What age is safe for a kid to go for a walk on their own?

[SchoolZooTrip]

Just that really,
and how do you make sure they're okay? Do you give them a phone? An air tag? A prayer?

But asking for a rather more dramatic reason in that my child went for a wander earlier today because he "wanted to get some sunshine". He's usually so anxious not to be away from us that he doesn't even like going into a different room by himself so my immediate thought was that he'd been kidnapped 🙈 Thankfully, we found him round the corner. But it was the scariest few minutes of my life.
It did get me thinking - he seemed to really enjoy the freedom, quite a sudden and dramatic step but obviously at some point his need for it will become more persistent. At his age we were playing out by ourselves but it was a completely different time. How can I give it to him in this day and age without thinking about child traffickers the whole time ?

I can't ask my parents for help on this one - they still worry silly about us 🤦‍♀️. As a child it really annoyed me that they wanted constant reassurance I was okay, but I get it now!

7 is too young. You wouldn’t leave a 7 year old home alone (I hope?) so why would it be ok to let them go out alone.

I would say 10 or 11 is ok. Also agree that there are far more likely dangers than kidnapping (cars, mugging, bullies etc).

I let mine walk to the shop at 7, they had to cross a main road but there was a pedestrian crossing. They did it more often from 8 but that was their choice. They used to walk to school alone around 9. They asked to do it, and I felt happy with it so I allowed it. I didn't overly worry but you always worry a bit when they do a new thing. However I wanted to have independent children and the area is safe.

Your friends are not representative of the average

@Yourethebeerthief I think my friends are fairly representative of average Scottish people. Maybe it's common in your part of the world but I don't think you can speak for the whole of Scotland. Do you know children from Elgin, Thurso, Dumfries, Portree. I can't speak for the whole of Scotland, I am stating that children playing outside at age 8/9 isn't universally common in parts of Scotland.

How do you manage that in winter? It’s dark by the time has finished walking home from school atm and she’ll often stop off at a friends house.

Agree 7 is definitely too young but plenty dc around here walk to and from school from around 8 and by 9 dd was doing the short walk to a shop or going to the nearby park with a friend for a short while the gradually extended from there. She’s now 12 and gets herself around pretty independently on busses etc

Also Edinburgh. Playing out in the street where I live and also the school I work in a different area of Edinburgh is pretty much all primary age. Plenty p3’s at my school walk alone or just with friends and yes 9 is definitely average but you also see younger going to the park/shops alone. Most of my friends live in the borders or Midlothian and all similar. You and your friends are definitely on the unusual side

Ours has played out since seven and walked/got the metro to school since he was eight, which is older than is typical where we live. Either of ours going for walk at seven would be fine.

What a sensible post. There are obvious risks we all know about but there's also the risk of not learning how to cope with the world and other people without your parents always stepping in.

I think this is easy to say if you aren't currently living in an area that is visibly unsafe.

Dd was allowed out from 11, she is now 13. But we have had to reign it back in lately, as have other local parents now.

The local park has two to three groups of grown men wandering through it daily. They hang around the corner shops we used to allow the girls to walk to. They stand on the school route, leering at and following girls who are on their own.

A young girl was dragged off the street and assaulted (high profile, quite a harrowing video of her being dragged away online - no amount of 'safety talk' would have saved her).

It's not random facebook posts or hysteria causing the new fear. This is a reaction to very real and daily experiences of harassment and intimidation.

We are looking in to moving more rurally, to hopefully get the freedom back our children have lost.

My daughter was allowed to walk to a couple nearby friends from 9 and was walking the mile to school with a friend at that same time. She could go to the local corner store to get us something too. By the next year she could meet a friend at the park and of course now at 13 she’d out and about though I still don’t let her out after dark unless she’d just walking back early evening on a well lit route (I’m in edinburgh so it’s dark fairly early just now)

My son has always been more independent so he started walking to school on his own at 8.5 and has walked to local friends too. We are in a safe and quite small estate and he plays out with a couple kids since around 6. I ended up getting him a smart watch so I could call him home and not wander around looking for him.

