Letting a four year old go to the shops unaccompanied?

[wonderingwondering]

DS is 4.5, starts Reception in September. We live 200 yards from our local shop, where they know DS. Today, I thought about letting him go to the shop on his own. We live on a busy road, but there's a wide pavement, and he wouldn't have to cross the road. He's quite sensible.

He seems very young, but he's quite capable of going in to a shop and buying things on his own - he's done that, while I wait outside or in the car, for a year or so now. Is he too young to walk there and back on his own?

Was the little one okay, Stripey?

My goodness, how awful for both of you!!

She was ok thankfully. Didn't even break anything. But I thought she was dead when I got out the car. Will never forget how awful it was.

That must have been terrible for you. I'm so glad she was OK. I ran out in front of a car when I was 9 or 10 (I was running for the bus), and the two young men who ran me over took me home. My mother made them come inside and have sweet cups of tea for the shock (before driving me to school!).

No one has perfect road sense, otherwise the amount of accidents would be hugely reduced (and a good number of those accidents involve small children).

I'm very keen on independence for my children, but it has to be judged very carefully, as if you get it wrong and something happens to frighten them they can lose a huge amount of confidence. This scenario would really worry me, not least because you are relying on the shop keeper to be responsible for your child, which is very unreasonable.

I can't imagine how awful that must have been for everyone stripey.
I'm all for encouraging independence but can the 4 yo in question dress himself, wipe his own bum, recognise his name, use a knife and fork, share nicely, get his own cereal, pour his own milk, tie his own laces etc etc - all far more important/essential steps to independence before walking to the shops alone.

No way. NO NO NO

The proposition beggars belief.

I can't believe your 4 year old is as road savvy as you seem to think

I've always been very very strict about road sense with ds, exaggerated modelling of looking right and left and right again and all that from when he was very small. His childminder was even more strict.

Yet when he was four he was still capable of running across a road when distracted by a friend running ahead/someone in trouble that he had to help (a bigger boy who had fallen and was stuck under a pile of tyres).

Both times I was with him, but a bit behind and couldn't catch up fast enough. Hadn't anticipated his friend running out into the road, had no idea he'd risk his own life to 'rescue' a bigger boy!

Fortunately both times it was our own very quiet cul de sac (on the way back from nursery school) but it showed me I had been lulled into a false sense of security by his usual excellent road sense and by being almost home.

His road sense was fine under normal circumstances, not at all if distracted by what he considered something more immediately pressing.

My 5 year old knows to stop at the kerb and wait for me before crossing the road...and yet....

*He runs straight across zebra crossings ("well the car has to stop for me mummy" )

*Has no awareness that in a car park a stationery parked car might have someone in it who doesn't see him as they put the car into reverse

*is crap on petrol station forecourts (despite my lectures about staying close due to moving cars)

I think he is typical of a boy of his age

Granted you know your child better than I know your child, but really, to trust the judgement of a 4 year old is naive and reckless in the extreme!

My 9 yo, who is ultra sensible, has only been going to the shops alone (with no main roads to cross) for the last few months.

My 6 yo (who, granted, isn't sensible in the slightest!) hasn't got a Cat In Hells chance of being allowed to go to the shop alone ...

So no, there is no way I'd let my 4yo go to the shop unaccompanied ...

MollieO

"I have let ds go and get his own drinks, ask for the bill in a restaurant, buy different things, since he was 3.5. Never ever out of my sight."

Do you mean he was never out of your sight for all those things or just buying things in a shop? I was just thinking because in a lot of the restaurants we go in I wouldn't be able to see DS if he went to buy his own juice from the bar, or to the till to ask for the bill.

I wouldn't do it because I know sometimes I get distracted when walking along a road and don't always look as carefully as I should before I cross! And I'm 40!!!

The abduction thing is just silly. That's not the issue.

I do think there are two separate issues here

1. Buying things in shop. Yes I'd let a 4 year old buy things in shop. Actually I often do.

1. Walking to and from the shop. The trouble is, this is obviously going to depend on the route to the shop. Back in the day, at four, I walked to a corner shop to buy milk and back again. BUT we lived in the sort of community where four year olds DID walk to the local shop to buy milk, meaning there were any number of other women who knew my parents, knew what I was doing, knew where I lived, to look out for me.

IMO we have lost this sort of community in the last 20 years. I do believe its because our kids don't participate in the community nearly as much as they used to. Our individual withdrawals make it gradually less and less safe for everyone, until now, unlike 20 years ago, a 4 year old really IS walking to the shops alone.

OP I think your son will be fine though

On a more practical level my 4yo ds would struggle carrying a loaf and some milk home.

I wouldn't let him do it - the shopkeeper may be able to see him for the last bit, but hthey are looking after their shop, not random childen.

