The other day a boy of 8 ran from the Swimming Pool, Across the road, and to the bus stop ....

[QuintessentiallyAnEmptyCave]

I was on the bus going home from town when I saw a little boy of 8 who lives further down my road, run across the road from the Swimming Pool, and stood waiting at the Bus Stop when we got there.

He entered the Bus, waited inside the bus, pressed the button to get off before our stop. He left the bus, looked left and right, waited till it was clear and crossed the street. He took the key from his pocket and opened his front door.

I cannot imagine my son (nearly six) being so self reliant in 2 years time.

Casting my mind back to another recent thread where a 19 year old girl would need a companion to travel across London, I wonder, how much freedom to develop and mature into independet beings do we give our kids?

Some parents wont let their 8 year olds go to the post box on the corner, some wont let them cross the road and go through the school gates on their own, and others let their children leave the swimming pool and take the bus home on their own.

How safety conscious are we? Are we maybe stiffling our children?

Dh at 6 went by train to his grandparents on his own, caught the train in London (parents put him on the train), had to change trains, grandparents met him the other end.

Well, at 9 I walked home from school and let myself in,and was home alone for about 30 or 60 minutes, and it felt very lonely indeed.

Well I won't let DD1 (5) do anything on her atm as she's to young. But by the age of 9 or 10 I will let her pop to the shops on her own and play out.

I'm also in Germany and let dd (8) walk to and from school on her own because that is just the way things are done here. Usually she walks with friends but sometimes she's completely on her own.

It took me a while to get used to it when we moved here last year and I would lean out of the window waiting for her to appear. Now I really like the fact she's got more independence here. I don't know anyone who drives their dc to school and quite a few children of dd's age cycle.

I don't think anyone talked about public transport at 6, did they? The child in the OP was 8.

By silly I meant Simiantrousers' comment which appeared to imply that parents who allowed their children a sensible degree to freedom were putting them in danger but maybe it wouldn't matter to us if they weren't our only child.
Or that is how I read it anyway.

Oh, I see - sorry. I thought you were saying that letting children have some freedon was silly - I misunderstood.

Simiantrousers is obviously a loon.

My boys had quite a lot of freedom for their age when they were 5 and 6 (could play out in the street, pop to the corner shop for milk/paper, pop to letter box - small road to cross - to post letter).

But they are 8 and 10 now, and haven't been majorly adventurous. I would be happy for ds1 to go off on his own or with mates to further shops, to town, cinema, swimming pool, etc. But he doesn't want to.

He does have an appalling sense of direction and is worried about getting lost I think.

I'm hoping he'll start becoming more independent next year. In September he has to negotiate a daily bus journey to/from the next town for a start!

Ds1 is 6 and I think I would leave him at home for 15-20 mins or so now, not if dd or ds2 were there though. I think fairly soon we need to start letting him do a bit more on his own although that will be nerve-wracking!

I'm trying to work this one out with ds atm. Some new neighbours allow their little girls, aged four and six or seven, to play 'out'. And I've let ds, also four, play with them, trying not to let him know I'm bricking it! They are only allowed round our block of houses though, no crossing the street.

It's so tame compared to my own childhood. I was playing out unsupervised with the other local children aged three. And walking to school on my own aged six.

Seems it wasn't unusual, from F&Z's stats. But there were fewer cars on the road and there was more of a community - any passing grown up would have told us off if we were up to no good AND told our mothers. Equally if we got into any trouble, we could have knocked on the nearest door for help.

Yes, people had more freedom in the 1970s but there were about twice as many road deaths as there are today.

UK still has the worst child road accident rates in Europe. We have the most crowded roads and our long straight Victorian streets of terraced houses are particularly dangerous, so I would worry about young children crossing roads. Children don't have good depth perception to be able to judge the speeds of oncoming vehicles until, I think it's 12.

DS is only 2 at the moment, but I wouldn't worry about an 8 yo making solo trips on public transport, provided that all road crossings were on quiet roads or at pelicans. No no no no no to cycling on the roads until a fairly advanced age though.

Do we think not letting children out AT ALL to prevent road deaths is acceptable though? More deaths would be prevented if we never took our children in cars but most of us would not find that an acceptable precaution.

I also think children need some (age appropriate) exposure to dealing with roads and traffic or they will have no road sense at all when finally allowed out by themselves. I agree with caution and know we all want to protect our children but being over-protective 1) limits our children's lives miserably and 2) is self-defeating in that children do not gain the necessary skills to keep themselves safe when we are not there

I am often amazed by posts on here about what is acceptable and what isn't. I've seen people saying that children should not be left alone till 16 or older!

At 11 many children will through necessity have to get themselves to school, often one or two bus journeys, sometimes through busy cities. They will unavoidably have to cross roads!

At 14 children are legally allowed to babysit which I certainly did lots of at 14 for extra pocket money.

