to think that age 9 is too young to go the cinema in the evening without an adult ....?

[dicksbird]

Just collected DD from a sleepover. She is 9 but friend she stayed with is 10 and another girl also sleeping over is just 10. They are all in year 5.

I knew there was some mention that a cinema trip may be involved but I wasnt specifically told beforehand.

Now I find out they were dropped outside the cinema at 6.30pm amd picked up at 8.30 from outside. None of them had a mobile phone !!

Mumsney jury what do you think ??? Am i just being silly ???

'Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?"
"Supposing it didn't," said Pooh after careful thought.
Piglet was comforted by this. '

I think that this says it all!

The magnet things on the back of bibs are a good idea but a small child still needs to be helped on the chair, their arms are not long enough to reach the bar and pull it down or put it back at the end. They also may not be a good judge of when to put back the bar. The magnet can't be very strong because they need to stand up at the end and ski off. Before children are old enough, or tall, they are fed into the lift system with the next person in the queue-possibly a man or a teenage boy-the aim is to get them up the mountain fast before the rest of the class get cold waiting for them.

I don't think it is way ofF course on this thread. DCs do it all the time-there are far more 'what ifs', than there are in a cinema.
I would much prefer mine to do it than have to wait until they are about 14 before they can risk it.
If you are so fearful you end up like my neighbour-a woman of 50ish who can't ride a bicycle because she was a much loved only DC who was sickly as a baby and her parents feared that she might fall off and hurt herself!!

There must be some good books out there on the risk society/culture of fear that apply to attitudes in parenting - anyone?

Isn't this what the 'Toxic Childhood' book is about? (I haven't read it)

I happily let my 9 year old join ski classes but I wouldn't let her go to the cinema unaccompanied at that age, As I said earlier, I have been threatened with being stabbed by local teenagers outside our cinema for making an innocuous request and I have no reason to believe that the same may not happen to my daughter if, for example, she politely asked if she could squeeze past someone in the cinema to get to her seat.

On our school run last night we were waiting at traffic lights when there was almighty bang to the back of our car. At first I thought we had been hit by another car but no, it was a teenage boy being thrown into our boot by a gang who then proceeded to beat him to a pulp. The police are in attendance at the school we pass on almost a daily basis.

I can evaluate the risks of a skiing class nad take the necessary precautions to minimise the implications of an accident. Whilst I don't for one second think there is a realistic chance of them coming to any actual harm in a cinema, I wouldn't want them put in a situation where they are frightened by a teenage thug at 9 when I don't think they have the maturity / judgement to deal with it.

And apart from anything else, my 9 year would rather go to the cinema with me than without me. I imagine that by 12, this will all be different.

I found a lot of this thread hilarious! I have a dd nearly 9, and slowly letting her have more freedom. I think I'd let her go to an afternoon screening but not an evening. On holiday recently she madea good friend and spent hours running around the (very large) camp site unnacompanied. It was lovely to be able to give her that freedom (even if I spent most of it lookign at my watch and fretting!). It's defo not about MY freedom. I have a ds with sn who will not being going off on his own for a long time yet, if ever, so it's hardly a break for me.

Also, why do they need mobiles? I plan on doing the same as my parents did, 50p for the payphone in emergencies. I know there aren't so many payphones any more, but places like the cinema I'm sure they could use the phone in an emergency. Carrying mobiles makes them more likely to be a target and end up in trouble.

I used to go to the cinema at 8 and get dropped off and picked up and I would allow my DS to do the same. I also used to go to a disco night in the swimming pool. It was on from 6:30 until 9.

Would anyone let their 8, 9 or 10 year old make their own way to and from the cinema or swimming pool?

Milly Where does your DS go camping? He sounds a very capable boy. Has he been going long?

legacy Exactly !!!

The huge bias towards reporting extremely unusual bad news means that some people just aren't able to make rational decisions.

Yes, absolutely about the news reporting.

Again, off the subject of this thread, but on the subject of risk perception, when DS2 was nearly 3 he got lost in Disneyland in California. He was really lost in that 'looked away for a second and small child had completely disappeared in sea of adults' kind of way.

We had to report it to park security, spent about 30 frantic minutes looking and waiting for news, and then got the call that he was in Lost Children.

My point is that he had not been abducted or fallen down a well or run into the path of a vehicle or been beaten to a pulp by teenagers. He had been noticed wandering by a member of staff and taken to Lost Children.

Thousands of children get lost every day and the number who don't get found is, to use Seeker's phrase, vanishingly small.

I'm not proposing we should encourage our children to get lost, but most lost children are found. That doesn't make the headlines. And most cinema trips pass off without serious incident.

reach4sky - I'm that you live in a place where such aggression is commonplace, and I guess that is why so many people's views differ on this thread.

