Secondary choices / letting DD walk to school

[Picklepotts]

Would love some advice as I’m not sure what to do…

DD has just passed her Kent test. The local grammar school is 1.5 miles away from our house , the nearest comp is 0.5 miles away.

DH and I have heard good things about both. We would like her to go to the grammar as we think she’ll soar, she’s really keen on wanting to go there too.

The walk however is putting her off. Currently her primary is 1 mile away but she’s walked there and back by me. She’s also currently going through a referral for potential ADHD.

i was happy to meet her from the grammar there and back but DH has said it’s unfair as she’ll be mocked by her friends and that I need to let her walk on her own.

I would have a shared car 2 days a week but even then he’s saying I shouldn’t offer lifts as she’ll expect it and she’ll miss out making friends.

She doesn’t have many friends and sometimes thinks she’s safer than she is. I worry about her maturity levels and there’s at least 1 road she’d have to cross which is super busy.

DH says that she’ll never be independent or make friends as long as I’m there.

This is keeping me awake at night , as I’m not sure whether it’s safe for her to go. I’m naturally a bit of a worrier and so I’d be really worried for her safety.

Would love some opinions and advice!

At what point are you going to let her have her independence? She's potentially got ADHD. This doesn't mean that you have to give her extra mollycoddling. It means you have to work harder on encouraging independence and have a plan to achieve independence.

If not now, then when?

The walk isn't much further. If she gets into the grammar school she is going to have to manage her things herself independently. Mum isn't going to be there to do that either.

Walking to school should help with the ADHD itself (apparently it helps regulate kids during the day because they've used up that excess energy on the walk).

Yes , she’s done her cycling proficiency but isn’t very confident on the roads still. (I walked alongside her on the way home one day, she went ahead and crossed a road without looking and made a car stop !!) but maybe we can practice more outside of school and at the weekends. A lot of options to consider, but having a walking buddy seems to best option at the moment.

I understand your point, and I’ve been advised exercise is quite good for ADHD so am pleased about that!

Ultimately the problem here isn't her. It's your anxiety over her.

You do need to work out a plan to manage this but it shouldn't stop her from doing normal things either.

Otherwise you set her up for greater issues in the long run.

Definitely practice cycling with her so she gets more confident and safer, cycling is definitely preferred by school children where I am as its so much quicker, almost everyone bikes to school.

Apart from that, start letting her walk to school now, and in the summer practice the route to the secondary school if she feels unsure about it. Are there likely to be people she knows walking along the same route? If so she'll probably walk with others - that walk to and from school with your mates is a lovely sociable time, I remember it fondly.

Children change a lot suddenly in year 7 sometimes. I was so worried about coping when DS started, as he'd refused to do the ten minute walk to or from primary school himself, throughout year 6.

Half term of year 7 is next week and I now walk him to the bus stop and he goes the rest of the way himself (bus stops round the corner from the school). The way home is by tube and DS can now manage the short walk from school to the station, get the tube, then I meet him the other end.

I'm guessing by term 2 he'll be fine doing the whole journey both ways himself.

Do start small steps now, though, so your DD isn't daunted by roads or by being alone outdoors.

My DS has ASD and ADHD and I was really worried about him travelling independently to/from school, particularly as he was given a bus pass for the public bus, the stop for which is a 20min walk from the school gate, rather than the service that serves school directly. Plus he also has to cross a busy road near a really horrible junction to get to the bus stop.

We worked up to it (I accompanied him a couple of times, then just met him at the bus stop at our end), and he teamed up with a friend who lives just passed the bus stop, and they seem to have managed to navigate crossing the road safely! (I do bang on about it…)

He will now happily walk down to the bus stop and take the bus home on his own - and shock horror, hasn’t even lost anything on the bus yet!

So I’m sure your DD will get there, especially if others are walking the same route.

My dcs school was about 1 mile away.
They walked or cycle.
I’d encourage her to try it out.
And if the weather is really bad, you could still drive her there?

Btw she doesn’t HAVE TO be in the road when cycling.
By any mean, go cycling wuth her so she feels more confident. But at that age, my dcs often still cycled on the pavement instead.

How did we come to this? No 11 year old needs a parent to walk them to school or walk them to the bus.
8, 9 or 10 year olds need to be getting themselves to school. In the 1950s 7 year olds were walking 1-2 miles to school on their own or with friends, crossing main roads etc. (There would be a lot of people walking ; cars were not common but heavy traffic , buses and lorries were.)
My sister (7) and I ( 5), used to get the bus together in Manchester. From 7 no one met me at school. In fact I think I came home on my own from earlier 5/6 as I have no memory of anyone meeting me and we lived nearby.
A friend used to cycle to the station, catch the train, then a bus to school at 11 - on her own.
Infantilising children is not helping them. Many primary children in European countries expect to get to school on their own eg rural France 7/8 year olds cycling to school.
( Heavens, my 3 year old grandchild knows her way to and back from nursery, though perhaps a little too young perhaps to be doing on her own???)

I didn’t actually mean an e-scooter! Just a normal one. It’s only a mile and a half.

Both my DC lack confidence and one has significant anxiety issues, but both got themselves to secondary school and back most of the time (having started walking to primary school and back in Y6, but that's only round the corner from our house). Both were really worried about it until we practiced it and they then started doing it regularly.

DD was at a grammar 3 miles way and had to walk a mile to the station, get a train and walk 10 mins at the other end. So before she started we practiced it a few times and for the first week she walked part of the way with another girl from our primary (not really a friend but got on OK) but then did it on her own for next 7 years. Sometimes one of us would walk to the station with her as we were going that way for work anyway and she was always happy to walk with us but we knew not to give her a goodbye hug! We did occasionally drop her off or pick her up by car if either bad weather (and we were available) or if we happened to be going that way anyway, and so saw there were loads of kids being dropped off or picked up by car - many of the children came from many miles away with difficult journeys by public transport and must have had at least one parent who didn't work each day given they had 2 hour round trips twice a day by car.

DS walks 1.5 miles to his comp and I do think walking with a parent would be seen as odd there, but dropping by car wouldn't. Again he sometimes gets a lift if the weather is awful or if I'm going that way anyway and despite thinking we are the most uncool parents ever he is happy that we do that. Occasionally we give one of his mates a lift as well. He hates it if I happen to bump into him as he's walking home though! We practiced that walk the summer before he started and they actually ran a summer camp for Y7s before they started so we did that gradually - walked him there and picked him up on foot on the first day, walked part way second time, etc.

So I suspect she wouldn't stand out if you gave her a lift but equally she needs to learn to be independent so don't do it every day, just practice the walk before she starts and gradually increase her independence.

@ElizaMulvil you really should know better than to say "No 11 year old needs a parent to walk them to school or walk them to the bus". Have you no concept that other people's lives might be different to yours? Would you really send my friend's DC with severe learning disabilities to get himself to where the special bus picks him up? What about the kids who live in rural villages miles from their school with no pavements who in winter have to leave and return when it's dark? You're right that most 11yo don't need a parent to walk them but some absolutely do.

Use the remaining time at primary school to practise her crossing roads safely - let her tell you when it's safe to cross and you say if you agree or not. Children generally can judge the speed and distance of a vehicle from about age nine. Also point out the pitfalls of trusting cars will stop at crossings, she needs to make sure before stepping out.

When she starts senior school, she may well find another student walking her route and they could walk together.