If you don’t let your kids walk to and from school then they wont be able to tell their own kids later on about how they…“walked to school ten miles every day! In the snow! Barefoot! And I never complained.” And would you want to deny your grandkids that classic parental chestnut?
In fourth and fifth grade, I walked about 7 blocks to school, and back again, and then let myself into the house with my own key an hour or two before Mom came home. Sixth grade, I went to a school that was too far to walk, but got there via public transportation (4 blocks from home to the bus stop, about six blocks from the bus stop to school), again on my own. The worst that ever happened to me was that beggars asked me for money a couple of times.
That’s what the parents of Etan Patz thought
And now kids think it’s funny to pretend to fall into traffic themselves or push a friend into traffic (and, of course, saunter slowly across the crosswalk as traffic waits for them). I think kids are getting very skewed ideas about sidewalk/traffic safety and their role in it. This is especially dangerous in snowy areas where traffic is supposed to stop for pedestrians, but it isn’t always physically possible.
yeah, well, Tim McLean thought he was safe getting on that bus too.
Dunno 'bout anyone else, but I’ll still be getting on buses regardless.
What exactly are you asserting here? That kids have just started to goof around along roadsides and that it is because they don’t walk to school?
I don’t think fear of predators is the main reason parents drive their kids to school. Today most families do not have a stay-at-home parent; all parents work. This radically affects the morning routine in most houses. It is a real challenge for a working parent to:
a) get ready for work
b) get the child fed and ready for school
c) get the child out the door with enough time to walk to school
d) do all this with enough time to get to work
With this challenge, I can see why a lot of parents would just drop their kids off on the way to work (and maybe even let the kid finish breakfast in the car).
The parent might also be reluctant to let the child walk to school while they themsevles are commuting and unavailable. If there is an accident on the way, the parents won’t be around to help.
Not to mention that the parents are already used to driving and picking up their child because they were likely doing it for daycare.
Like I said in my previous post, I believe that kids are getting a skewed/unrealistic view of their relationships to vehicles, and pretending to push each other into traffic is a symptom of this. I wonder how it affects kids when they are walking with their parents, and all the vehicles on the road are expected to slow down for them in the school and playground zones, but when they’re in the SUV/minivan driving with their parents, their parents don’t slow down at all. I don’t know if kids are aware enough to notice this dichotomy, but if they do, I’d guess it adds to their skewed worldview.
I think there’s also this whole “think of the children” attitude that is around now. What, you mean you let your kid walk to school and buy a sticky bun for breakfast along the way - what sort of parent are you?
I remeber cycling about 5km when I was in primary (elementary) school form about the age of 9 or so (when we moved house).
Secondary school I was on the rural bus route so we bussed, my final year I moved to the city (went boarding) and had a 10 minute cycle…
This is shaping up as more of a poll than a debate, so it is off to IMHO.
Which is too bad because we just had a poll thread about this topic. It would be more interesting as a debate.
Thanks Cat Whisperer. I saw your two previous posts, but I don’t really follow. Has there been a rash of kids goofing around, pushing each other into streets? I haven’t really noticed any news articles about it. If it is just something you have observed, how do you know it is a more frequent occurenace than when we were kids? I think kids have done these types of stupid things since the dawn of time.
But even if there was an increase in occurances, how do you know it is related to the fact that kids don’t walk to school? Or that they have school zones on roads? Even if parents are shuttling their kids around from parking lot to parking lot, then the parents must at least be teaching them to watch out for cars when crossing the lot.
This “think of the children” quote gets tossed out a lot when someone wants to criticize parents. I really think it is a way of trying to put down someone else’s view without having to address their points. I don’t hear parents say “think of the children” or something equally inane. Sure there are helicopter parents that freak out over every single thing, but there aren’t that many of them – they just get a lot of attention.
And what parent freaks out about serving a sticky bun? Kids get a ton of treats and junk food today. My boys have a never-ending supply of candy from holidays, birthdays, and parties; way more than they could ever eat. And if you look at the hot lunches served in schools today they are often extermely unhealthy. I don’t think most parents are like the over-reacting, helicopter parents lampooned on TV and the internet.
