Kidswalking at night

In My Humble Opinion
1

We live in a very quiet suburb of Chicago. My eldest daughter is 14 1/2, will be a freshman this fall. My other 2 kids are almost 13 and almost 12. Our house is on one of the main streets in town (one lane each way, no parking allowed.) We are less than a mile from the high school - essentially straight up our street. Every cross street has stop signs, and she would not have to cross any really busy streets.

One of the reasons we bought our house was because it is within easy walking/biking distance of so many things. Besides not wanting to spend all of our time driving our kids around, we think walking and biking are healthier, better for the environment, etc. And our kids are pretty good about getting around on their own.

But my eldest daughter has started HS band practice, which ends at 9 p.m. And she has been objecting to walking home alone. Says she is not “comfortable” with it.

The 1st week she walked part of the way home with a friend, and the rest herself. Yesterday, that friend wasn’t there, so she cadged a ride from another friend’s parent. Said she was worried a car might hit her while crossing a street. The first week, she said after her friend’s house, she walked quickly while singing out loud. I guess I should ask exactly what she is uncomfortable of. Sounds almost as tho she is trying to scare away the bogeyman!

We’d just as soon have her get used to walking herself. We don’t want her inconveniencing other kids’ parents, and don’t want her to create a feeling that we owe her friends rides on other occasions. Moreover, at some point we will have 3 kids in HS at the same time. We want them to be as independent as possible getting to and from their extracurricular and social activities.

Any thoughts? How old is old enough to walk how far how late? How do we go about convincing her to be careful but not overly scared?

2

I walked EVERYWHERE when I was a teenager. I lived in a small town, so safety wasn’t an issue. It was also possible to walk just about everywhere in town in 30-45 minutes. As long as there’s no real safety issues, I’d encourage your daughter to walk. It’s great exercise, and I firmly believe that parents are not obligated to cart their kids to every after school activity. Especially when the kid is a teenager - if she’s anything like I was, she can easily find something she wants to do every day of the week.

I remember plenty of nights that I walked home in 10 degree weather with snow up to my knees. It builds character!

3

I’ve always walked everywhere myself, and I agree totally about fostering independence in your kids. But a 14 year old girl on a quiet dark street is rather a vulnerable figure.

I wonder if she has experienced some harrassment. She may have had a creep follow her or try to talk to her, or jerks yelling out of their car windows, and be too embarrassed to tell you.

Could you send her brothers to walk her home at that time of night? Safety in numbers.

4

I remember walking home from school in broad daylight by myself in broad daylight as a young teen and having people men yell out of their car windows at me. I even had one guy stop to “give me a ride”.

If she isn’t comfortable walking at night by herself then I wouldn’t make her. It is dangerous. Even as an adult I don’t run after dark by myself. She should walk with a friend or get a lift.

5

AFAIK, she has not experienced any such unpleasantries.
Her siblings are both younger than her.
I recommended to her the option of riding her bike - all of our bikes have lights on them. If they aren’t going to be used after dark, I wonder what use they are?
And the street is not all that quiet and dark. Like I said, it is one of the more main streets in town. There are at least occasional cars on it until much later than 10.
And I guess I feel the need to emphasize that our town is really quite quiet, upper middle class, with no history of significant violent crime I am aware of. I know I am a guy, but in my youth we practically LIVED in the alleys in Chicago after dark.

My youngest daughter disliked going into the basement or upstairs by herself. But we wouldn’t let this irrational and unfounded fear dictate our household dynamics.

6

Maybe she just doesn’t feel safe. Perhaps if she feels like she can physically protect herself then walking alone might not be so scary.

I would talk to her and try find out exactly what she’s afraid of. Is it the fact that it’s dark, that she’s alone, are there dogs roaming the neighborhood? The bogeyman, as you called it, may have a name, face, and address. Perhaps the bogeyman is just some creep that makes rude comments to her as she passes his house, or some random guys whistling from the car. She may have a fear based on a very real experience and this is the perfect opportunity to help her through it. Maybe something happened to one of her friends, or she watched a movie that has put ideas in her head, maybe she’s just scared.

I know that we all have to face our fears in order to overcome them, you should help her face hers by having her identify what she’s really uncomfortable with.

my $0.02

7

Ask her how she could feel more confident. Self-defense classes? If she’s afraid, then I think you should help her out–either send someone to meet her and walk with her, pick her up, or help her to become confident.

I would not advise a 14-yo girl to walk along at night. How do you think she’d react if something really happened? Is she old enough and self-confident enough to scream and yell and punch, or would she fold up, as many girls would? What about verbal harassment, which many grown women can’t handle?

