Child age 8 walks to our house on his own?!

[user1478188491]

There is a boy who is age 8 in my DS class at school who lives at the top end of our road.
We live at the bottom.
Boy is in same class as our son. He has autism and learning delay, and had a mental age of around 4/5 with no danger awareness or concept of traffic road awareness etc.
Today our doorbell rings, boy in question has walked himself down the road from the top of the road where he lives around 400/500 yards away ON HIS OWN 😳
He said he wanted to come and see my DS and come in and play however we were on our way out so I asked him ‘Where are your parents?’ He said ‘At Home’
So I assumed he had come out without their knowledge and said ‘Do they know where you are?’
He replied ‘Yea’
I found this very hard to believe so I rang his mum who answered and I said he was here did she know?
Her reply ‘Ah yeah he said he was going to come down and see you, we had a bit of an argument and he ran out of the house’
She said give her 5 minutes and she would come down and get him.

I was shocked, I can’t get my head around on what planet it’s on to allow a child of 8 years old walk himself up and down a busy road with traffic, (no crossings just straight down one side of the pavement) And also this boy is mentally behind any other 8 year old, he has no concept of danger or road safety/awareness.

AIBU for thinking his parents are irresponsible for allowing him to do this?

We’ve all had our moments of less than stellar parenting in high pressure situations. Fortunately most of us don’t have gleeful acquaintances exposing them for the judgement of strangers on social media.

@user1478188491 if it happened last night, why does your post say 'today'

I think if you’re close enough friends with the parents that they’re sharing his medical information with you, then you’re close enough friends for you to speak to them directly about this rather than making a judgemental thread on Mumsnet about them.

It completely depends where you live and the road (traffic). Where I live that’s totally normal

Not sure why you posted on AIBU if you’re adamant that you’re NBU and getting increasingly annoyed at people telling you you are?

You say you know the family well - well enough to know the finer details of the child’s assessments and investigations - so surely you know how the parents are generally with him?

If there’s a pattern of neglect then perhaps someone should be alerted; if this is a one off then you should back off, MYOB, and appreciate that the parents are probably best placed to know how much freedom they can give their child.

In my day we walked to school by ourselves from the age of six. Crossed several roads, admittedly none that were very busy. I was a sensible kid but my younger brother wasn't. We moved house when I was 10 and he was 8 to a new town. We both explored the town together without adults and he never walked to or from school with me - over a mile away - he was too impatient to wait. I took my younger sister to school - she was aged 5. We're all still alive and kicking!

I'm in rural Cumbria and it's perfectly normal for children to walk home from age 8 (Year 4) here as long as they have parental permission). They also go to the park alone and to the shops alone.

In my last neighbourhood in London which has a large hassidic Jewish population kids of eight or younger were out alone or in charge of younger siblings all day every day, crossing streets, collecting items from shops and each other's homes etc. Never saw an accident or worrying incident in seven years. Just evidence that children are far more sensible and capable than we often give them credit for.

Op what a nasty thing to do, posting this here. And so much detail about this family. Horrible 😔

That’s quite drip feed and also you seem to know a lot about the results of his medical assessment which is highly unusual. I have a child with SEND, and it’s mild not global delay like you are implying here and I don’t think anyone outside someone with direct impact on her education knows anything close to such detail.

I therefore call bullshit where you are raising the stakes about the nature of this child because you aren’t getting the response you want instead of accepting that you are just one of those people who are permanently outraged.

Irrespective of the perceived danger of the route the child took, you undermined any seeming concern you had in the way you described him. I think perhaps some of the responses would have been more supportive if you hadn’t sounded like such a patronising, unfeeling cow.

I don’t see the road part of it as particularly dangerous tbh, what’s more concerning to me is sending him somewhere without checking it’s ok and that someone will be at home

I can't even imagine the strength it takes to parent a child with a developmental delay. I'm literally not cut out for it. Sounds like she's just gone 'f it' and let him go so she can have a break. It's neglectful and wrong but she may have reached burnout.

Hope she has support.

YABU

Absolutely yes. I work in an SEN school and we would definitely want to know about this.

This is one of the reasons I alluded to in my previous post for parents not always making the right decision.

A 'fuck it' moment is understandable but increases risk. Lack of support is a big issue.

North Yorkshire; our 8 year old started going to the shops by himself recently. We hardly ever lock our door when we go out either.

YABU. And dramatic.

Ey!? I think an 8yr old walking down a road alone is fine. My just turned 9 yo boy walks to school alone, goes to the park and plays out with friends on the green close by our house without an adult. We’re in south.

His autism and mental age are a factor his own parents will need to consider and judge whether it’s safe. I feel they should know best.

People just think you’re making a gigantic fuss about nothing. DS and his friends were certainly walking to one another’s houses by 7 or so.

Ds has been walking to his friends’ house alone since probably 5. Now we live on a farm and they live next door and it’s like across 2 fields, not on a road or a public footpath. Worst thing that could happen is he could slip and fall in the stream, which is like 10 cm deep at most, which he has done and filled up his wellies with water.

Completely normal where I live. Kids do this from about age 5/6. Especially if no roads to cross.

you sound like a drama llama

Kids in japan and china take the bus and get trains at that age just to get to school.
Some parents op like to start snipping the apron strings slowly its called becoming street wise where im from being more independent.

That's not true at all. There are lots of children in mainstream schools who are developmentally years behind their peers. Sometimes because that's the parent's choice, sometimes there's nowhere else for them to go.

My child played out with his friends in street and local park at that age.