My eldest son is in first grade. Every morning I drive him to school, and walk him to class. I just assumed this was normal, as most of the other parents in his class do the same.
My mom came by at Thanksgiving and told me (I didn’t remember that far back) that I was walking alone to school when I was in kindergarten. This was a one mile walk and crossed at least one major street (although not in the snow, uphill both ways, etc.). And that was considered pretty normal.
We don’t even let my son walk across the street to his friend’s house by himself. And this is a very unbusy street in a very safe neighborhood. Again, I just assumed this to be the norm, as all the similar parents I know do the same.
What is the norm now-a-days for kids walking to school, or leaving the house on their own?
Things have really changed. I walked a long way to kindergarten, which for me was back in ‘61, mostly a rural walk with one very busy, scary road. I was fine. Later I had a more urban walk, a good twenty minutes. I always walked.
Our kids had a short but dodgy 15 minute walk with two very busy streets to cross, parts of the walk have no sidewalks, and no crossing guard. (Remember crossing guards?) The major streets are very busy indeed, and not to be trifled with. A girl once crossed against the light, was hit by a car and sustained a broken pelvis.
Our older kid had older friends to walk with, and I let him walk at kindergarten age after walking with him the first month. By fifth grade he was riding his bike.
The younger one just had one other friend his age, and we grownups took turns walking with them. When winter, with icy streets arrived, we sometimes carpooled.
In terms of leaving the house alone, my kids never had to do this, but there was a period of time, during the kids’ elementary days, when I was constantly late to work. My boss, a mom herself, was pretty understanding.
I walk with my son to Kindergarten which is about a block and a half away. I’m not sure yet at what age I’ll just kick him out the door and say “go to school.”
We always lived far enough from school that my daughter took the bus. Until high school - we’re just inside the pedestrian limit. But she drives herself and has for the last 2 years, so it’s no biggie.
I was also just across the line for bussing in junior high - I had to walk. It was uphill both ways, I grew up in a town in a valley. I lived on top of one hill, the junior high was almost at the top of the opposite hill. So each way had at least one fairly large hill. Grr. And being Minnesota, of course it snowed.
I started walking to elementary school is first grade, but if I had kids no way would I allow it. Maybe when the kid was in 4th-5th grade, but everything is worse these days, from people to traffic.
When my daughter was in 1st grade and my son in kindergarten they walked a couple of blocks to the bus stop each morning. They walked with another neighborhood kid who was in 2nd grade. They’ve been doing it now for almost 9 years and we’ve never had any problems other than little spats with other kids at the bus stop.
There was an incident at another bus stop a couple of years ago, where a kid was attacked by a dog, but that was a one-time incident and hasn’t kept anyone from sending their kids out each morning.
My kids take a bus, but it’s a walking distance to the bus stop. If it’s nice out I walk up with them, if it’s bad weather I drive them up. They are 11 and 9 years old.
We live in a rural area and they get on the bus at 7:00 A.M. I don’t like to send them by themselves that early in the morning. Nobody’s really around and I worry about it.
When I was 8 years old, I walked to school, which was about a mile away. In that case, no one was home to take me to school, so there was no choice.
It all depends on the maturity of the kids and how safe you feel your neighborhood is. My 11 is super smart and very mature for his age. He know all the rules and I can trust him to do what he’s supposed to do. My 9 year old is easily distracted and fools around a lot, so I wouldn’t let her walk home by herself.
I won’t let my daughter walk to school alone (kindergarten). She walks home with her brother (3rd grade) and she has a little posse of friends she’s developed, several of whom live on her way home. She has a friend who lives right up by the school, and I let her bike there by herself…I walk up to the corner of my street, from where I can see her friend’s house, and I watch her bike there. When she’s ready to come home, I walk back to the corner and watch her ride home.
We live really close to the school and we’re in your average middle-class suburban neighborhood.
Her brother can walk to school by himself, no problem.
I don’t think the world is much more dangerous for any given socio-economic level than it ever was. What has changed is the amount of news we receive.
In 1960 when a child was attacked someplace, nobody outside that county knew about it. Now the whole nation sees it on CNN or whoever. The perception is greatly increased danger, the reality is no material change.
I don’t have kids, but if I did they’d be walking / biking to school from kindergarten on, just as I did in the 1960s-1970s.
