Advice Please?

[MyFab4]

What age did you let your children walk to school by themselves? My son is 11 and now wants to walk to school himself on the morninings he has footy training. He has to be there half an hour early on these days. I used to tell him that I had to take his younger sister anyway but it would be too early for her to be at school. I just worry about how will I know he got there. I am thinking of sending him with my old mobile so he can ring me when he gets there. What do others think?

[borntobemummy]

I'm not in your shoes yet, but understand your fears, I've often wondered about that myself. The streets aren't as safe as they used to be when we grew up. Sorry, I can't offer advice, just thought I should say something since I read your post.:o

[jasminesmum]

My kids luckily don't walk that far. We live right next door to the school.:D

I'm not sure if I would let him walk though if it was me. I suppose it would depend on how far it was. Does he have a friend that he could walk with?

[Bubble*Crazy]

We're only about 1 km from school, but saying that my DD is only 6 1/2 and there's no way she's walking on her own! Our neighbour's boy is 11 turning 12 and he walked to school on his own ... so I think it depends on how responsible they are and how far away you are from school.

I'm pretty happy to think that if I couldn't take DD to school, I'd let her walk with the neighbour's boy (he's happy to take her), but we are only a short distance from the school.

Perhaps you can ask the coach to send you a text when he gets there and obviously you just let the coach know if your is not going/sick etc so he/she's not worried either.

Maybe trial it once or twice, and see how he goes and how you feel about it, and then make a decision on what works best for you all.

It'd be such a big decision to make as I feel I'll always see my kids as babies and little kids - even when they're 25 :laughing:!

[gremily]

I was in year 7 (12 yrs old) when my parents let me walk/ride to school.

There are child mobile phones (not exactly sure what they're called) that you can program in ph numbers and the child can only call those numbers.

A boy (9yrs old) in dd1's class has one and calls his parents when he's leaving school. They know it will take him 10 minutes to walk home.

I have no idea how expensive these are, but I think they're a fantastic idea.


Dd1 would have walked to school if we still lived in country SA as we only lived down the road from the school (about 100m)!!
Now we live in innerwest Sydney and walk almost 1km to get to dd1's school. We have to cross Parramatta Rd and to many other rds without lights that I don't think dd1 (almost 9) is old enough to be doing this by herself.

Every child is different though and so are the circumstances. It'll probably be a few years before i allow dd1 to walk to school by herself. Even then I'd probably start off by walking 50-100m behind her for awhile just to make sure everything was alright!

[taragirl]

I think it depends on the individual child. My DS is in grade 5 (turning 10 this yr) and walks to and from school. He walked some days last year too. He has his own key so he can get in if I am not at home but he then has to call me to let me know he is home. He has certain rules ie. no answering phone or door, no going outside, etc.

My nephew is very close in age to my DS, but there is no way he could walk to and from school. He is just not responsible enough.

We (DS and I) have regular talks on what to do and what not to do.

cheers!

[bossoflatch]

There are child mobile phones (not exactly sure what they're called) that you can program in ph numbers and the child can only call those numbers.


they are called tictalks from telstra - they are a great idea and they even have eduational games on them .. only need to have a small plan too..

you could look into that ..
hth
leisa