8

I’m 15 and I live in a neighborhood that’s pretty safe, but I won’t walk around here at night unless I’m with friends. Once, I saw someone following my friend and I as we headed back to my house, but didn’t say anything to her, thinking it was probably nothing. Later that night she asked me if she had seen someone following us, I told her that I did.

Other times when I walk around with friends at night guys will offer us rides and ask if we’ve got boyfriends. Maybe that sort of thing has happened with your daughter. I think you need to find out specifically what she’s afraid of, to know how to deal with it. If it has to do with being followed or something of that nature I’d say that you should find another arrangement for walking at night. However, since your daughter has told you about having to walk quickly and sing to herself, I think if someone was following her she’d most likely have told you.

9

Seconds on the suggestion of self-defense or martial arts classes – not with the mindset of running her through a few classes and then turning her loose on the streets, but rather with the goal of confidence building. Most if not all of the self-defense books and articles I’ve read say that a woman whose stride and bearing exude confidence makes a less likely target. Your daughter may also feel safer in any questionable situation if she knows she can defend herself. (Standard caveats about fighting an armed attacker, etc.)

You might want to consider signing up the whole family, or making it a mother-daughter or father-daughter activity, if sending her alone would make her feel put-upon or embarrassed.

10

Thinking back to when I was in high school, I realize although I got to and from activities and social events independently in terms of no rides from parents, very little of that traveling was done alone. Most of it was with friends.I might walk a few blocks from a friends house or the bus or train alone at night,but there was only one street that I was comfortable walking any distance alone at night. It wasn’t the biggest or most heavily traveled street in the neighborhood. It was the street that had the most stores still open late at night Nearly every block had an either an all-night deli, a pizzeria,or a Chinese restaurant. And probably because those stores were open, there were other people walking on the street at all hours. I wasn’t exactly worried about not being attacked or even harassed, and I wasn’t exactly worried about not being able to protect myself.But I think on some level* I knew that if I had any trouble, this was the street I wanted to have it on. You said the street your daughter would be walking on is a major street, but are there open stores and pedestrian traffic, or is it residential? That might be part of the reason for her discomfort.

  • Years later,when my sister-in-law was talking about moving from the city to a suburban/rural area, she told me a story about being followed on this street as a teenager (part of the reason she wanted to leave the city). She ended up ducking into a store. Without even thinking, my response was " At least there was a store to duck into"
11

You need to understand that the world is a different place to a girl than it is to a boy. Your daughter may not be able to tell you what she is afraid of because you are projecting the attitude that she is being silly and lazy. The above comments about things that may have happened to her are very valid…they are things that seem innocent or silly to you, but may be worrisome to her. Women view the world around then differently than men do, and some men are very surprised to discover this. Or to find out the child has a different personality than they planned for.

An example…a man walks to his car in the evening after work, gets in and drives off. A woman walks to her car, keys in hand to use as a weapon and to reduce fumbling time at the door. We walk head up, paying attention to everyone around and staying in the light. While approaching the car we check the back seat to make sure no one is there, and may walk past our car if someone is loitering nearby. If a van is parked next to the drivers side, we are especially vigilant. We get in, lock the door. Don’t roll the window down until we’re on the road. We watch to see if anyone seems to be following us, and we stay on the main roads. And this is the behavior of the normal woman, not the paranoid one. The world is a scarier place for girls, and we’ve been taught to be careful, and vigilant, and frightened.

So cut your daughter some slack, and have mom talk to her and find out what bothers her on her walk home.

12

Yes, I meant the self-defense classes as a confidence-building thing. Your daughter will want to develop a “don’t mess with me” persona–often difficult for a teenage girl to do (and heaven knows I’ve never succeeded, despite efforts–I have ‘harass me’ written on my forehead in neon, apparently).

Your daughter may enjoy one or more of those ‘Fear’ books by Gavin de Becker. Basic premises include
-don’t worry about everything that could happen
-trust intuition and fear as survival tools–your subconscious works very fast and notices things you don’t
-don’t be afraid to be rude or assertive

13

And still, I wouldn’t recommend a 14-yo girl walking alone at night.

Also, have you thought that a girl who walks a similar route every night is an easy target for observation and planning by a creep?

KittenBlue makes some great points. Life is very very different for us female types.

14

I agree walking alone is dangerous. I mean even as a 16 year old boy walking around at night, standing over 6’ I got propositioned by wierd men wanting to ‘give me rides’ or ‘give me a blowjob and let me look at some porn.’ And this was in Hawaii and even Waikiki. Some of the safest places in America.

Perhaps your daughter is also worried about the seeming rash of kidnappings recently of girls just her age.

