<p>Interesting article about the reluctance of parents to allow their children to walk anywhere alone anymore. I see this every morning on my way out of our development. Everyone drives their K-6 students to the bus stop even though some may be three houses up the street. I never went with my kids to the bus stop except for the first and last days of school.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/fashion/13kids.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/fashion/13kids.html</a></p>
<p>My son started sixth grade this week and is on the school bus for the first time. There is no way in heck that I’d allow him to walk alone. Where I live, people would run over any kid not their own who got in their way. I’m not worried about predators, just horrible drivers – of which we have an abundance.</p>
<p>When I was a kid we walked everywhere. without parents. we just never thought anything of it. My kids walked to the school bus, with other kids from first grade on. It was down the street and around the corner. Sometimes I would go to chat with the other moms and catch up on neighborhood gossip but I rarely met the bus in the afternoon.</p>
<p>There are parents in our neighborhood who would drive their kids one block in the rain or snow. seriously, that is why they make rain coats. Kids don’t wear raincoats or rainboots anymore. It’s a shame that kids can’t be kids anymore.</p>
<p>My elementary school didn’t offer a school bus, and we lived an hour’s walk away. My middle school was also an hour away walking - and the bus stop offered was even further. Obviously walking to school (or to a school bus stop) didn’t make any sense in either case. I did walk home every day in high school (45 min.), though.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, in this day and age, I don’t blame any parent that won’t let their child walk alone. Even in our neck of suburbia, in a quiet Midwestern state, there are predators just waiting to prey upon a child alone. I still don’t let my 14-year-old daughter walk anywhere alone, because I do not believe she could scream loud enough or fight hard enough if someone tried to grab her (she’s got a very quiet voice).</p>
<p>My views are also influenced by the fact that there have been numerous reports within the past year of individuals either flashing kids or trying to get kids in their cars in my town (including two incidents at the end of my cul-de-sac that are probably the same guy).</p>
<p>Sorry for my kids, but that’s just the reality of today’s world.</p>
<p>My kids are 19 and 22. For elem. sch. walked to the end of our street to catch the bus. There were usually at least eight or ten kids at the bus stop and almost always at least one random Mom. I did drive them down there/pick them up if it was pouring rain.
S1 rode the bus with friends fr. our street all through middle sch. with no supervision.
S2 went to a charter sch. for m.s. with no bus sevice so had to carpool. </p>
<p>Now I have to manuever around the caravan of minivans parked at the end of the street every morning on my way to work. I see one set of siblings who walk alone. The rest are driven to the bus. These are middle schoolers. M.S. here starts at 8:45, so it’s not dark.
Strangely enough, in the afternoons all those caravaners walk home in clumps of 2’s and 3’s fr. the bus stop unescorted. </p>
<p>My kids ran all over the neighborhood for hours on end playing with friends, riding bikes, watching movies, playing video games,swimming, paint balling,etc when they were growing up.
Most of the time I never knew exactly where they were but was not worried.
It’s a shame kids can’t do that anymore.</p>
<p>Just this week a 15 yr. old girl who was eight months pregnant was killed in a nearby city while waiting for the school bus…note: in our system all high schools begin at 7:15. Most bus riders have to be at the bus stop by 6ish when it’s still dark…not safe to do alone.</p>
<p>Is it really that much worse than it was when we were kids, or are the bad things just publicized more now? I remember being flashed twice at a nearby park, once in 2nd grade and once in 3rd. I doubt I ever even told my mother about it.</p>
<p>Anyway, I walked to school from first grade all the way through high school. My friends and I also walked to each others’ houses, to the store, to the post office and wherever else our mothers wanted us to go. Asking for a ride was usually met with, “What for? You have two feet.”</p>
<p>I do not think predators are more prevalent, but hysteria and media hype is much worse. I grew up in a suburb of Detroit and walked a mile to school. When I was in the sixth grade a girl was abducted two miles from our house. After that, the parents (for a while) insisted that we walk in groups.<br>
Remember Danna Carveys “grumpy old man” on SNL"…and in the winter I walked 5 miles to school, in freezing rain and when my feet hurt, I had to crawl on my knees, sometimes over crushed glass. AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY."</p>
<p>Zoosermom - you must live on my street. When a crossing guard is run over and killed you know you have a problem.</p>
<p>I live on a cul-de-sac off of of state highway with a 50mph speed limit . I am there for the drop off every day ( can’t imagine leaving my 12 yr old out there without being there ) Our road is rather long. Our bus stop times have been changed this school year, which has a lot of parents up in arms.
I am there most afternoons, and give all the kids a ride home in the cold because they have a lot of books .
