I will say this just to reassure people that not all Other People’s Kids are overprotected: the kids next door and across the street from me (middle/high school aged) both wait for the bus at the end of their driveways, unsupervised. I don’t know why they don’t wait together, but knowing the shifting, unreasonable social structure of Kids Their Age I don’t question it.
The bus stop for my daughter (third grade) actually is in front of our house, but there are only 2 kids on our block who go to that school, so it’s either our house, or the boy down the block. I don’t stand out front with her – she dashes out on her own.
My son goes down the block and around the corner to get on the bus for middle school, with 3 or 4 other kids, and no parents. BUT, on my way to work, I pass a subdivision with about a dozen kids waiting for the middle school bus – and always 2-3 moms and at least an SUV and minivan :rolleyes:.
When my son was in first grade, he actually walked farther to the bus stop than he does now in 6th grade, all by himself, too. I’ve worked with the kids, they know how to be safe, and it does neither of us any good to have me hovering over them.
My daughter had to start school on her 3rd birthday due to a speech delay. (She is doing great, btw, and is throwing out new words all the time now. WooHoo!) Due to her age and speech delay, there is no freakin’ way I would put her on a bus with fifth graders. Great, there is a special bus for her.
We don’t need to use the bus yet, since my husband lost his job and can drop her off and pick her up. However. HOWEVER. The line to pick her up at school starts to form an HOUR before school lets out. So here is this mile long line of minivans, idling away for an hour. I’m in Florida and it is too freakin’ hot to sit in a car without the air. Gas $4.00 a gallon didn’t slow them down at all.
We finally figured out, go about 5 min before school ends. Park, grab our kid, and leave.
There is an elementary school about 3 blocks from my house, across a busy road that has two crossing guards. I’d guess about 10 kids total walk to school. A neighborhood of 900 houses.
I picked my daughter up last week and got to see quite a sight. These two women, dressed to the absolute nines, walking up to the school to get the kids. I have no idea how these women walked very far with 4 inch heels, but by god, it was rather different than the sloppy, rolled out of bed, barely dressed mothers I typically see. Like two brightly colored peacocks strutting among pigeons.
It’s amusing to see all the “back in my day, we wandered the streets unsupervised and walked 40 miles to school uphill both ways” posts. Yeah, and your parents probably smoked in the car with the windows rolled up and you in the front passenger seat not wearing seatbelts, too.
While your tales of youthful self-sufficiency are indeed heartwarming, they have eff-all to do with what’s going on today. For every parent idling their SUV 30 yards from the house, there’s probably 3 parents who just like to hang out with their kids and neighbors and don’t think everybody’s a child molester.
There’s more strawmen than a scarecrow factory in here.
Apparently you haven’t passed a bus stop in the last five years. It’s been at least that long since I’ve seen a kid younger than high school waiting without a parent, and I pass at least a dozen or so on the way to work. Unfortunately, that’s literal, not hyperbole.
In most cases there’s only one adult, so your chatting theory doesn’t hold water either.
Apparently, you don’t know what you’re talking about, concerning my situation. The school bus stop is right across the street from my house, and I have 3 kids, two of whom are in elementary school. I know what goes on at my kids’ bus stop.
Anecdotal yes, but so are the other anecdotes in this thread.
There’s about 8-10 kids waiting for the elementary bus at our corner bus stop every morning, and none of their parents wait with them. I also pass a lot of school bus stops on the way to dropping MiniWhatsit off at preschool, and there is nary a parent in sight at any of them. The kids range from early elementary to high school age.
I’ve read this sentence ten times, but I still can’t make any sense of it. How is starting school at age three any kind of delay? Kindergarten is for five-year-olds, and even pre-Kindergarten is made up of four-year-olds, so… 
Maybe it’s a location thing? Are you in a rural area?
Then again, that doesn’t explain An Arky’s experience in Arlington.
Honestly, I’m not indulging in hyperbole. I haven’t seen one, and I pass dozens of children every day.
ETA: I realized that this seems to conflict with my earlier statement. I pass at least a dozen pre-high school bus stops, containing a couple of dozen children.
First off, sorry for being snippy, Risha…sometimes the fingers outpace the brain…
My experience may not necessarily be typical; I live in a close-in, but safe and pleasant suburb of DC. For one thing, the elementary schools are on a different schedule than the middle school and high school, therefore it’s all elementary school kids at the bus stop when my kids are there. I think it’s far less of a helicoptering situation in that case…generally speaking, there’s probably about 8-10 kids at the stop, maybe half of whom are in 3rd grade or under, and maybe 4-6 parents or nannies. The middle school is about 200 yards from my house, so obviously, the bus for them doesn’t stop here. Not sure about high school.
I know all the parents at the stop; sure, the parents of the youngest ones are there to make sure they get on the bus, don’t get hit by a car, etc. The 4th & 5th graders’ parents generally aren’t there, although I have a 1st grader & 5th grader, and another neighbor has a kindergartner and a 4th grader (I think), so one of us usually is. Nobody drives their kids to the bus stop; that would be weird!
But I’ll bet everybody’s situation is different, so my two cents might not be worth much.
raises hand semi-ashamedly
For me, it’s just preemptive parenting.
My kidlet is in fourth grade this year and I still walk her to the stop every morning and stay with her until the bus comes. Thankfully, to her that ten minutes of waiting is Fun Time. She teaches me those silly clapping games and stuff since she’s the only one at that bus stop.
As a previous poster mentioned, this is my way of ensuring she gets on the damned bus… but I don’t tell her that. Littlest would be perfectly happy to “accidentally” not attend school on any given day, though she’s pretty resigned to her fate once she’s there.
To prevent cries of helicopter parenting, often on the weekends I do shove her out the door and say “go find something to do, come back at lunch.” When she doesn’t have to be anywhere, she can wander the neighborhood all she pleases. But if I got all the way to work and get a call from the school three hours later asking if I just forgot to call my kid out sick because she’s not there… let’s just say I’d be more than crabby.
Weft
No problem. I was snippy the first time too!
Oh, I’m quite sure this varies heavily by location. I’m in a largeish metropolitan area, although the particular neighborhood where I live has a more suburban feel. (Probably because it used to BE the suburbs until about 10-15 years ago, when it got slurped up by the city.) The stops I pass on the way to preschool are all in central Columbus.