How far would your 12 yo go alone?

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Over the Easter holidays I asked my DS (12) if he wanted to come and meet me at work on my early finish day so we could do an activity he really wanted to do. I work 20 minutes from home - he would have only needed to go to the end of our road (same as his school journey) but turned at the end and walked down another 15 minutes.

It's a very straight forward journey- one road down alongside a main road with super wide pavement. He said it was too far on his own! I am now worried that he is lacking any independence. He will walk for longer with me or his dad (they walk for fun/exercise so its not laziness) and it got me wondering how unusual this is. Would your pre-teen have walked this by themselves?

Got a 12 year old DS, he will walk alone to school (10 mins) and shop (1 minute), he wouldn't do a 20 minute walk alone either. DD is 13, she might have at 12.

Yes. Now he’s at high school if he wants to meet up with his friends then he has to! So he does!

At 13 I travelled 2 hours (walk, bus, 2x train) every other weekend to visit my dad.

My 12 year old is going to France by himself in May.

I can't think of anywhere he wouldn't go by himself!

Happily uses the tube and bus to get all over London. Can get to any train/bus station to travel to see family in other parts of the UK.

The 14 year old was and is the same. And the 11 year old.

They can't wait to get away from us tbh!

We've either done a good job of encouraging independence or we're awful!

I do think a 12 year old who can't walk 15 mins down a straight road is a bit lacking in independence though.

When mine were 12, they’d get the bus from our village to the city 15 miles away by themselves. They walked to school alone from when they were six.
I think your DS needs gentle encouragement to extend his range, OP, otherwise he risks mockery from his peer group at school.

My 12 year old DS walks to school (15 mins)
To football (25 mins) and will sometimes take two trains to his dads so quite far. We're in London.

I have conditions, always in daylight, his dad has to meet him at the other end when it's a train journey and I have a tracker on his phone so I can see where he is.

Yes, both of mine were walking further than this at 12. We built it up gradually from walking to primary school (6-7 mins no main roads) then going into town (about 10 mins each way, several busy road crossings). We started by going with them to town, walking back to the last main road then letting them go ahead home once they'd crossed with us, progressing to all the way home alone via quieter roads, to going there and back alone by about age 11 IIRC.

Sounds like laziness rather than an independence thing?

Dc at 14 would walk an hour home from a friends or the train station, but 10 mins to get me something from the shop is “too far”. :).

Goodness me, he does seem lacking in confidence.

Ds1 at that age was all over the place, meeting friends in local places to play football all day, riding for miles with a group of mates, to meet other friends from neighbouring town.

My eldest daughter and son went to Switzerland alone when they were twelve years old.

Yes, my dd gets the bus to the next town to meet friends and go to school. She’s just walked home from our local Youth Hub alone (well, at 8pm) for the first time with no issue.

I’d definitely want to encourage more independence.

My 11 year old definitely would have done. He's been walking to and from school (15mins) on his own since the start of year 6 and has recently started going out with friends on his own, to the park or to each other's houses. He's relishing the independence and at the weekend really wanted to go the supermarket (10-15mins on his bike) on his own to get me some shopping so he did that. We've talked about him coming to meet me from work one day straight from school - he'd need to get a bus into town - but not done it yet.

How much independence does your DS get? Does he hang out with friends on his own? I can see that a 20 min walk on your own might seem a bit daunting if it's the first time you've done anything like that!

My QA year old has no sense of direction, so would only do it with clear instructions. The 20 minutes walking wouldn’t faze her

Mine goes on the bus to one town and then on the train to another. About 40 minute journey.
She is very adept at getting round.

My 12 yo ds would be like yours, and it would be because it was new or different to what he has done before.
Again like yours mine walks miles with us, a mile each way for school, a mile into town to buy sweets, but would find the new journey a challenge.
He doesn’t like change and he can lack confidence.
His big sister would have done it no problem.

Wow - super impressed with these kids going so far. When I was his age I was travelling an hour on two buses to get home from school but that was a long time ago.

Will try some stuff to get some independence going - maybe a trip to the small shop by himself? He walks back from school by himself no problem but knows that route very well.

Is it just fear of getting lost? My dd (nearly 15) is pretty clueless with directions and is always reluctant to get the bus anywhere in case she doesn’t know when to get off. She’s happy to go miles on the train though. I think she’d feel the same about walking somewhere new - i’d have to draw her a map.

Ds, 12, is much more confident. He takes two buses to school 9 miles away and has on occasion gone a completely different way home instead, taking two buses via the city centre. He’s much more aware of his surroundings though, he can tell me the names of the roads he travels on while on the bus and he notices other bus numbers and where they’re going. Dd doesn’t have a clue!

Crazy- I asked him this morning and he said that was part of it (I have clearly passed on my bad sense of direction to him) but also he was worried about getting mugged!

Oh, well it is in the news a lot at the moment! My ds actually got approached by two lads last week, demanding money. They made him empty his pockets but he had nothing on him. So we talked a bit about what to do in that scenario.

My DD's went to the museum and library together (without me) whilst I was at work at that age, they hated childcare clubs and loved the activities the council laid on (I worked 5 mins from both and they had a basic mobile to contact me)

Mine would be too anxious and fear of getting lost. I biked home from tennis the other day and he wanted to run so I said to get his dad to drop him at a certain corner and it was a straight run about 1.5miles home and I’d catch him on the bike. When I caught him he was just at the crossing if said to be dropped at. Apparently he’d had a bit of a moment and couldn’t decide if he would do it or not when he got there. I despair really.

OP is it mugging in general he worries about or specifically being mugged by kids he knows in your area?

At 12 my dd would walk 15-20 mins off a bus eg to go swimming/to a friend's house but only if she'd been driven/walked there with someone first.

7km each way by bike from about 11, takes the kids about half an hour takes me longer but in daylight in a very safe rural area. The first time my older kids did it they were 9 and 11 but together. Elder did it alone at 11 through choice.

NuffSaidSam presumably your 12 year old isn't actually going to France by himself - if you drop him at the airport/ Eurotunnel train and someone else picks him up at the other end it's great independence, but not quite "going to France by himself".

Archivearmadillo, they would still have to negotiate passport control, security and find the right gate etc if flying.