Wahey! Another milestone reached. Ds2 can now pop to the shops.

[roisin]

We don't have a corner shop - the nearest shop is about 10 mins walk away and includes 2 pelican crossings, a zebra crossing and a couple of minor roads.

DS1 (10) has an appalling sense of direction and might genuinely get lost , and has always declined to go on his own.

But ds2 (9 next month) has just successfully done it on his own for the first time.

So now we no longer need to run out of bread/milk/fruit ... I can send out my slave

9! argh! I'm terrified of doing this. (Sending him out, not going by myself, obv.)

Do you think 9 is young or old?
How old are yours?
At my mum's she has a corner shop on the corner of her street (small village everyone knows everyone), and the boys have been going there for the paper or a pint of milk since they were 4 or 5. But it's just not possible here.

My nearly 7 year old keeps asking me when he can do this. Although we live in central London on an extremely busy junction, he doesn't actually need to cross any roads to get to the local shop. It is under our block of flats, but around the corner ifswim. The shop keepers know him well too.

I really don't know what to tell him. He seems way too young now, but he wants to know when. I thought maybe 8?

Well done to your son though!

my older 2 have been doing this since they were about 8. Be warned though that once the novelty wears off they will need bribing to do it

DS1 needs bribing to do anything atm - including getting out of bed in the morning in the holidays!

I'd love to do this but to get to the shop dd(8) has to go under a subway alongside the canal and that idea terrifies me as sometimes I get nervous along there.

DS is 7, I would love to send him to the shop but our local is a Tesco Extra which I feel is a bit much for a 7 year old to contend with

How big is it pedilia? Ours is a Co-op, but it is actually quite big. But if he's just getting a loaf of bread or a pint of milk or something, he can certainly cope.

OhYouBadBadKitten - I hate subways at the best of times: that definitely doesn't sound like a child-friendly route

DD is 7 and we've sent her to the local shop. It's across a main road, though, so we always see her over and either watch for her coming back or give her one of our phones (NB for the Judgies: she doesn't have her own!) to call us when she's nearly home.

roisin -so its not me being over protective?
I won't mind her doing it when shes going to school so much cos then there are loads of kids and parents.

There is another shop thats about 2-3 times the distance with a pedestrian crossing but its not very good and she would be able to see the other shop on route.

Sometime I'm just going to have to get brave, but not that subway, not yet.

Excellent -- delegation is the key! Ds is the same age, and allowed to do this too, just.

Roisin -- could you pop over to my thread in Education (called Secondary School Teachers, what do you think of this?) and give me your thoughts?

[ingratiating emoticon]

The novelty does wear of pretty quickly, believe me. Now mine say - I will go but only if you pay me!

Needless to say - rather than pay, I would go myself

roisin- it is huge, set over 2 floors!

I think 7/8/9 are fine for going to the shops alone. After all, in a couple of years they'll be at senior school and needing to travel alone, go into town alone etc and they need to have had some practice first.