I say bite the bullet and do what you can to make accomodations for her. Can you or your spouse drive her? Do you have a nephew nearby that you can maybe pay to walk her home? Or maybe make arrangements with other parents to set up a “carpool” where they take turns driving kids home. Actually I think this last one is a great idea.

15

Something you may not have considered:

The source of her anxiety might be in another thread of yours-the one about quiting drinking…if you think your kids never knew when Daddy was geezed,you’re fooling yourself…& just as you’re going thru a period of adjustment; they are too. That may come down on her in the quiet time when she’s walking home alone. Or it may be a control issue. If she can make Daddy pick her up from band practice,she knows he’s not home getting blasted. Or she could be afraid if she walks home with another kid, they’ll see Daddy drinking…again.

Just something to think about…

16

Thinking back to my teenhood. I walked places at night. But alone? Not without high anxiety. And this from a kid who used to take off on weekends to hike in the mountains alone - when I was SEVEN. (don’t tell my mom!) I also had the backup (as a teen) of knowing I could release my personal cache of rage on anyone at any time as needed - basically I knew I would be willing to kill someone who attacked me. I knew I might not succeed, but it was a boost to the confidence knowing I was willing to. Still, wouldn’t walk alone at night if I could help it. Had to, sometimes, but hated it. Had to be hypervigilant, which is exhausting, too.

Add the complications of media anxiety, family dynamics (issues as noted), and so forth, and you’ll have quite the quivering mess on your hands.

Self defense classes are, IMHO, a good idea at this age, regardless of whether she has to walk home alone or not. 14 is a very rough age for a lot of girls. There is a lot of jockeying for social position, a lot of peer pressure (which may just add stress, but that’s enough!), and also a lot of trying to figure out who she is as a person and specifically as a female person. The last item is another HUGE anxiety producer, and given your own situation, it may well be harder for her - many girls evaluate their gender value based on their relationships with the adult men in their lives. If your attention is elsewhere, it is harder for her to evaluate herself accurately, IMHO. More anxiety. She can probably handle most of the anxiety most of the time, but alone in the dark, anxieties you’ve suppressed tend to come out and walk in the shadows next to you.

So, my advice? 1) suggest self defense classes - the total attack-your-attacker version, not just how to hit and block. 2) talk to her about what it is like to be a girl, now, where you live. I don’t think that will be too hard for you. It might be enlightening, if she’s willing to really talk about it. Good habit to get into, btw, evening talks with teens. 3) Manage the anxiety with support, rather than dumping her in the deep end and asking her to swim. At some ages, dump and swim works. This, IMHO, isn’t one of them - it is too complex to handle that way without firing off some bad side effects in unexpected areas. 4) Ask her about other ways to solve the problem - enlist her as an ally (assuming you haven’t already). This will also help her confidence, and give her additional ways to evaluate herself in relationship to you.

That’s the sum of my advice. Good luck!

17

What Kittenblue said. For women, the night takes on whole new meanings than it does for men. Even in the most affluent peaceful areas, the threat of violence, particularly sexual violence, is always there. The kind of violence that men perceive facing is usually violence that they can avoid (by not starting fights and that sort of thing) whereas the violence that women perceive facing is random. There really is a bogeyman. Even if that threat is really unlikely, the fear is still there and is so deep rooted that it takes a lot for grown women to get over it, much less fourteen years olds.

Added to that is that this is the age when she’s probably first hearing stories from her classmates about rape. It’s sad, but true. Any school probably has enough kids by age fourteen with stories of sexual violence to tell to scare the wits out of anyone.

I don’t think she is being unreasonable here. I don’t know what it is like to live in a quiet affluent place, but when I was her age I wasn’t even allowed to be skulking around town at night, even with friends, much less expected to do it alone. Even today, in the decent area and armed to the teeth with pepper spray, when I walk home at night I watch for shadows approuching from behind, keep an eye out for lighted houses to duck into should trouble happen, regulate my pace so I don’t draw attention to myself but can run if I need to, and it still freaks me out every single time I have to pass a man on the street.

18

Wow, I guess I’m always a bit oblivious or maybe just overconfident. I walk around town all the time, alone, and at night. In high school, I didn’t have a car, so after work (which I also walked to, but it was only a few blocks from school) I’d have to walk a mile or so across a field (now a research park) to get to the bus-stop. I was never really worried about it, but then, I did always have my clarinet case, which would probably make a pretty fair blunt instrument.

19

One solution you might want to look into is getting her a cell phone.