They absolutely cannot go out without telling me.

For me, outside traffic the biggest thing I worry about is running into a group of kids who are perhaps out looking for trouble. Plenty of that happening of course. So I wanted to give my kids as much freedom and experience as possible before they had to navigate teenage life with vaping and whatnot. By my daughter’s age, plenty of her classmates have full freedom to wander around at all hours (my daughter doesn’t yet but obviously I can’t keep her with me forever!).

My DDs were 7 many years ago, I lived near my siblings and all the cousins would meet up at one of their houses and go to the park nearby. No mobile phones, no air tags, just trust that they’d be safe. Now, if my grandchildren wandered off at 7 I think I’d be a bit less carefree!
In comparison, the school where I teach is in the middle of a housing estate and there always children of all ages wandering round in groups playing on the communal grass areas or going to the park. It’s very much situational.

Age 10 is normal where I live for them to walk to school or shops etc

Dd walks halfway home then we pick her up on our way to getting her sister from school but even if she had to walk all the way, she gets out at 2.50pm and the walk is only half an hour or so so she still wouldn’t be out in the dark.

We live in a small market town. Mine started going out alone at age 8 but only to the park we can see from our house. Gradually increasing to walking to local shop, then library (crossing a big road with pelican crossing), then centre of town by 11.
It is a very gradual thing, not an all or nothing.

At 7 I would have let mine play out on the quiet culdesac in front of our house, with myself checking on them occasionally.

My eldest is 10 and she’ll walk to the supermarket or school by herself, and I let her go to the park with a friend.

My youngest was taking himself out for local walks at 8 /9 years old.

Odd to not want them to have a phone (which whilst I don't think they are the be all and end all are at least good for letting the DC ring and tell you where they are).

A lot of parents are very happy to let their children of this age or a bit younger have brick phones (potentially with restricted calling access). It's also good practice in teaching DC be responsible with their use prior to giving them a smartphone later on. We used to find it helpful for the DC to ring and ask if they could go to a friend's house after school rather than coming straight home (for example). Are you worried about a phone giving a false sense of safety?

Btw, paedophile predators operate online now. Parents who don’t let their kids outside alone due to predators, but do let them on their screens alone, have not understood where the danger lies. Where I live ( very safe area) the police knocked on a family’s door to say their five year old daughter was online right now with a known paedophile.

My sensible 7.5yo is working up to heading out alone. Plays out alone with older sibling or if in company of other kids.
My not so sensible older child did go out from about 9yo, walked to the shop (about 0.5 miles away) from 10yo (or stayed in house alone while I went there).
This raises some eyebrows on here, but we had an old phone for playing out times only, used for calling and tracking purposes. Did seem to thrive on having some independence though.

We live in a middle school area so it's the norm for children to walk to school independently at 9. However 'going for a walk' is very different to walking to school, going to the shop or park. And unless my nearly 12yo could tell me the route she wanted to take and knew the area well, I wouldn't be happy.

I would say 11

Mine called to school from 8 (5 minutes) and went to local shop again 5 minutes.

If he wants a bit of freedom, could you take him to junior parkrun and let him run on his own? It’s 2km with a marshal every 100m, so it’s safe, but he’ll feel he has freedom.

Depends on the area. We live on a major A road that you need to cross to get anywhere and the nearest play park is nearly a mile away. My sensible 12 year old is OK but I won't be letting my 11 year old out any time soon.

The biggest risk to your child is traffic, not the possibility of being kidnapped by strangers or attacked by roaming child molesters.

So it depends on the roads in your area (20mph residential, good pedestrians crossings, physical traffic calming Vs 50mph with dangerous junctions) and your child's own maturity.

Children cannot assess the speed of an approaching vehicle accurately until 9 or 10 years old and the faster the vehicle, the later their ability to assess it develops.

A sensible 7 year old walking along a pavement with no road crossings, say to a neighbour's house is safe. Crossing a 30mph road is not.