AIBU to think a seven-year-old going alone to restaurant toilets is unsafe?

[MountainBiker]

Central London chain restaurant. Small 7 year old on the next table (definitely 7, she had a badge and a birthday balloon tied to the back of her chair) went off to the toilet on her own.
Toilets were out of sight, downstairs, in a corridor of floor to ceiling unisex cubicles.
Am I a helicopter parent or do most people think this is unsafe?
YABU: kids should be able to cope with this by age 7
YANBU: more supervision is required

What happend to you with someone standingg outside a cubicle doesnt mean its going to happen at every public toilet years later
I find this mentality very hard to understand
Depends on the actual place and it can be surprising how others look out for childrens welfare using public services.
Mine would probably want to go alone but I would take it from the vibe and seeing what the place was like.
Is alchol served..
I do not live in Uk so we are less stranger danger.
Including the stories of children abused...not in a resturant but of course it is horrific.

Not because you were incapable of going on your own though! If we were in a restaurant we wouldn’t go as a group because that would be ridiculous.

When people talk about ‘unnecessary risk’, there is also the risk of bringing up a 17yo scared of using a restaurant loo without her mum to consider.

My girls love going to the loo by themselves in cafes/restaurants. I don’t let them in train stations/shopping centres etc. I also don’t let the 6yo go alone, and they are not allowed to take their 4yo brother. Mainly cos he’s an utter liability though.

Eh? This is overkill. My 9 year old would be horrified if i try to hover over him going to the loo. We were out for dinner this eve & he took himself to the gents twice. We dont live in london but the loos werent in sight.

I wouldn't let my 6 year old but I'd let my 10 year old. Mine are both boys so the eldest shouldn't really be going with me any more.

Actually there is. Its really important for childrens mental health, confidence & resilience to take risks.

Avoiding them is how you get extremely anxious people.

There certainly have. Here's one. Katie Dolatowski, trans-identified male, banned from having contact with children after sexually assaulting a ten-year-old girl in supermarket toilets in Kirkcaldy. That attack came just weeks after he targeted another girl at an Asda store in Dunfermline.

https://news.stv.tv/north/trans-woman-katie-dolatowski-jailed-in-mens-prison-low-moss-after-breaking-court-order

I think it depends on the exits and layout. I want my DS6 to be confident, and he will go to the toilets on his own in places we know well and I feel are fairly safe, but other times go with him. But there is always a risk even if you think it’s safe. I think it’s a balance between managing the risk and ensuring you are raising independent and confident children. What I’m doing more now is hovering outside the men’s while DS goes in on his own, and only if there isn’t a door and I can hear him, or no one is in there. Again, it’s always a calculated risk if I DO let him, but the default is still to go with him.

Age appropriate risks, sure. But I really disagree that this type of risk is appropriate at 7, far too vulnerable. The potential consequences are so damaging

At that age and on a other floor, no. I don't have kids but have accompanied friends' kids of that age and older just to make sure they are okay.

Lenore Skenazy’s did some research on this . She was coming from the same opinion as me, which is that independence is vital for development. ( so she may have been a bit biased) but she looked at actual risk vs how scared we are of risk: kids are safer now than they ever were in the past, yet we’re all way more anxious about them.
She found that independence stuff—letting them walk to school, play outside, go to the loo alone—has gone from totally normal to controversial in 15-20 years. Not because children got more at-risk. Because something shifted in how we think about supervision.
Her question is: have we decided that “being careful” means “watching them constantly”? And what happens when kids never get to figure things out, get lost for a bit, or sort a problem without mum right there?
Parents who supervise closely want them safe, parents who give more space want them resilient and to give them incremental independence skills. Both fair. But I do wonder if we’ve just… forgotten what normal childhood should look like.

I am a young Gen X though . I was feral. I wouldn’t have spared a moment worrying about my own kids safety going to the toilet in the same building alone, (just whether they were annoying other people )

When my DC were this age my concerns about them going to the toilet alone were around them not being able to unlock the door or forgetting to wash their hands. Now my DGC are this age and my worries should be about strangers, assault and abduction?

A 10yo girl was raped in the womens toilets at my local middle-class supermarket. Her mum was carrying on with her shopping, trusting that her DD was safe in her local supermarket. (Mine is not the trans one mentioned upthread—it was a young male.)

Because of this, I never did let my DDs go alone, and sent them in 2s as young teens.

I think it's situational. We go to the local cafe, the toilet is at the back of the cafe, just a room on it's on own that locks, yes fine. We go somewhere to eat, there's a lot of people, the toilets are a big room of cubicles that are upstairs/downstairs, far from the table, I would probably go too. Not only would it feel safer but they are prone to free roaming and cannot always be trusted to come back!

Huh. I would absolutely let my 7 year old go to the loo on her own. She’s sensible and independent though and I think a big part of parenting is providing her with those opportunities to be independent. It’s good for her confidence, and while I think part of the reason she’s sensible and independent is personality, it’s also partly because I give her opportunities to take small, age appropriate risks. Personally I think the risk of not bringing her up like that is greater than the risk of something untoward happening. On the other hand, she has no unsupervised access to the internet because I think that risk is way, way bigger.

Clearly I’m in the minority.

Minority of two, I agree with you entirely.

My DC are 12 and 15 and I still ask them not to go alone. Too many lone children are attacked in public toilets.

In those circumstances I’d have taken them with me.

In our local restaurant where I can watch the door to the hall where men’s and women’s toilets branch off, and direct child to use the disabled toilet if I think it is needed, I can let them learn some independence.

Please don’t come at me about using the disabled loo for a child. In a quiet restaurant, there is no issue with anyone using the disabled loo if it is helpful.

I think it’s just lazy. There are no benefits to a child of that age going on their own in the circumstance you describe, only risks, so why would you let them

15?? Really? How is your 15 year old going to be ready to potentially leave home in 3 years if they still aren’t allowed to go to the toilet on their own?

I also hate the “they need to learn independence” line always being trotted out for very young kids, there are loads of safe and age appropriate ways to do that. I have two very savvy independent teens but I didn’t take unnecessary risks when they were little.

Awful case.

However car accidents are a measurable, common risk to children. Stranger abduction and sexual abuse in toilets are statistically almost negligible. Extremely rare. Yet we restrict independence over the rare threats while accepting the common ones. The risk calculation doesn’t match actual danger.

Not sure an accompanying mum would have been much use to a 7 year old against Katie Dolowski. He is a 6ft 5 male who has violently attacked other inmates

Would you have been safer at 12? 16? 26?

Mine is 8 and proud of independence. Has certainly been going to the toilet alone since 7. Do I keep a weather eye out from where I am? Sure. But there's no inherent reason not to let them unless they are duffers. How many kids are assaulted in bathrooms in the UK? Almost none. They are assaulted by people they know who the parents have trusted.