Anyone that spends a lot of time out at alone ought to have one. My cell phone does a lot to calm my anxieties. I know that if there is trouble, I can easily call the police. When I am in situations that are really sketchy, often I will call (or pretend to call) a friend or family member and chat as I walk, occasionally mentioning my location. I figure that anyone with bad designs on me will be far less likely to do anything if they know I am in contact with someone that knows exactly where I am. People look for easy tagets, and a person with a cell phone is not an easy target.

I’d also suggest pepper spray, but most schools wouldn’t like that much. While cell phones arn’t usually allowed in schools, as long as she keeps it on silent during class and doesn’t cause a distraction with it, nobody will bother her. Even if she does get caught, it will just get confinscated (and you can probably easily get it returned if you explain the situation). I wouldn’t tell the school about it, though, because they would probably make her keep it in the office during school hours, which is far more trouble than simply keeping it quiet. Sometimes personal safety is more important than blanket rules.

There are very reasonable family plans out there, and chances are your daughter would be so psyched on the idea of having a cell phone that she’d be happy to walk a million miles just to have it. It might be just what she needs to get the confidence to do her own thing. Plus, as she gets older and starts spending more time away from home, it will provide a good way for you to still keep tabs on her while allowing her independence.

20

Thanks for all the feedback.

I don’t know if it is the determinative factor, but this daughter is very conservative, and tends to shy away from certain new things.

Regarding self defense, I trained various forms of martial arts focusing on practical self defense for more than a decade, and I competed in stickfighting, jiu-jitsu, and NHB. This daughter is a dancer, and her footwork translates very nicely into stick and knife work. She also has a flair, as well as my son, for grappling. My youngest daughter prefers kickboxing. And they all have the green light to throw kicks into my thighs or punches into my gut anytime I am not carrying something fragile. So the concept of self defense exists in out house.

But, a couple of caveats. With my limited experience in self defense matters, I have limited faith in a kid’s ability to effectively defend themselves against an adult - especially if the kid is unarmed and the adult is armed. And we do not allow our kids to carry fighting knives - YMMV, but I believe carrying a good knife and knowing how to pull and use it is the most effective equalizer for a woman.

Further, I simply do not believe that there is a significant risk to THIS person walking THIS route at THIS time of the evening. No, I am not saying there is NO risk. But for crying out loud! She could die slipping and falling in the bathtub. I do not believe we ought to style our lives in a manner that we are attempting to insulate ourselves from every conceivable worst case scenario. I honestly believe she is at more risk during the day, when there is more traffic. Either harried parents driving around during the day, or commuters trying to get home as quickly as possible in the evening and rolling through stop signs or making turns without adequately checking for pedestrians/cyclists.

What is the most likely “bad thing” that will happen? Some jerks will holler at her. Or some creep will follow her. If that happens, it will suck, and we’ll address it. But how likely is it that she will actually be physically assaulted? Or am I a total irresponsible jerk for attempting to calculate such risks in terms of my children’s safety?

As far as risks are concerned, in our town I believe a far greater and more realistic risk is for kids to fall in with “the bad crowd.” There seem to be a lot of kids who have too much money, too much free time, and not enough parental supervision. I think she would be far safer walking home from band practice at 9 p.m., than spending the evening at some of the “parties” these kids have.

I talked to her - she has not experienced any “bad experiences” such as you suggest. At one point, the street crosses train tracks, and then a bicycle path. The area is quite open at that point with no bushes for “bad guys” to hide in, and there is a convenience store on one side of the street. The rest of the way home - 3 blocks, is residential.

We do not let our kids go along the bike path by themselves. There are some parts - far from crossing roads - where it gets quite isolated. Heck - a couple of years ago I was hiking with my kids off the path and we found a dead body! If anything bad WERE to happen, I believe that is where it would happen. So my kid says she’s worried about the area around the bike path. But I don’t think that type of fears are realistic for the area right where I am talking about.

Also, she says she is worried that a car will not see her in the dark.

And thanks for the observations concerning gender difference. At various points I questioned how good I needed to be at self defense. I am 6’3", 200#. If I convey confidence, and stay out of obviously dangerous environments, the chances are mighty slim that a predator will select me for his victim. It is hard for a big healthy guy to imagine what it would be like to be a smaller, weaker woman.

I suggested a couple of options to my daughter. A whistle, that she could blow if anything bothered her. Or a light she could carry or strap on her arm to make herself visible to traffic. And I suggested trying to wear light colored clothes to increase her visibility. As well as wearing gym shoes to be able to run. I also suggested her bike on the sidewalks, as that would be faster than pedestrians, and the light and reflectors could increase her visibility.

The cell phone is a good idea. We don’t need to give her her own. She could just take ours on these occasions.

Thanks again.