I picked up my grandsons (7 and 8) at school again today.

[LAS14]

Every time I do this I'm inspired to post to DU about the insanity of not letting kids walk two or three blocks home. I'm all for their walking a mile or more home! I don't always act on this inspiration, but today new angle hit me hard. Think of all the exercise they're missing? We moan and groan about kids not getting exercise and then we create a society where they're all driven to and from school. Walked to the door, no less!! No, can't let them walk up that long sidewalk across the playground by themselves.

Rant, rant, fuss, fuss @#$@#%% 5#@#@ %^*^&(#!!!!!!!

Does anyone share my view? Does anyone want to defend this nuts practice?

tia
las

[rownesheck]

1. Is that a school policy?

My 8 year old daughter begs me to let her walk home by herself. We live really close to school. I'm just a scaredy cat so I'm struggling with it. I've slowly started letting her go halfway by herself. I'm sure I'll let her walk all the way soon, but it'll be scary.

[wcast]

2. I agree!!

At the school where I work, parents will wait in line for 10 minutes to drop their kid 50 feet closer to the door instead of the child walking that distance.

[TruckFump]

9. I have two words for this:

"Childhood obesity."

[shanti]

3. For many people

it's not about the exercise or lack of it. It's about the child's safety. I let my boys walk to school back in the day, but I wouldn't now! My oldest son lets his daughter, 9, walk about a mile back from school, but I don't agree with that decision. He bought her a phone that only has about 2 buttons to call mom and dad when she sets out, but she's essentially a latchkey kid. Maybe it's just me, but I would be a nervous wreck every day waiting for that call!

[LAS14]

4. Do you have any evidence that there are more incidents involving....

... children than their used to be? Anything I've heard is that there's just more means of communicating these things. 35 years ago I attended a presentation by a policeman from Newton, MA, a largeish Boston suburb, on child safety. I asked him how many non-family child abductions there had been in Newton over the past 10 years. The answer was "None."

[shanti]

13. Not really

It could just be me. I'm a huge worrywart. My granddaughter also has to cross a busy, major street near a bustling casino with no crossing guard too.

But YMMV. If you feel your child is mature enough, and you're not a worrier, go for it.

[ooky]

47. I'm not comfortable with it either.

I took my own kids back and forth to school until they were old enough to drive themselves. Now I pick up my granddaughter and will also pick up the grandson I have on the way when he starts school.

[LanternWaste]

23. And in the here and now, what are those numbers?

" I asked him how many non-family child abductions there had been in Newton over the past 10 years. The answer was "None.""

And in the here and now, what are those numbers? Or are you simply guilty of providing evidence to support a sentiment as well as those you ask it from?

[smirkymonkey]

25. However Newton, MA is a very upscale, suburban city and I am sure they have

a heavy police presence in the area. It is probably much safer than most average urban areas.

[Mariana]

27. The Polly Klaas Foundation has numbers on their website.

99.8% of the children who go missing do come home.

Nearly 90% of missing children have simply misunderstood directions or miscommunicated their plans, are lost, or have run away.

9% are kidnapped by a family member in a custody dispute.

3% are abducted by non-family members, usually during the commission of a crime such as robbery or sexual assault. The kidnapper is often someone the child knows.

Only about 100 children (a fraction of 1%) are kidnapped each year in the stereotypical stranger abductions you hear about in the news.

About half of these 100 children come home.

http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.html

[xmas74]

38. Where I'm at

It's less a fear of abduction and more about traffic. The schools used to be neighborhood schools but are now in high traffic areas. And I've noticed the police are not a deterrent for speeding through crosswalks and even passing in town.

[lostnfound]

18. There are positives more than physical health

Teaching the kids that they are capable of being their own person is important too. I have fond memories of walking or biking to school for 8 years, just a half mile — two years with my older sister, 6 years alone.

There’s a website called Free Range Kids about how parents no longer let their kids “range” morre than a block, and every ten years the distances kept shrinking. I used to ride all over town on my bike when I was 9.

[marlakay]

24. I was a free range kid

It made you feel confident. And I walked to school but that was the 60’s.

I used to think it was far away but I went into google maps the other day and saw it was 3/4 of a mile. We walked in rain with rain coats and umbrellas.

I was a skinny, shy pretty sensitive kid, but I am sure my bike trips to the store alone or just to explore added independence in me.

I am a very independent person now, in fact traveling alone for 3 months this summer.

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. We moved a lot when I was a kid, in the 50's.

the FIRST thing my brother and I did was hop on the bikes and explore the new area.

Caveats: We lived in a lot of smaller towns, mostly, altho the last move was to a town of 55,000.
We were totally free range, the only rule was to come home before it got dark, which, in the summer, was 8 pm or later.

"Don't talk to strangers" was the earliest warning I remember, when I was 5, and walking to kindergarten.
It changed to strangers and cars when I was 9, but same thing.
I am now wondering if my brother, 2 years younger than me, was given the same warning.