We are fortunate to live in a realtively small town with limited violence/ street crime, but if we lived about a mile away in a neighbouring town then there is no way I would be leaving my 9-year-old, so i do understand.

I suppose my kids still haven't been exposed to some of the 'tougher' side of life, and while my natural tendency is to want to protect them as long as possible from it, I also think I will not be helping them if they grow up unable to cope in a variety of situations.

It's really hard.

nappyaddict - my eldest has done both on his own (with friends though). But only during the day. A walk of about a mile in both cases.

Nappyaddict

He goes camping in a field behind a farm about 15 mins walk from our house (with the farmer's permission). I am sure he will go a bit further as he gets older. He has a tent that is very easy to put up; it takes him about 5 minutes.

I don't think he is exceptionally capable. He is used to playing outside with his friends and going out on walks or on his bike, but all this is easier to allow as we are in a rural area. He has been camping with us, but also with friends with cubs, so it was a natural progression for him to go with just his friends.

Legacy, I am seriously not exaggerating, we live in an inner London deprived borough and the threats and violence are something we see on a daily basis. We are moving to the country in September as I am no longer willing to live in a "community" where aggression and violence is the norm.

You are right though that different environments go a long way to explain the different veiws on this thread. My view on this subject is very much based on a rational calculation of risk and I do find it somewhat irksome that some posters assume people like me are being irrational and over-protective.

I'm suprised they were allowed into the cinema, wher i live no under 12s are allowed in the cinema after 6pm without an adult.

I personally would not have let my dc at 9 go to the cinema on their own, and certainly wouldn't even now ( they are 11) presume to let some one elses children go unless I had discussed it with the other parents beforehand.

I wouldn't let ds when he was 9.He started going at about 12-13 and we still picked him up.He goes on his own now but is nearly 15!I think 9 is really still a baby.

In that case noddyholder, would you allow him to join a ski class and go all over the mountains without you?

I can see that if you live in a rough area then the cinema is out.
However where I live there would be no problem at all- it would just mean is that you saw them in at the door and collected them from the door (after making sure they had been to the toilet), the only thing that you haven't done is sit with them. Where as putting them in ski school means that you don't know where they are, you don't know who they are sharing a lift with,they can't go to the toilet just when they want to,they have to be responsible for their own belongings and they may get caught up in an emergency.

I think that you have to allow for your DC. I have seen classes of pre schoolers, all in helmets speeding in line, from the top of the mountain, behind the teacher. My DS wasn't ready for that at that age. After a disastrous French kindergarten aged 2, I took my mother to babysit and he was happy playing in the snow. He joined a class at 6yrs and by then could enjoy it.

You have to know your area and know your DC, you can't do a blanket right or wrong-which is why I would always consult the parent first.

I do wish SOMEONE would give me an example from real life rather than fevered imaginations of a case where a child has come to ANY sort of harm - physical or psychological - at the cinema while watching an age appropriate film. I find the whole thing completely baffling.

Seeker, in inner London I can give you page after page of examples of young children/ teens being mugged, threatened or otherwise abused in venues ranging from cinemas, bowling alleys, fast food outlets, tube stations, on the street etc etc. I see it all the time.

Just one actual case in a cinema will do me. Not outside the cinema. In the cinema.

No wouldn't put him in ski school either!over protective maybe but everyone has their limits and at 9 i think there is little need to be out and about on their own.

Well I must have witnessed 5 or so nasty confrontations between youths in our local cinema over the past 5/6 years. Not sure why cinemas would be exempt from the sort of stuff that routinely happens everywhere else.

To be fair to those who say they wouldn't do it, it's worth checking everyone's experience of their 'local' cinema...

Ours has only two screens, and very helpful attentive staff. Also given that we live in a small town, the chances are that DS1 would probably know at least half a dozen other kids there (perhaps with their parents?) anyway.

Now, if you were to ask me if I'd drop him off at the CineWorld complex 6 miles away, which is on an industrial estate on the edge of a rough part of a dodgy town, then...... no, I probably wouldn't.

And I know I'm arguing against my own previous posts here but the thing about skiing is that well, > you sort of know that the majority of people there are 'like you' IYSWIM...

This is all about perception of 'community' really, isn't it? If you feel there is a strong one, then you will probably feel OK about letting your DC out into it, but if it's broken or fragmented (or simply a faceless city centre) then you won't.

Well exactly Legacy.

I would go with them and watch different film in another screen age appropriate of course! ..or perhaps a place like the 02/Shopping Centre where I could wonder off and meet up with them later

Orm how old was he when he started doing that?