Driving kids to the bus stop? Sheesh! (long rural distances excepted). Walking them from the school entrance to their classroom? Double-sheesh. The first couple of times until they learn to find their way around the school, sure, but after that?
In kindergarten and first grade, I had to walk 0.75 miles to and from school and then home and back at lunch also - we were 10 feet before the “cut-off” for being allowed to stay at school for lunch. 0.75 is a looooong way to walk when you’re five. This was the major factor in our moving to another neighborhood where the school was 0.10 mile away because the school district just wouldn’t budge on this rule, despite the fact that my mother worked (no father in the picture), so a 5-year-old was not only walking home for lunch but was preparing the lunch. My mother tried to have someone come over and make lunch as often as possible but as one can imagine, most people are not willing to take a 1-hour-a-day job. And people wonder why single mothers sometimes choose to go on welfare rather than work and put their kids in this situation. (Not that my mom did but I wouldn’t have blamed her.) Well, that’s a topic for another thread.
I don’t have kids but there is no way in hell I’d ever let them walk that far to school or anywhere at that age. These days I wouldn’t let a 5-year-old walk next door without my watching.
I walked to my urban school accompanied from day one (1987), by age nine I was allowed to walk with a friend. It was about a mile or a mile and a half over two main roads and an abandoned railway track. I was fine. I concur with LSL, I don’t think the world is more dangerous nowadays, I think people are more afraid but that’s not the same thing. However, the increased traffic on the roads from the school run must go some way to increase the danger on the roads at that time.
when i was in third or fourth grade i remember walking to school. it was a couple of miles away however the bus ride took ust as long as the walk, and i liked the walk better. i never told my mom however as she thought i was walking to the bus stop the whole and she would have got mad had she known as thought it was to far someone my age to walk alone.
Depends on how far it is to the school, whether the kid has older siblings to walk with, how busy the roads are, what kind of neighborhoods s/he has to walk through, etc.
I’m pretty sure I was walking by myself to and from school twice a day by first grade (came home for lunch) but I lived 7 houses from the elementary school. The kids within 4 blocks or so all walked, that I know of. Of course, you couldn’t get any safer than our neighborhood.
We were allowed to cross the street by ourselves to go to our friends across the street (if we asked permission first) by the time we were kindergarten age. Of course, we were good about looking both ways.
If your kid isn’t up to the responsibility, or if you don’t want to relinquish it yet, then, no biggie.
That’s what I’m wondering, and I suspect the answer is that it’s not that much more dangerous now. Furthermore, in my case, I grew up in humbler surroundings than my kids do, so it’s very likely that it’s actually less dangerous for them.
I have a theory that this whole thing is similar to seat belts. The fact is cars are far safer now then they were when I was a kid (I’m 39). And the truth is that statistically not that many people died from not wearing their seatbelt, compared to other ways of dying. But nonetheless, when you did need a seatbelt (i.e. when you were in a crash), it was statistically a good thing to have. Likewise with walking to school. The fact is that there really aren’t very many kids that are kidnapped or molested or hurt, compared to other crimes or other newsworthy incidents. But when a potential molester is about, it’s far better if a parent is around.
I waked about 3/4 mi. to kindergarten with my older sister. Since kindergarten was only half day, way back in 1951, I waked home by myself. Small town, no traffic. In fact the road wasn’t paved.
I walked or rode my bike to school, except jr. high when I rode the bus.
My kids always rode the bus. They walked the block to and from the bus stop alone.
In the 70s, I walked about half a mile or more to the bus stop, then took a ten minute bus ride to school. I was under five years of age when I started doing this. I had a sister for company - she was seven. It was semi-rural, but some busy-ish traffic.
My son has just turned six now, and he is taken into the school grounds, and I don’t leave until I see his teacher filing the line of pupils into the building. In the afternoon, I go inside the classroom itself, and my son is released to me. One time, the babysitter was supposed to pick him up but was delayed: I received a phone call at work telling me nobody had picked him up. Now when I was in kindergarten, I’d just have charged out with all the others when the bell rang, and the teacher wouldn’t even know where I’d gone.
I walked home from (but not to for some reason - probably because our parents wanted to make sure we actually got there on time) school from Kindergarden to 4th grade ('89-'94) with three of my friends. I don’t remember the exact distance, but it took a little while to get back home (walking through the suburbs) and we only had to cross one busy street. It was pretty nice, really.