I do not remember hearing any stories/news about child abductions, except for the stranger warnings, and those had no detail, just the one sentence.

I do understand the many changes that have led to parents being worried about their kids in today's society, and I worry about how those kids are gonna develop, after being told they could be murdered in a school room, or while walking the streets, esp.in cities like Chicago.

the worst anxiety I remember was having to hide under a school desk during nuke drill, because something called communist wanted to blow us up.

[lostnfound]

49. Ha. Ironically something once called a communist DID blow us up...

Not with a bomb but with a useful tool

My grade school had an open breezeway through which lovely damp Florida storms would relieve us of our boredom, and provide fresh air and fresh moods. We attended school, it didn’t own us.

It’s all gated up now,

[LAS14]

30. Yeah, my memories of walking home are some of my most vivid and satisfying. nt

[grantcart]

39. It is much safer than it was before. There is more sensational coverage

So it appears more dangerous than rational analysis informs.

You are transferring your fears to the next generation.

The most likely person to harm your children is someone from your family or circle of friends not a stranger.

It would be much better for them to have some training in physical defense (like judo) and let them walk home.

You aren't teaching them to be safe you are teaching them to be afraid.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. IIRC, we had to walk to school if we lived closer than a certain distance

because there was no school bus unless you lived farther away (I don't recall how far). So we walked five blocks, which was maybe a third of a mile, to and from school, rain or shine or snow. I would have been 7-10 during those years. It wasn't a big deal. I couldn't have been driven there anyhow because my dad usually drove our one and only car to work. But this was in the late '50s and times have changed.

I also walked to kindergarten, first and second grade at a previous school but that was only two blocks.

[nocoincidences]

17. That was my situation, exactly

even down to the era.

The only ones in danger on my walk home were my boy classmates who tried to kiss me, and I bopped them over the head with my umbrella.

[treestar]

58. We walked tp all of them - elementary, jr. high and high

There were tons of kids out in the neighborhood in the time before and after school, going every which way depending on the school and going with each other. That was the baby boom time though and there were are least 10 kids from your immediate area going. That is a factor too.

One neighbor had a corner lot and complained about the dents in the grass from kids cutting that corner and going on the grass - there were that many kids walking.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

59. Yes, I recall herds of kids walking to school in those days,

and I suppose there was safety in numbers. One kid could be abducted, but not fifteen.

[MineralMan]

6. The 24-hour news cycle has made parents afraid to do that.

Whenever there is a child abduction for something like that anywhere, it is a major news story everywhere. Despite the extreme rarity of such incidents, statistically, parents believe it happens all the time and that it is highly probable that it would happen to their children.

This isn't true everywhere, of course. In my blue collar neighborhood, kids are everywhere and out doing things without any parental supervision. During the summer months, they ride bikes past my house, some with fishing poles, heading to the small lake about a mile away. Others are running and playing outdoors during any decent weather. Sprinklers on the lawns, ice cream trucks...the whole works. Older kids watch the younger kids, and small groups of kids move around from house to house, into the parks, and on bikes going who knows where.

But, I live in an urban neighborhood in a large city. Both parents are working. Out in the 'burbs, everyone is fearful and worried about something happening to their children. So they get taken to everything, from school to sports practices, etc. No going off fishing without an adult. No nothing away from home without being transported door to door.

All because we see reports of every child who is abducted anywhere, no matter where we live. Fear.

[redstatebluegirl]

7. I agree but it isn't as safe as it used to be when we all were kids.

Just day before yesterday a high school sophomore was hit by a car and critically injured walking to the high school 4 blocks from his house. He crossed a street, not at a crosswalk, between his neighborhood and the high school. A few weeks ago a guy in a truck tried to pick up two Jr. High girls who were walking home from school. They ran and yelled getting the attention of someone in the neighborhood who came running to help.

It is tough out there, I agree I wish our kids could walk to school safely.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. I don't think it's less safe now. There were trucks in the '50s and people got run over by them.

We weren't traveling on horseback (horses can be dangerous, too). And there were also child abductions. The difference is that we didn't hear about them unless they occurred in our town. Now we hear about them whenever they occur anywhere in the country. There are Amber Alerts and missing children's pictures on milk cartons and 24-hour cable news and true crime tv shows so everyone is scared. Maybe we should have been more scared then, and less now.

[MineralMan]

12. I remember being taught to look both ways before crossing

when I was really young. I still do that. People used to try to pick up girls back in the 50s, and they knew to run and yell for help then, too. Our parents warned us about stuff like that, so we'd be safer. We had limits as to how far away from the house we could go, and we followed them. As we got older, those limits expanded. I remember being 10 years old and finally being allowed to walk or roller skate to the downtown area. We used to walk to matinees at the local theater and to the soda fountain at the drug store with our coins.

There were creepy people around then, too, and we were told how to avoid them and what to do.

