AIBU to let my Year 5 daughter walk home alone?

[lemonbalm107]

DD will be going into year 5 in September and is sensible. Her school allows Y5 and Y6 to walk to/go home from school alone with parental permission.

what are everyone’s thoughts on this? We live a 4 minute walk from the school, with 2 residential road crossings (occasional cars, not super busy). Keen to encourage her independence but as she’s my first child I’m not sure overall.

That’s great! Gives me hope in humanity!

Absolutely OK in principle, but obviously you know your child and the route.

Back in the 70s I did a 10 minute each way walk to school in the morning, home for lunch, back after lunch and then home again after school from about age 7.

But there was not so much traffic and lots of other kids also doing the same, so there was always someone to walk with. And we had a lollipop man half way.

Just a question, would you guys let a just turned 8 year old (boy) my DNephew go a 2-3 minute walk to the local shop to eg get ingredients (prob with money). Only two roads to cross, one fairly busy but not too busy. I personally think he could manage it even if he’s swayed by the cheap toys, oranges to squeeze in orange juice machine and so on. The area is quite safe too. He knows his road safety and stranger danger and is good at maths (adding subtracting etc).

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain Yeah - I'd get them to pick a recipe, work out what we had in and what we needed to buy, they'd write the shopping list and I'd give them the cash. By the time they'd done that, got the shopping, made the cakes... it kept them gainfully occupied for a morning or afternoon, and I got freshly made cakes.

I' very fond of helping my kids become capable little people.

It would probably be milk and bread he’d get.

Does she want to? If she does then its a great idea!

Children walk alone from the first week of school where I am, when 6/7 years old (parents usually walk them for the first day or two, then they start going by themselves, or with friends or siblings). Its funny to see little kids with backpacks almost as big as them walking alone to school but they manage it just fine.

I walked on my own in year 4. No-one lived near me.

Ha ha! Works well all in your favour! As they age they can help plan a meal (lunch, dinner). Such good life skills and they love doing it, feeling all grown up bless them!

I started sending my kids to the shop to pick things up from 6(DD) and 7(DS), very handy when I realise I'm out of eggs or milk or something when I'm in the middle of making dinner so I send one of them to get what I need.

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain We make our own bread, but they've often been sent to town to get 4 pints of milk. They're motivated... they know that breakfast cereals are a lot easier to eat when we have some milk.

I’m sure I did too. Definitely from age 8 but only one quiet road to cross which now has a zebra crossing directly opposite the school. The separate infant school was appeox 5 mins away but had a lollipop lady to help us cross. No shops nearby (well up a steep hill) to tempt us.

Great thanks! I think his parents would let him go. He loves doing grown up stuff like cooking and in the local Aldi with me recently told me what we needed for cakes. And what they had in his house where I was looking after him.

There are no year 5 parents at our school gate after the first term. Its very normal for them to walk home alone at that age.

That’s so funny about the milk! My mum used to make her own bread aeons ago. Remember it fondly, so do my friends from that time. Without a bread maker too all by hand.

I recall at age 8 or 9 the local youth club was making chocolate Easter eggs in moulds. Almost our whole class was racing around the local high street 10 mins walk away buying cooking or other chocolate!

By themselves!

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain I don't make time for making bread by hand. I love my bread machine and the fact that it's simple enough for kids to take responsibility for making the bread. See, I'm not that terrible, my kids do have options. They don't have to buy milk in order to have breakfast. They can have toast. Yes, they might have to go shopping for some butter...

It was totally normal when and where I was a kid for kids to be out and calling on each other and playing out from around age 6 with older siblings, or 7-8 if alone. And not that long ago, either.

Summer term of year 5. Mine started in year 6, but included crossing a road, and getting on a train for 2 stops.

Depends where you're at with it - next year I will have had kids at school for 12 years so I was very glad to stop this year when the you youngest reached year 5 😂

Wish my son’s primary would have done this. I was reported to children’s services for a perfectly straightforward journey.

A four minute walk?! Of course!

Have they never gone to the shop or to the park without you?

The only thing that's unreasonable is that you feel you have to sanity check your instincts. 4 minutes walk in a quiet residential area is totally fine
(My DC cycled just over a mile in Year 5, for comparison purposes).

Every area is different, but 4 minutes in a residential area sounds fine. Are there plenty of families walking the same route? If so, that provides another layer of safety. (I remember dobbing in one kid to his mum because he was messing around crossing the road.)
Mine started walking with a friend (10 minutes, village, one B road to cross) partway through year 5. She knew that if she was not sure about the B road, she could wait for another family and tag on to them. In practice, the road was sufficiently busy and slow that, most of the time, you crossed when a friendly driver stopped to let you - there were plenty of drivers who did, especially the parents who used to walk the same route.

Oh, and a warning: my vitamin D levels dropped massively when I stopped doing the school run.