At 16 children can get married, smoke, leave school.

At 17 children can drive.

At 18 children can vote.

So actually I think that time between 6 and 10 is crucial for teaching the children how to take responsibility for themselves, how to assess risk, and let them take risks which we have deemed to be acceptable.

At 8 I would walk, with friends, a good half an hour to the local swimming pool , swim with no parents watching out for us, and then we would walk home!

I was walking to school alnone from 4-5 onwards. It was the norm in the 60s

I live on a big council estate and the kids here generally have a lot more freedom than average - they may be sent to the (very close) shop to get gas and electric, walk to the bus stop and catch the bus alone to school, play up to "The line" (invisible lines the parents tell the kids about) and will often be seen outside their front garden on a trike at 3,and 4 years old. There are kids everywhere in the summer.

My 11 year old walks from her school to her music lesson (5 minute walk with a pedestrian crossing) I pick her up at the end of the lesson.

Next year she is going to be in the Senior school and will be doing even more of this sort of stuff. She needs to build her independence gradually

When I was 11 or 12, Yorkiegirl and I got the train to Manchester from Durham, got a taxi to Chethams, did a music workshop, got ourselves back to the station, got the train back to Durham. YG is the same age as me (well 11 months older), so neither of us were teenage.

When we were 13 or so we went to Russia and Latvia, as the USSR was breaking up, and I seem to remember we just wandered round Riga at all hours of the day and night, even though it was a) a foreign country and we didn't speak the language and b) a potential warzone (Latvia had just declared independence!).

I also used to walk 30-40 minutes to our local swimming pool with my best friend, at 8/9. We also swam without adult supervision, and went home on our own.

I wonder why there were more road deaths, though. Surely there are lots of reasons why they have gone down? Does the figure purely refer to pedestrian deaths, or include car passengers, in which case seat belts and child seats would have a lot to do with it?

I live in France and alot of primary school children walk, cycle to school by themselves. A bit like Germany, it seems to be more the norm. It took a bit of getting used to, but I like the fact now that they go and see their friends etc by themselves and have more freedom. I always tell them what time to be back, and they always are. We are moving back to UK next month, and don't really know what to do about it as we will be living in a biggish town not a small quiet village.

It really is a difficult one!

tallulah on Fri 21-Mar-08 18:54:09
"But there wasn't the traffic then that there is now. And people looked out for children and intervened when necessary."

Certainly more traffic when dh grew up in London in the 60's than there is around our quiet suburb now.

As for looking out, noone was looking when MIl was abducted 78 years or so ago- but that's the last time anyone I know has been abducted.

I would leave my 7yo alone for short periods (half an hour or so) if I pop to the shops. If there was a fire, I would hope he would walk out (back door left unlocked and he knows it). If he is so overcome by fumes he can't - how do we know I wouldn't be similarly overcome if I was there? A working fire alarm is the best precaution there (and a child who knows what to do if the fire alarm goes off).

I have also allowed him to walk down to the local sweet shop (5 minutes, only very quiet streets to cross). He is allowed to walk to school on his own, but prefers my company.

Dd (11) is a special case because of her joint condition). When she was well, I was happy for her to take little brother to the library, to walk alone to school and to be alone at home for a couple of hours. Now we have been told she shouldn't walk that far (with or without me), so our ideas will have to be revised. I've always said I would be happy for her to go into town on her own next year- in fact, she could go now if her body allowed. When we are in Sweden, I allow her to go swimming with friends as long as she promises to stay in the shallows (no lifeguard, but also no tide, no current etc).

But I'll have to think seriously about the practicalities of combining disability with independence. I think it's even more important not to mollycoddle someone if you know they are going to have a lifelong disability.

And when I feel guilty about allowing cy dc's too independence, I shall go back and read the other MN thread about the lady whose dh expected her to trundle up to London with a young baby in order to escort a 19yo between railway stations. And I shall reflect that I would not want that to be my 19yo.

I too remember walking 30 minutes to school at 9..
I think it's quite brilliant that an 8yr old can have that amount of confidence and independance. My 8 yr old ds1 certainly wouldn't be able to do that. Partly because I'm over protective and partly because we live in the middle of nowhere and there is no where to walk too! It does worry me that my ds's can't just pop next door to a friends and I think it shows in that they have really awful road sense.

The problem in the UK is that the safety of pedestrians has such a low priority which is odd when you consider how health and safety conscious we are as a nation. Sadly I think the situation now is that you are safer in a car than out of it.

I would have been very nervous about dc to walking to school in London on their own because of a couple of really dangerous bends on an otherwise fairly quiet road.

Dd now has a 15 minute walk to school and it is all very safe - wide pavements, proper crossings etc.

I think 8 is a bit young to be doing this. DD3 used to go to the post box up the road at 8. But she didn't use the bus by herself untill she was 11.