11 year old going to town alone?

[pandora987]

MY DD year 7 wants to meet her friends in town on Saturday and spend a few hours going round town. It's a smallish town not a big city - would you let her go?? any advice welcome..

Yes I would. My DD is year 6 and she is just starting to walk to the corner shop and to her friends house, she also walks to school by herself. So I think next year I would be happy with her going to town with friends

Yeah, year 7 is exactly the right age to start this kind of freedom off.

As long as they are sensible friends. If she needs to travel on her own (ie by bus) and you're a bit nervous about this, you could always drop her off. Don't forget to send her in with some extra money!!

of COURSE!

Yes, definitely. Does she have a phone? DS2 (12) has been doing it for a couple of years.
At first I was a bit of a wreck but you get used to it. My friend had to remind me that that's the sort of thing you want your DC to do. Go out with their friends and have fun.

DS1 (15) now goes into town with his mates and from what I can gather sits about in Costa all afternoon.

The only thing I did was tell mine to to get out of silly behaviour situations - larking around in shops, or if someone wanted to nick something.

Presumably she's fairly level-headed and so on - I would if she is but possibly not if she's a bit day-dreamy.

Make sure she knows where the bus stop is to get the bus home - sounds daft and obvious but it's a mistake I made at 11, got on the bus at the same stop I got off at, ended up somewhere I didn't know and had to call Mum to fetch me.

YY Noelle I always say to mine come home/ring me if any of that starts. There was a time when a couple of DS1's mates thought a swim in the canal would be fun.

Plus no mucking about in shops.

Make sure she knows what 'alighting' means and doesn't spend half an hour at the bus stop which says 'alighting only' rather than the bus stop 10 metres away where you pick the bus up from....

thanks everyone, its good to know that others similar age have this freedom- its nerve wracking letting them go but we must!
She doesn't need to get a bus, she'll get dropped off and picked up.
I need to get it into my head that it is extremely unlikely that she'll get kidnapped and I'll never see her again, but if she's out without me I dwell on all the horrible possibilities until she's back home again. Need to stop or I'll have a nervous breakdown!!

Yes - my daughter has been meeting groups of friends in town since starting secondary. So far it's all been good - they have all been sensible and seem to love the sense of being grown up.

My dd is 11 and has had a couple of trips to town with her mates now, both very successful
Without trying to scare the living daylights out of her, I insisted on bus fare home plus my phone number in her pocket, just in case her bag was forgotten somewhere.
Luckily her dad works in a central shop so she knows she can go in at any time and he or his co-workers would help her.