At what age did or will you allow child to walk to school alone.

remken

Member
Their is a little boy about 6 or 7 that I see walking to school in the mornings when I take my dds. I see him on the end of my block wich is almost a mile from the school. Anyone else think that is to young to be walking alone? or am I just to protective?
 
ADS

LuvBug

New member
the way the world is now a days... My kid(s) will never be allowed to walk to or from school alone, nor would I let them walk to a store alone, and so on.
Id just be so worried they might get snatched up. Just recently they found, in a collapsed old house, the body of a 9yo who went missing almost 2 years ago on her way to her busstop for school.
 

MommyofBoogieBear

New member
let me follow that up with ....I live in a country where kidnapping is a very real, and common occurance. and not just to the rich anymore. i've heard of some very sad stories down here...
 

scatterbunny

New member
I haven't read any answers yet--I think that is WAY too young. If I decide to keep Hayley in public school, next year her school will be a half mile away. I don't think I'd let her walk to school by herself until she's at least 10, maybe even not then! Too many scary things happen to kids walking alone these days.
 

racesmom

Senior Community Member
Race didn't walk to school alone until 6th grade, and even then I didn't like it. He only has to walk to the table now and I love that, lol.

I've known many kids that walk alone from K on. Scary!
 

canadianmom2three

Active member
At 10 years old I have just started letting my DS go to the park without my supervision (and that is only 100 meters away, but blocked from view by a row of houses) but even that isn't alone, he is always with a friend, and must come home when friend does. I really can't say that I would ever be comfortable with the 'alone' factor, ideally kids would always be at least with a friend when out and about. At the same time, I know that kids are far more likely to be 'snatched up' by someone they know, so I do try to spend more time talking to them about how you always need to let me know where you are going and NEVER go anywhere with anyone (not just strangeres, even people you know) without telling mom and dad first.
 

Victorious4

Senior Community Member
There's this book series I just love Your 5 Year Old: Sunny & Serene (another ex: Your 4 Year Old: Wild & Wonderful) but it is at least 30 years old so a lot of its "practical" advice is pretty dated.... It says that some 5 year olds are ready to walk to school alone so long as they can remember the correct path & the rules of crossing a road safely :confused: Erm, what about creepy neighbors :eek: I worry about the sexual predators -- we're supposed to be given notification when they move nearby yet everyime people I know check the list of convicted fellons' current addresses NO ONE EVER recieved notice :mad:

But, this book does also suggest merely following paces behind the child so that the child feels independent yet the parent can still offer protection. Or, to have trusted older siblings or neighbors' kids walk with the child or paces behind. I'm "overly" protective & would not let my child walk without me until highschool unless my middle school aged kid is a blackbelt & has a friend & has a cell phone (is there some way to block all incoming as well as outgoing calls except home, parents' job + 911?)

Each state should have its own, but here's this as well > http://www.familywatchdog.us/
 

Kellyr2

New member
It totally depends on the neighborhood and on the kid. We live on a military base and I can see the schoolyard from my house. I can't quite see the school due to some trees that are on the hill that the school is on. It's about a block away. The PreK and K kids are required to have a parent walk with them FROM school, but they can't tell you what to do on the way there. Of course, most do walk them both ways.
Aaric is in K but turned 6 in July. I would let him walk there alone at least some of the mornings, if he weren't so easily distracted. On the way home together, I have to remind him to keep walking nonstop. I do sometimes just walk him up the hill and then watch him go the rest of the way alone.
All of the kids 1st grade and up that don't have younger siblings, do walk alone. Even the ones from way down the road.
 

Morganthe

New member
There's this book series I just love Your 5 Year Old: Sunny & Serene (another ex: Your 4 Year Old: Wild & Wonderful) but it is at least 30 years old so a lot of its "practical" advice is pretty dated.... It says that some 5 year olds are ready to walk to school alone so long as they can remember the correct path & the rules of crossing a road safely

Thanks for that link. I've seen another version of it, but it's good to have 2 to compare updated info. I find it scary that EVERYONE in this large town says it's a great place to raise children "IT's SO SAFE" :rolleyes: but completely ignoring how prevalent convicted sex offenders are within the city limits.

According to both the Watchdog & the other site I have, there are 232 mappable sexual offenders & 6 that are not in this town of only about 118,000! IMO, that's a very large proportion. Even South East Washington DC has less than about 75 child related felons. Also same with the larger cities of Tacoma, Olympia, Spokane, & San Diego. It seems that perverts LOVE Texas :( I looked at Odessa, San Angelo, & Fort Worth. All very high proportions of child offenders.