The main reason I wouldn't let him do it is that there are so many things that might happen, eg falling over, being pushed, people being mean to him, that he might be totally terrfied and never want to leave your side again.

He is NOT going to be abducted.

But he may for whatever reason go into the road. You just can't say that a 4 year old won't do ANYTHING - they are creatures of the moment and impulse. If he sees a friend on the other side of the road who calls to him, or if he drops the money and it rolls he MAY forget all his road sense. And even if he doesn't forget and decides to try to cross the road sensibly, his brain is not developed enough to judge the speed and closeness of cars properly.

Or he may get woofed at by a dog. Or frightened by a wasp buzzing round him.

He's too young. Why not go to a park or somewhere like that that's got a cafe and let him go and buy you an icecream while you sit on a rug a fair distance away?

Oh yes, if a 4yo drops something and it rolls into the road, there is a VERY high chance he will go after it. However much you have tried to din road sense into his head.

Seeker is also right that a 4yo's brain is not yet developed enough to judge the speed of a moving vehicle - I think that capacity usually appears around age 7.

Btw, I got run over by a crappy car driver who clipped what would have been the kerb if it wasn't dropped - I was waiting 'on' the kerb but it was the same level as the road and he was looking for a gap to pull out, didn't bother looking left before he moved.

Car was only just pulling out but I was still thrown yards down the road and injured. Had it been a child, I'm sure the injuries would have been far more severe (as it was I was unable to walk unaided for some time).

Reality as crazy as wonderings post seems and I also agree that its crazy by the way, I do think that your rant is very rude all the same.
There are better more respectable ways of getting your point across
Take cover crazy

I think that reality's post was vry restrained actually

OP's suggestion was beyond stupid, so much so that I doubt it was genuine, tbh

Crikey, the OP asked a perfectly reasonable, if somewhat naïve, question ? I don?t think she deserves a torrent of abuse!

I think the very real possiblity of random things happening (bee scare, coins rolling into the road) means my answer would be a no, although I certainly did send my ds into the shop at that age when I was standing outside. As an aside the worst thing that happened to him was being pushed in front of in the queue, which was upsetting and confusing for him. Having witnessed this from a distance I?ve been able to help him to be a little more assertive and to not take it personally when grown-ups are rude, which they often are imo. I wouldn?t have been able to do this had I been elsewhere.

I think that it?s hard sometimes to realise quite how young our dcs are. I might have asked myself the same question as the OP four years ago, but that would have been before my then 6 year old ? totally out of the blue, totally out of character and a complete one-off ? did a runner out of Monsoon. In short although the OP?s dc might seem sensible to her, experience tells me that young children do truly random things and therefore need to be kept a closer eye on than we sometimes think.

fillyjonk
Couldn't agree more - children have been driven off of their own streets. It's a vicious circle whereby parents don't let their dcs out because no other dcs are out.

All the children where we live play out - it's one of the reasons we moved to our current house. They walk to school young, go to the shop young, you name it. Although the coins in the road thing would deffo convince me to postpone allowing a 4yo out of mu sight on a busy road.

I think Reality was way out of order too. Still it reflects on her rather than the OP (who I do not agree with incidentally).

I have possibly the world's most sensible four-year old [smug mummy emoticon] - he's so sodding sensible that he looks after me most of the time - but there is no way, I repeat, no way, I'd let him do this. What on earth would the point be?

Apart from the whole road issue, I don't think it would be fair on him, even if he said he wanted to do it. He might get totally freaked out by something on the way.

He does not need to be doing such things. It is not within the normal 'developing independence' trajectory to have 4 year-olds do this imho. Surely going in on his own to pay for his ice cream or whatever is plenty.

Also it is simply not socially acceptable in most areas of the UK for four-year olds to do this and as such you would probably just end up with a whole load of old ladies panicking about this little boy on his own (I have seen a lady doing this about a friend's six year old who had gone a few houses away to post a letter).

Btw WW I think you've handled the response to your question on here really well and taken the criticism on your chin far more than most posters who have asked quite a controversial question.

Good point about the old ladies. I have always been quite comfortable about letting my children walk ahead of me (I didn't have much choice with ds mind!) and there have been a few occasions in shopping centres and the like where I have been enough behind them that people have thought they were on their own, and did approach them or just look terribly worried in the gap between them seeming to be on their own and me bellowing "don't go too far ahead". And this is with (tall) 6/7 year olds. Very small children on their own is just not the norm (and to be honest for a four year old should not be for all the reasons cited here). IMO a four year old is very small (possibly not in the mind of the OP though - I have to admit I do think of my dd as being much more grown up than she is because she is sensible - this is tempered by ds being a little immature though).

definatly not.

4 years of age.

Maybe 10 years of age but definatly not 4.

Independence???? he doesnt no what that means.
NO NO NO NO.
what if something happened?
theres to many paedophiles about.

Your son, your decision though.