lea_lpz Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 My dd, 8, takes ballet about .5 miles from our home. We live in a relatively quiet, medium size city. She would not need to cross the street more than 3x. It would take maybe 15 minutes to walk, less on a bike. We've walked this route as a family for years. I am considering having her walk there but don't know if she's old enough. I am actually more concerned about the cops knocking on my door than her not getting there safe. She's pretty responsible. I want to let her have some independence and feel parents today are not allowing kids to do that enough but curious what others think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomOfABunch Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I let DS walk to martial arts at that age. It was fine. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 I have a 1 year old and am pregnant. I want to limit our after school activities to 2 a week so I don't feel like I am always driving here and there. Also, my dd only dances one day a week but if she progresses through the levels she'll be taking more classes a week. I want her to be able to dance but not feel like a taxi. That's why I was thinking of letting her do a trial run of walking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aggieamy Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I would have no problem with that at all. I'm probably on the farther side of free range parenting than most Americans though. DD is 11 yo and I'd let her walk or ride her bike about anywhere. (Background - she's also 5'4" and has multiple times proved herself to be completely responsible.) I started letting her run errands into the grocery store with me when she was 8 yo and walking home from neighbor's houses about the distance your DD would have to walk home from gymnastics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 If the route is not patently unsafe, and your daughter is confident, I think it should be developmentally appropriate. Whether the cops / neighbors would complain may depend on your community, and how old your daughter looks/acts. My kids are 8yo and while I would probably let them walk a safe 0.5 mile route to an activity, they would be the only ones doing it in my neighborhood. I don't think anyone would complain, but I'm not sure. I've had my kids walk from one activity to another nearby (maybe 0.25 mile). They had to walk right through the police parking lot to do it, and nobody complained. I've also let them walk to the park a mile away, crossing one side street. But when I mentioned that I look forward to letting them ride their bikes to soccer practice (less than a mile), another soccer mom said our kids are still "so young." That route involves a very busy street with no sidewalks, so I am not sure when I will actually let them do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 With the street crossing, it depends on the child. If there were light-controlled crossings, or if it was very quiet, then I would have let Calvin, but not Hobbes. Hobbes was so much in his head at that age that I didn't trust him crossing roads. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
displace Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 It sounds fine if the street crossings are safe and she acts mature about road crossing. Maybe you can do a trial run with her leading the way (including street safety and talking through what she should do at crossings), and then a real trial where you secretly follow her or follow her a long distance back to really see how she does. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I would be thrilled to allow it! You have to walk almost 2 miles to buy a candy bar here, forget activities, lol. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luuknam Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I would. At that age I was bicycling at least a couple of miles to ballet alone. I've let C walk home from the playground ahead of me since last fall. He doesn't ever get as far ahead as I think he should, because he's overly careful about intersections*, but he definitely got a couple of blocks ahead. Our closest activity is 2.6 miles away or so though, and C's not safe enough yet on the bicycle to bicycle places alone (somehow, he's not as concerned about crossing the street on bike as he is on foot... argh). *If he sees any moving car he'll wait... even if the car is more than a block away and there are stop signs. Then, of course, the car will eventually get to the stop sign, stop, wave C to cross the street, and C will wave at the car to keep going, so eventually the car will go. If there's another car, repeat. Luckily, there aren't many cars, or he'd never get anywhere, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MysteryJen Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I would. And I would be thrilled to have an activity so close! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 depending upon how busy the street is, (and sidewalks etc.) I'd probably let her walk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmandaVT Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I would - we have a 3 mile walk down a very busy road, where cars regularly go 20mph over the 50mph speed limit, with no sidewalks to get anywhere from our house, so I can't. DH and I don't walk on it either, though our nice quiet dirt road is good for walking. But in your situation, as long as the roads weren't too busy with speeding drivers, I'd be fine with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Under those circumstances it sounds reasonable to me that she could handle the walk. Here it's trickier. For example, on many streets people can take a right or left (the left thing is mind boggling to me) even when the walker gets a go. The pedestrian has the right of way, but plenty of drivers ignore that and don't pay careful enough attention. I have almost been hit myself. So trying to get my kids to be aware of that and look for that is going to take longer especially because they don't drive so they might not quite get the concept. They see