I don’t mean to pick on your post, bengangmo, I just have your quote handy. In every thread about this topic, there is a line of posters telling their war story about walking to school. I have one too – I walked a mile to elementary school starting in first grade. I had an older sibling that showed me the route and at some point I was able to walk alone (or with friends). But the point I made in the last thread about this topic is that, at least in my old neighborhood, there are a lot more people, a lot more traffic, and much busier streets. The road that I crossed on my way to school is now 5 lanes of fairly heavy traffic. At least in my personal case, I can see why some first-grader living in my old house might not walk to school.
If you add this reason to the other reasons I gave up-thread, I think there are reasonable possibilities why parents don’t let their kids walk to school. We can’t just assume that today’s parents are over-reacting.
And I’ll add yet another reason why I think parents drive their kids or walk them to the bus stop – they want to reduce the chances that their kids will be picked on or bullied. It may be debatable whether this is a good idea, but it is one of the reasons.
For the record, I have three kids in elementary school and they take the bus. I am ‘defending’ parents that drive their kids to school (even though I do not) because I think many people are too quick to make judgments without considering all of the trade-offs. Parenting is very different today than it was in the 70’s and prior. We criticize parents for being over-protective, driving kids everywhere, and arranging play-dates, but at the same time we remind parents that they need to be heavily involved and engaged in their child’s life too. Parents are constantly trying to balance these conflicting expectations and to do it all with both parents working full-time. It is a lot to juggle and I can see why some parents would just pop the kids into the car and drive them to school.
For my first few years of elementary school, (from mid-kindergarden on) I walked about four blocks through a ghetto to school, weather be damned. Then we re-districted and I had to take a bus.
I started walking to school at age eight - third grade. We moved and I lived close enough to walk. My grandpa told me not to cross Main Street: but there was a pedestrian crosswalk on the local college campus (you know, with the push button to cross) and I crossed Main Street every day. Just cause I could. I was such a rebel. 
My kids now? We live less than a mile from school right now, and we drop them off on the way to bring me to work. They would have to cross a major street (with no crossing guard) and a very active railroad track, and the major street has no sidewalks. Also, there are tons of school buses that come barreling around that corner.
I would love to be able to walk them so far (get them across the tracks and the street) but right now it’s on the way to drop them off, and at the beginning of the year my schedule changes so I’ll have to be at work before they go to school.
Next school year, it’s a three mile drive. Unless I’m on the same work schedule, they’re on the bus.
My little girl’s in special ed. in a school across town so I have to pick her up early twice a week for therapy, and I like picking her up other days to get feedback. I wouldn’t dream of letting her walk to school anyway, not in this neighborhood. If she was reg. ed. she’d be only a few blocks away. Maybe when she’s older if she’s mainstreamed and has other kids to walk with I’ll consider it. I would have to walk with her though. It’s just too dangerous these days.
I walked about four blocks most days when I was a kid, but I had a big brother with me and we walked with a crowd.
I know there’s this whole thing about being overprotected, but I had the pleasure of some weirdo pervert flashing me for months when I was in 4th grade. He’d stand at his window naked, jerking off to the little kids walking by. Finally someone reported him and they found a bunch of child pornography in his house. I didn’t understand at the time, but still, I wouldn’t want my little girl having that memory. I also had a high school boy play grabass with me when I was just in sixth grade, and I was so immature I thought he wanted to be my boyfriend. I never told any adults about it, but if he’d wanted he probably could have done just about anything to me.
Nah, I’ll just be overprotective and keep a close eye on my girls.
Man, I missed the whole being driven to school thing. I was pretty much driven to school every day my entire school career. (The house I walked to was my grandfathers. My parents would still drive me to his house and pick me up there.)
At first, it was because I was at a private (Montessori) school (and I was in preschool.) Then my mom started working there to make it cheaper for me to keep attending. Obviously it was easier for us to go together. When I moved on to public school in the 5th grade, it had become habit. I considered taking the bus, but that involved leaving an hour earlier, and I already got up at 6:30. (It was a medicine deal.) By junior high (7-9) it was just convenient, as the school was between my house and anywhere we wanted to go in town. High school I again considered taking the bus, but that became moot when I made the chamber choir which meets at 7:15, well before the bus even got to my house. I guess I could have went home on the bus, but hardly anyone my age rode it. I’d rather wait around at school with my friends until my dad got off of work at 5 and could get me on his way home.
(And, of course, we were never rich enough for me to get my own car. My money went straight to helping my parents pay the rent/bills. This was actually not that rare.)