 mins in the afternoon.

(B) The kids walk to school and back. 3 miles each way.

DH is adamant I can’t possibly expect them to walk. It’s hilly. It’s due to rain. I think they walk. I think it would be insane to drive when it’s literally faster for them to walk. It’s 3 miles. I’m not asking them to swim the channel and then scale Mount Everest. Kids are 12 and 13.

AIBU to put my foot down and refuse to drive?

I used to walk 45 mins each way to and from school from about age 14-15? it was alright but it was long and felt like a grind at times especially in bad weather. I'd say 30 mins is alright, 45 is doable but it's a bit miserable.

I cycled three miles to school every day from 11 onwards, as did plenty of others. And yes, it was on busy main roads. Cycle, but take the car in bad weather, seems fair to me. It's a long way to walk.

12 and 13, yes it's fine

Not ideal but fine

Why not just find somewhere to park your car on the other side of the roadworks if you are right by them?

Are any other parents at your children's school in this position, and what are they doing?
Walking for a week would be fine (my kids had to do this during a bus strike) but they'll be hacked off after a month. I'd ask them to scooter or bike it on good days. Electric scooters are a menace but you can get quite good manual scooters which are very light and designed for teenagers/adults.

As she has said, she needs it to visit elderly parents.

Maybe walking to school if the weather is good but not coming home when they are tired. If they have bikes, that's different as long as they can carry their bits and pieces. I used to walk one and a half miles each way which was OK in good weather.

Oh sorry not read the whole thread.

And I suppose your dh doesn't have a car and can do this?

I'd have them walking. My kids did it at that age for a similar distance - we live at the top one side of a valley and the school was at the top of the other side of the valley so they had a big hill to walk up each way.

I'd be inclined to take them/fetch them if the weather was really bad though.

Drive them? Or drive them most of the way? Drive them 2 miles? I can't see anyone who hasn't done it many times before suddenly being fine walking over 1hr 15 mins each way to school and completing a full school day on top. For the sake of 4 weeks I would be driving them or at least driving them most of the way.

I think he needs it for work.

My first thought was that it is far too far but then I remember I used to walk to school and back so that I could pocket the bus fares and spend it on sweets.

I have just had a look online and see it was 2.6miles so not quite as far but I think I could have walked further if I had had to. I did have the option of getting a bus if I didn't feel like it though.

I think that now I am such an old person I just cannot remember what the energy of a teenager was like.

Get them to cycle, but on days where the weather is grim then drive them.

But in the end it matters what the kids think. If they're fine then this is a non issue.

Im guessing its speed walking but just feels like normal walking to me, i didnt really think it was unusually fast but evidently as people are pointing out it is 🤷🏻‍♀️ xx

Meet halfway. Drive them 3 days and let them walk two or drive them two miles and the walk the last one. It is temporary until the road is fixed. No one will die if you drive them 20 days. I will do it tbh. Will be crap, of course, but I will do it.
Ask them to ask some other kids you may well find other parents around the neighbourhood willing to spare the driving.
It is temporary.

Plenty of us are saying we walked that distance to and from school in all weathers for years. My standard morning dog walk is 4 miles, even with letting the dog stop to sniff and go to the loo it only takes me an hour and ten minutes. If you think it's so unbelievable I suspect it's you who has never done it.

Are you sure it’s 2 miles 3000 steps is far more inline with 1.5 miles which walking quickly in 20minutes makes sense!

otherwise yes you are competitive speed walking pace

Pretty rude post, isn't it? I also used to walk to school every day, thanks very much, so what that loads of us did it, I maintain that a lot people blithely saying "yeah, no problem", didn't then and don't now.

I think its unbelievable that you walk 4 miles ever morning. I bet its 3.9. And why do you walk so slowly, other posters on here walk at 6 mph!

Amazed at how many people seem to think 3 miles is practically a marathon.
There may be good reasons why OP’s DCs can’t do it… hills, heavy bags, whatever.
But I do wonder if some of the people against at a 3 mile walk are the same people saying they can never lose any weight…

This makes sense though.... average walking speed is 3mph so assuming you're slightly faster than average 4 miles in 70 minutes is doable

I remember learning that as a (Victorian) child, the writer Thomas Hardy was considered to be so frail and weak that he needed education instead of experience in building/farming (trades he wouldn't be strong enough for).

He was expected to walk 3 miles to school and back -of course. Being too sickly for that was unimaginable!

(My mother is now 85 and willing to walk 6 miles for tea and cake. Like Hardy she was thought of as weak as a child- she still has asthma- but walked miles to school. )

Walk one way lift the other way?

Walk when the weather's ok, maybe just one way - it would be a good start to the day. They're perfectly capable of 3 miles (and much more) at that age. I'd say allow at least an hour though.

4 miles an hour is actually pretty fast walking. I think it would be hard to keep that up for an hour.