There's one that is registered and lives .09th of a mile away from here. Sadly, it's only about a block or two away from the elementary school. :(

--
Just wanted to add that I read last year about a child development study that until somewhere between around 9 years old, children just do not have the ability to estimate distance & speeds of oncoming vehicles. I thought it was interesting that it was a growth trait & not a maturity issue.
 

beeman

Active member
Well, I'm from a rural area. Town kids walk, country kids ride the bus. When you get your drivers, you can drive. Most of the kids (even k/1) walked to school, but were usually with an older sibling/neighbor. I think the issue is where you live. Small town I wouldn't have a problem, big city? now thats a different story. I lived too far away to walk, so I started conveying myself alone at 16 when I got my liscence. I think it would be better to if they walked in a group from your are, then they can watch over each other.
 

Amaris

New member
I read something interesting somewhere a while back, and though it didn't have a lot to do with walking to school it did have to do with crossing the street. If you want to know if your child is ready to cross the street by theirselves there is a test you can do (not sure if it really works though). It said to get 8 red checkers and 8 black ones. Put them in a line side by side touching each other, so that the red line and the black line are the same length. Ask your child which one has more checkers. If they get the answer right ask them to step away for a minute and make the lines longer. Don't have the checkers touching, but make sure one line is quite a bit longer than the other while leaving 8 checkers in each line. Then have your child come back and ask again which line has more checkers. If they point to the longer line right away then they aren't ready to cross the street alone yet because they don't actually take the time to look at things and see what's really there. I thought that was interesting and made a little sense.

On walking to school, I don't think I will let the boys walk to school on their own. The elementary school goes up to 5th grade, and Michael will be in 5th when Isaiah is in 3rd. I will probably still walk with them since it's almost .5 miles away. The middle school is over 1 mile away so that's not happening either!
 

broken4u05

New member
Holly crap there are 2 sex offenders withen a mile of the high school i went to and just half a mile away from the high school there is another high school(but private), an elemetry school, a middle school and a private school k-12. With all the schools there withen a mile of each other and than 2 sex offenders there too.
 

Kellyr2

New member
Oh, yeah, and we don't cross any roads to get to our school. We can take the sidewalk behind my house that's on a semi-busy road but the limit is just 15 mph and in the AMs at least, most people follow it. Then we'd turn and cut across the school yard. Or we can take the sidewalk in front of my house along our not busy at all road, where it's also 15 mph, and then climb the hill.
So, for my kid, at this house, it's about the maturity and attention span to keep going all the way to the school, not about traffic.
 
Most schools we've had our kids at over the years require a parent (or bus, daycare van, or other "offical" caregiver) to drop off/pick up children through 1st or 2nd grade. That's my unofficial guideline for allowing my kids to walk somewhere alone. The last several places we've lived, though, there really wasn't any opportunity to walk alone anywhere except for the bus stop perhaps.

Here, my two elem. schoolers (2nd & 4th grades) only have about a 5 min. walk (give or take a couple min. depending on how pokey they're being) to their school. It's through a couple of blocks of the military housing area we live in, but technically is on "the other side" of the area; you have to go completely around the long way to drive it because there's no connecting road between this side and that side. Consequently, a bus is provided for them, which picks them up at the end of our small cul-de-sac, but lately they have been wanting to walk. We all know the way, since the school is right next to the chapel, and we walk to church on nice days. We've talked about the importance of ALWAYS walking the same route, and of never going into other peoples' houses or yards, or dilly-dallying along the way. So I allow them to walk when they want to, if the weather is clear.

It's a hard thing to judge, though, because you have to take each individual child, their maturity/responsibility, and their family circumstances into consideration. A 7y/o child whose mother leaves for work using city transportation during the time-frame of school opening could make it very necessary that the child walk to school. Sure, it might be better if the child had a walking buddy, but things aren't always ideal. It may be nearly as far for the child to walk to the nearest school bus pickup, or maybe he prefers walking. Maybe he used to live closer to the school, but has recently moved and his new house is outside of the bussing zone (but he is still allowed to attend because he was already enrolled there). I can think of dozens of reasons a young child might walk to school. Parents dropping off and picking up is certainly the ideal situation, when possible, but so many things can come into play to make that impossible, and to make other solutions less workable.
 

Starlight

Senior Community Member
I let my ds walk to school by himself every day, and he's only 5.

But our school is in our dining room. :D I love homeschooling!

No, seriously, if he went to public school, I probably wouldn't let him walk alone until 10 or so. And then, he wouldn't be alone, because I'd insist he walk with a buddy.
 

Michi

Member
LOL Starlight - me too!

Before we decided to homeschool, we bought a house only 1 1/2 blocks from the school where we planned to send our kids. My daughter went there through 2nd grade and I never let her walk by herself in the 3 years she attended there!

Now that she is 9, I DO let her walk (or ride her bike in nice weather) there for piano lessons - (her piano teacher gives lessons there in the late afternoons) - But... all of the 'school traffic' has come and gone, and I watch her walk all the way down the street and cross at the corner. It still makes me nervous though!
 

scatterbunny

New member
Ugh. In my tiny town of about 4,000 people there are 10 sex offenders living within 5 miles of us. :( 5 of them are less than a mile from our house, with schools all around.
 

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