green "go" and they walk. They don't know they are supposed to also look for drivers potentially crossing their path. Even though there are a lot of pedestrians in my city, the city is poorly set up to accommodate them. I do not enjoy walking around here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 There are two quite points to cross the street, one where she'll walk on a sidewalk by a parking lot, and then the final crossing there is a light / crosswalk. The kids often ride their scooters ahead of me when we walk together and I have at this point trained them to stop at the crossing points and wait for me. We'll probably try the route with letting her cross with me watching a couple times. I do live in what I think is helicopter parent central. Allowing them to ride ahead of me on bikes / scooters on a walking trail has warranted me looks and occasionally people will even comment something negative, to which I have pointed out that they always stop and wait for me at certain points, which they can observe. But seriously it's a walking trail with two very low traffic crossing points. And they are like maybe 1/2 block ahead of me tops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daria Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I think I would have been OK with that around 8 or 9. We lived in an area that sounds similar when DS was that age, and that's when we started things like letting him walk to the store down the street to buy a popsicle with a friend, or letting him go to the schoolyard playground behind our house. Of course, that's my particular kid and that particular neighborhood, when he was 10 we moved to a different neighborhood where I felt that I needed to be more protective. I started things like this with letting my child walk home. I worried that if he didn't make it somewhere, I wouldn't know he was missing for hours, whereas if he didn't make it home I'd figure it out faster. So, maybe the first few times you could walk her then and then let her walk home alone. If that goes well, then move to both directions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 Another time we were at a stroller stride type class in summer and I saw a group of boys between 9-12 maybe riding their bikes together. All wore helmets. When I saw them I smiled. I thought how nice these boys are out having an old fashioned summer instead of at home gaming. Some of the moms were totally dismayed. One was particularly vocal about how irresponsible it was for their parents to let them ride around a quite residential neighborhood "unsupervised". She watched th for quite a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luuknam Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 My dd, 8, takes ballet about .5 miles from our home. Also, in our district, they don't bus kids who live only 0.5 miles away. For the kindergartners, they expect parents to walk their kids to/from school. For 1st grade and up, you can send your kids alone. So, apparently, walking 0.5 miles alone is fine for 6yos around here (actually 5yos, since the cut-off for 1st grade is Dec 1st, so many kids enter 1st grade while they're still 5). That said, they do have crossing guards within the walking area, and not everybody sends their 1st graders alone, but still. 8 is significantly older than 6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 There are two quite points to cross the street, one where she'll walk on a sidewalk by a parking lot, and then the final crossing there is a light / crosswalk. The kids often ride their scooters ahead of me when we walk together and I have at this point trained them to stop at the crossing points and wait for me. We'll probably try the route with letting her cross with me watching a couple times. I do live in what I think is helicopter parent central. Allowing them to ride ahead of me on bikes / scooters on a walking trail has warranted me looks and occasionally people will even comment something negative, to which I have pointed out that they always stop and wait for me at certain points, which they can observe. But seriously it's a walking trail with two very low traffic crossing points. And they are like maybe 1/2 block ahead of me tops. Although you never know. Here I get the impression that parents are not helicopterish at all, but I still rarely see young kids walking alone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyofsixreboot Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I would have no problem with that at all. I'm probably on the farther side of free range parenting than most Americans though. DD is 11 yo and I'd let her walk or ride her bike about anywhere. (Background - she's also 5'4" and has multiple times proved herself to be completely responsible.) I started letting her run errands into the grocery store with me when she was 8 yo and walking home from neighbor's houses about the distance your DD would have to walk home from gymnastics.This Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmrich Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I would practice with her a few times. Does she want to walk it by herself? Can she call from the studio when she arrives just to make you feel better? I think 8 is a bit young to walk alone, but you should use your own judgement. Did you ever read the book, Shelia Rae the Brave? It is a cute book about a mouse girl taking a different way home. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pen Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Assuming you pre-test it and get to where you think she can do it safely in actual fact in terms of watching for traffic etc., I'd probably give a call to police dept. and ask if they consider it okay. If they say yes, write down who you talked to, when etc. for your records. If they say no, ask at what age they consider it okay. And also if there are any specifics you should know about like incidents that have occurred in that area. Also assuming you do it, I'd have a plan in place with the school so that if she were not to arrive when expected you would be alerted immediately rather than them assuming she was late or absent that day. I don't think what some of us did when we were that age are relevant because mores have changed. I went to store alone farther than and almost certainly on busier streets than that when I was 5, but it was not a time or place where/when that raised eyebrows. Now it does and you need to deal with that as a part of life. In fact, if you call police dept, I'd suggest you do it at the same time as she would be doing the walking and try to have your okay from someone who will be there at the right times if some do-gooder sees her and reports the situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rose Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Assuming you pre-test it and get to where you think she can do it safely in actual fact in terms of watching for traffic etc., I'd probably give a call to police dept. and ask if they consider it okay. If they say yes, write down who you talked to, when etc. for your records. If they say no, ask at what age they consider it okay. And also if there are any specifics you should know about like incidents that have occurred in that area. Also assuming you do it, I'd have a plan in place with the school so that if she were not to arrive when expected you would be alerted immediately rather than them assuming she was late or absent that day. I don't think what some of us did when we were that age are relevant because mores have changed. I went to store alone farther than and almost certainly on busier streets than that when I was 5, but it was not a time or place where/when that raised eyebrows. Now it does and you need to deal with that as a part of life. In fact, if you call police dept, I'd suggest you do it at the same time as she would be doing the walking and try to have your okay from someone who will be there at the right times if some do-gooder sees her and reports the situation. I was thinking of suggesting a call to the police too. I really like giving my dc responsibility and trust. I think that they usually rise to occasion. I personally think that 8 is just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AimeeM Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 If we lived that close to an activity, probably 10 or so. Depends on the kid and how busy the street is, I guess. It isn't something we've even considered, though, because we generally live in subdivisions and none of the kids activities are less than a few miles away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 I would. I make my 10 yo walk that far to his music group. He will not only walk, but take the public bus to his ballet this year. I'm soooo looking forward to that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 Make sure the ballet class teacher is Ok with it. I can't even let my 10 yr old walk from her tumbling class to the car outside-I have to sign her out before they'll let her go! Cheer requires an adult sign the kid in-on a U13 team (I wonder if they have the same policy for u18-where some of the kids can drive themselves there!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bettyandbob Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 Make sure the ballet class teacher is Ok with it. I can't even let my 10 yr old walk from her tumbling class to the car outside-I have to sign her out before they'll let her go! Cheer requires an adult sign the kid in-on a U13 team (I wonder if they have the same policy for u18-where some of the kids can drive themselves there!). Definitely. Our ballet school would probably allow arriving on own. There's a lot of curb drop offs so, no requirement to sign in, during the regular curriculum year. When rehearsals ramp up in November and May students have to sign in upon arriving at rehearsal, but not parent. AFTER CLASS students that age are not permitted to leave without a parent. During daylight hours students who at the end on middle school are permitted to leave--after they tell someone something like "my mom texted me she's outside." My dd sometimes drives herself to class. When it is dark someone walks her to the car. This fall dd will be turning 18 and my work schedule will overlap her dance schedule. One place I work is across a plaza from the studio. The studio is going to want me to tell them dd is to come to my work at night after class and I am sure someone will decide they need to watch her walk 50 feet across the plaza into the building. Figure out what the culture and requirements at the studio are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegoat Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 I just want to say I am really glad for this thread. I would like to have my dd10 walk to her violin class, but my husband is resistant. There is one bust street crossing, but there are lights and a lot of middle school kids cross there and I have never heard of an accident. I will tell him that all of the Hive things it is normal for that age! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bettyandbob Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 This reminds of an experience ds had walking home from his French tutor. He was 13. A police officer pulled over to question him. Specifically, the officer asked if school let out early. Ds was 5'11" and looked 16 at the time. He was carrying a backpack and the tutor lived near the high school, so ds was walking away from the high school. Ds just said hecwas homeschooled and walking home from the French tutor. The police offer told him to have a good day and drove off. Dh really freaked out that ds walking home would draw attention and would not let him walk after that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyGF Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 I have my 8 year old bike places. I like that it is faster and people have to try if they want to keep up with her. Sent from my ALCATEL ONE TOUCH Fierce using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lea_lpz Posted August 22, 2015 Author Share Posted August 22, 2015 Thinking of having her ride her bike their EmilyGF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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