I am much more concerned with the idiot drivers that don’t stop for the flashing red lights than the potential stranger danger</p>
<p>I do not think predators are more prevalent we just hear about every single incident all over the country now. My kids walked alone at least some of the time starting in 4th or 5th grade. Our elementary school is about five blocks away, it’s a residential area. My kids waited at the bus stop with big groups of kids in middle school and walk alone to the high school.</p>
<p>I admit that I let the news get to me. My 10-year-old daughter goes nowhere alone, not even down the street. (We don’t have a residential “block” as such; if we did, I might feel better about it.) When I was a kid, I roamed for miles by myself, but the ubiquity of molester and abductor stories has me paranoid. It can’t be rational—I know in my mind that there can’t be appreciably more sickos out there now than 30 years ago—and yet this is how I act. I blame the media.</p>
<p>I agree that there are probably just as many crazies now as there were in the past. However, I think all of the stories about these incidents have made people paranoid, even folks who don’t have small kids. True story: My neighbor’s two kids (7 and 9) walk to school (our district charges for riding the bus, so more kids are walking or getting dropped off by parents). Last year, my neighbor got a call from the local police to come and get her kids. The police got an anonymous call that there were two “very young” children walking alone on X Road and that the kids were in the middle of the road and were clearly in danger. Police checked and found my neighbor’s kids (the 7 and 9 year old) walking home from school on the side of the road. (I live in a rural area and we don’t have sidewalks.) The cops told the kids about the call and said they’d drive the kids home, but the oldest one said that he didn’t get into cars with strangers–so the police called my neighbor to get her kids. She now drives them to school. (It’s about 3/4 of a mile.)</p>
<p>Data shows it is NOT the way of the world now at all. Nothing has changed statistically in terms of danger to our kids (vis a vis predators etc.). All that has happend is a change in our sensitivity. Just because you hear of such an incident doesn’t make it more likely to happen in general and it still remains a fact that the probability that something like that will happen is extremely small and we simply can’t protect our kids from super remote events…unless we want to lock them in a closet. </p>
<p>Lots of things I worry about as a mom. I’m as irrational as the rest. But I keep reminding myself that my emotions about things are not an accurate read of the statistics. I believe in precautions- always wear a helmet, don’t talk on the phone while crossing the street, call when you get to your destination. But at the same time I let her do things even if they make me worry. So yes she flies on planes alone since she was 13. And I let her cross the street much younger. And cycle with her friends. And be alone with her horse in the stall. And be home alone. And climb high in the gym. I am sure I’ve known at least one person injured or killed from doing these things so when she first starts such things I do worry so, but that doesn’t mean I should hold her back from growing and learning her way in the world.</p>
<p>BTW, kids are much more likely to be hurt because so many parents drive, back up, do U turns and so on. I think we’ve made it less safe not more so for our kids.</p>
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<p>Yes, and it’s the SUV’s and minivans that are the worst offenders because you can’t see while backing up. Ironic that many people claim to buy them for safety reasons.</p>
<p>It infuriates me that there are no sidewalks in most towns. I am much more worried about kids being run down than abducted.</p>
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<p>I agree completely. How much damage is done to kids’ sense of autonomy and understanding of the world, if they can’t experience it? I often didn’t know where my kids were, and they started walking to school about third grade (four blocks away). My problem wasn’t predator worries, but like ZM said, traffic. the school’s on a busy road, and sidewalk abuts the road, no grass in between. But aside from traffic worries, I really tried to give them the same freedom I had growing up.</p>
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I appreciate your honesty.<br>
I can’t help but wonder that by depriving our children the freedom to grow up - we are actually harming them by holding them back.<br>
Does the benefit of parental reassurance outweight the risk of growing up emotionally stunted?</p>
<p>Here in PA the state has rules for the school districts on transporting kids. Schools are not required to bus a child who lives 1.5 miles from school for elem and 2 miles for secondary - unless the walking route is “hazardous”. This usually means a highway or no sidewalks. Yet parents in our school district won’t allow a middle school child to walk 3 blocks with sidewalks and crossing guards - they drive them.
If abduction or molestation was the fear then why don’t the parents walk with their children and teach them along the way how to be safe and take care of themselves?</p>
<p>I was just contemplating this this morning as I walked home from the bus stop. I drove my son to school in elementary school because it was a mile and a half away and there were no buses. It was more a time thing than a safety thing–we could never get it together to leave early enough to walk. Anyway, his high school bus stop is about a 7 minute walk away and the bus comes at 6:15. It’s dark and there are no other kids at the bus stop, which is at corner of a park. This is a residential area but it is within a city. My son missed the first quarter of his freshman year because of illness. When they let him out of the hospital and he was recovered enough to go back to school he was so frail that I would walk him to the bus stop so I could carry his backpack, or we would drive because it was cold. In the year since he has gained 40 pounds, is taller than me and is a normal robust teenager who can carry his own backpack. But I’m still walking to the bus stop with him. I told him he was old enough and well enough to go by himself but he said he liked the company. Well, so do I and the exercise isn’t a bad thing either. So most mornings he and I take a companionable walk in the dark.</p>
<p>I grew up in NYC during the 60’s and 70’s which was one of the worst times - the city was broke (Pres. Ford - “drop dead NYC” was one particular headline I recall), drugs, crime, racial tension, it was a mess. As the youngest of 4, with a mother who didn’t drive, and who had little fear with the outside world herself, I was riding the subway from 9 years old on. We played outside at all hours, walked and hitchhiked everywhere. We now live in a suburb north of the city (my husband moved me out kicking and screaming), my daughter started taking the train into the city and then riding the subway to wherever at 12. People were like, how can you do that? I said I started at 9 and they said, “It was safer back then.” But they’re wrong, it was so not safer back then!</p>
<p>You’ve got to go by the statistics - life is full of odds, you just need the best odds in your favor. I believe my job is to allow my kids to become complete, confident, self-reliant members of society and if that means they learn street smarts and common sense when traveling alone in the “big bad city” then so be it. I’m not stupid, we talk about safety and what’s smart and what’s not smart and I do worry but chances are really great that she will live a full and complete life taking on all life has to offer without undue fear.</p>
<p>I’m closer to the age of current kids than of most current parents.</p>
<p>Kindergarten through 3rd grade, I walked to school (a 15-20 minute walk), sometimes alone, sometimes meeting a friend halfway. The first half of the walk was on neighborhood streets, the second half was a path through the woods. I think this was also when I started walking alone to swim practice in the summers (a 15 minute walk), when I was eight or so.</p>
<p>4th-5th grade, I waited for the bus alone, but since we got picked up at our houses (only a few kids on the route), I was just standing at the end of the driveway. I walked by my self to swim practice and other things around the neighborhood.</p>
<p>6th-8th grade, I walked to and from school alone every day, and rode public transit alone as needed. I also walked alone all the time while running errands for my mother.</p>