AIBU to tell my neighbour’s Year 6 child to stop walking to school with us?

[Msjamtoast]

I have two children, one in Year 4 and one in Reception. Every morning I walk them to school.
For the past two weeks, a neighbour’s Year 6 child has been coming along with us every morning. Our children know each other and sometimes play together locally, but the parents and I have never actually spoken. When the children play together, the parents don’t usually come out, so we’ve never met or had any arrangement about walking to school together.
The child told my Year 4 child that his mum had said it was dangerous for him to walk to school alone and that he should walk with us.
I’m uncomfortable with this. I’m already responsible for my two children, including a Reception child, and I don’t want to take responsibility for another family’s child.
If his parents feel he isn’t safe walking to school alone, I feel they should make their own arrangements rather than relying on us.
Would you tell the child he needs to make his own arrangements, or just let him continue walking with us?
Has anyone else experienced something similar with a neighbour’s child joining your school run?

Why is OP mean? Because they don’t want to be forced to spend time with other people’s kids?

Maybe OP doesn’t want the responsibility, maybe they want to spend some quality time walking with their own kids, maybe they just find the other kid irritating. Whatever the reason, OP doesn’t want to spend time with this kid and they have actively tried to avoid them in the kindest way possible. Instead some entitled parent thinks it’s okay to pawn off their own responsibilities on to someone else and the OP doesn’t want anything to do with that. And you know what? That is okay.

What isn’t okay is the other kids’ parents allowing this to happen without checking with OP first (they don’t even know each other!) and not teaching their own child about social etiquette and boundaries.

Of course the parents might not know anything about this. But I very much doubt that is the case here.

You should speak to the parent, not the child, and be clear that this is a general thing, nothing specific to their child’s behaviour.

Imagine being 10 and being told by an adult you can’t walk with them! That’s the kind of thing that would stay with a sensitive child their whole life.

This is why you should address it with the parent, not the child.

Of course they would, because they will naturally feel guilty and look for someone to blame. No one is logical when grieving a child.

You can’t look a 10 year old in the eye and say “you can’t walk with us” on a public pavement. That’s just mean! You can however, knock on the child’s door, speak to his parents and ask if he’s been told to walk with you and why. This is a sensitive adult to adult conversation, don’t be mean to a child’s face, that’s brutal.

Why on earth would you be reluctant for him to walk with you? I honestly can’t comprehend this.

I’d speak to the mum and allow the child to walk with us. You never know, you may need her to repay the favour one day!

But would the other mum be there for OP if she needed her? CF generally do not return favours!

He’s just walking to the same place as you and he is already friends with your children. Saying something could make it very awkward for the children and honestly quite mean. Maybe if you say something then his parents can walk with you too or even more awkward if they didn’t walk with you because as you’re going to the same place at the same time they will be walking just ahead or behind you.
If you really don’t want to walk with them then leave earlier.
Just remember that the children are at school together so having a pal in another year is probably quite nice for them.
Another thing to consider is in 2 years time, how would you feel if your child was told not to walk with a friend to school.

My only concern would be what if there was a day when you’re not going in (sickness etc).

The OP feels that she is responsible for this year six child who has started walking to school with her family specifically because he has told her child that his mum has encouraged him to walk with them for safety everyday.
If it's true that the child's parents want him to be with an adult/family to get safely to school (no matter his age or year group) then it's unfair for them to rely on others for this without even checking it's okay with them. Anyway, the OP doesn't want to be responsible as she wants her attention to be on her own DC's. Which is fair enough.
I am a worrier and one of my two DC's has ASD and might appear fairly NT at times, but still requires supervision/support walking to/from school. If at primary, one of my neighbours (who had never spoken to us) had assumed I'd be at least partially responsible for their child on the way to school as well as my two without even asking me I wouldn't have been impressed. (This is just to explain my perspective!)

She wants him to walk with you because she thinks that's safe for him, so it seems to me that she's expecting you to look out for him and deal with any issues which may occur whilst he's walking with you.

How can a school enforce a policy about what age a child walks to school, especially at Y4. Perfectly safe for many children with no roads to cross, etc. Once inside the gates, fine I can understand rules and enforcement, but walking to school !!!

Do you enjoy the walk as a time to chat with your DC? That's the part that would bother me most. It is rude of the mother not to ask you first, but in a way it's better because if you do want to put a stop to it you have the initiative. Just knock and say you are sorry but you can't walk her son to school every day, and hope she can make another arrangement.