What age did you allow your daughter/son................................................?

[Sparkler]

....walk to the local shop/school etc alone?

DD1 (who is 9 and will turn 10 in June) has just taken her first walk to the local shop by herself. It's about a 10 minute walk each way and DH have just had the longest 30 minutes of our lives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On the other hand DD was grinning from ear to ear when she got back, think she felt really grown up, ahhhhh! We usually take her to school and she will walk out of school with friends or alone and meet me half way home every day.
Any other time we tend to go everywhere together as we have a car.

Would be interested to hear what other people have done with their children in the past. DH and I were chatting and he was saying he was walking to and from school by himself at the age of about 7.

Am I over protective? Maybe I could have let her do it much sooner, I know some of her school friends have been walking to school for quite some time now. Are things really any different now to when we were younger? Surely all the dangers were out there then but maybe we are more aware of them now?

LadyGlencora/Phoenix - of course the risk is they go and run off with someone totally unsuitable just to annoy us.

.. and I did not cross the road on my own until 13 because I lived in a very remote rural area that was over a mile from the nearest paved road and then went to boarding school at 12 where we were not allowed outside the school gates at all.

We were not either ABetaDad, but we used to sneak out.

Dc's were allowed to walk to the shop at 8. It's just round the corner and no roads to cross.

They were allowed to walk to school when they were 10 and to go up to the road to the leisure centre and high street when they were 11.

mine are 8 & 9 and I don't let them go anywhere without an adult. - oh, once ds1 went to shop (no roads to cross) with my neice, who's a year older than him. but i wouldn't make a habit of it because it's a lot of responsibility to put on another child.

At what age will I let them go to shop alone? Or take bus to school? No idea. Maybe a year, maybe never. Depends how they develop. It's one of those things you have to play by ear.

i worry when dd goes to shop, and she's 14! very unsavoury gang hang around outside it smoking and drinking. No way would i let ds aged go alone, and we live in fairly rural village.

My ds is nearly 13, he is profoundly deaf with learning disabilities. He started going to the shop on his own when he was about 10. I made him a badge that said "Mum knows where i am please dont worry" on one side and my numbers on the back. I knew he could do it, it was other people worrying and bringing him back that prompted the badge.

Aw! that's lovely lottie

lottie what a fantastic idea - hmmm maybe I should make some for my two!!