I don't think it's any different now, frankly. Certainly in my neighborhood, things are about the same for kids as they were when I was a kid, and there are kids running around everywhere without adults.

It's all perception. In suburbs, you almost never seen children outdoors. In my urban neighborhood, they're out of doors constantly when they can be, based on the weather and time of day.

[redstatebluegirl]

15. I think kids playing in neighborhoods goes back to when we moved from the front porch to the back

deck. When we stopped building front porches in favor of patios and decks in the back of the house. My grandmother used to sit on her porch most days reading. She knew all of the kids in her neighborhood, if someone fell down she or one of the other neighbors were right there to help. It also showed the unsavory types that the neighbors were watching our kids, the community cared about each other. That is what is missing right now.

[X_Digger]

42. Memory is cumulative. We don't think in rates per 100,000..

.. every time we hear about something horrible, we add a +1 to a column in our head, regardless of how infrequent such things are.

By every published measure, kids are safer today than they have ever, ever been.

Less the victims of crime- see BJS report at https://www.ncjrs.gov/
Less hungry- e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment
Safer in cars- e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year
Infant mortality is down- e.g. https://mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa13/perinatal-health-status-indicators/p/infant-mortality.html

Perception is not reality.

[Mariana]

46. It doesn't help at all

that some like to publicize the numbers of kids who are reported missing, rather than the numbers of actual kidnappings. The overwhelming majority of children reported missing are not in any danger, they just aren't where they're supposed to be.

There's a reason the first thing the cops do when a child is reported missing is to search the kid's house - it's because a lot of them are found sleeping, in a closet, behind the sofa, under the porch or in some such place. But, they nevertheless get added to that scary number of children reported missing, yes indeed.

My kid was reported missing when she was three. She was visiting her aunt and uncle, and she got sick of them, so she set out to walk home. She went about 1/2 mile before someone noticed her. That person called the police and stayed with her until the officer arrived. By the time she was reported missing, she'd already been found.

There was a story posted here a few months ago about a kid who got lost in the woods, and was found safe after several days. Some people here were/are absolutely convinced he was abducted, kept for awhile, and then let go. Never mind there was zero evidence that happened, never mind that the police, the FBI, and the kid's doctors didn't think so, and never mind that a kidnapping and release scenario made no sense on any level.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211734071

[llmart]

8. I agree with you.

There is a sub next to mine where most of the houses are young families with children. I used to walk my dog past there in the afternoon, sometimes around the time the middle schoolers were getting off the bus. I cannot tell you how many SUV's (mostly) were lined up on both sides of the street to get their kids when they got off the bus and turn around and drive them home. They wouldn't even let the kids walk to their houses. This is a very safe neighborhood. Ridiculous as far as I'm concerned.

My son had an early morning paper route for five years. Yeah, it was dark out. He was a smart kid. No cell phones back then. There was never an incident. He's still alive!!! What a negligent mother I was.

Life has always had its dangers. If you have children there are thousands of scenarios that could happen to them in their lives. You can't protect them from everything or lock them in the basement. You just have to be smart about finding the middle ground where you learn to give them some leeway dependent upon their age and your instincts as to whether they're ready to handle themselves.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

10. Is this a school issue, or a parent issue? Because plenty of kids walk to school.

[MineralMan]

14. It's a parent issue, no doubt.

[dameatball]

16. (late 50's-mid 60's) Walked or rode my bike to elem. school, about a mile. Then Jr. high, walked or

Last edited Fri May 3, 2019, 03:19 PM - Edit history (1)

rode my bike about 2-1/2 miles. After school got on my bike and went here and there. But honestly, I would be nervous about my grandkids doing that now. Not that there is an epidemic of kidnappings or whatever. I think it is more like when I was a child I was fearless for myself and enjoyed the freedom, but as a grandparent I just can't muster that same confidence for my grandkids. Not sure why. Anyway, I have no say in the matter any more. Their parents or a neighbor drive them. By way, in our school system, way back when, I am pretty sure there was a 2 mile distance rule before you could ride the bus. One of my best friend's mom drove bus 262.... I still remember that.
When we had storms my dad would drive me. I used to get him to drop me off as far away from the entrance as possible. In my adolescent wisdom I thought riding the bus or with your parents was just uncool. I was not very smart.

[lark]

19. Crazy to me.

OK, I'm 67 and was raised in a very different era. I walked to school starting with first grade, my kids did too. Over the years, depending on what they had going on, we'd drop them off or pick them up or let them walk - it varied a lot. Neither my sister and I or my son and daughter ever had a seconds trouble with walking home. I still see children walking to and from school in my neighborhood often - although not nearly as many as when we moved here 29 years ago. I think not letting children walk to school is totally crazy, bad for them and the parents. Children are kept way too inactive these days and it will hurt them in their later years.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

20. Two or three blocks?

You really pick them up and drive them that short a distance?

Unless you live in a truly unsafe inner-city neighborhood, that really is nuts.

People are absurdly over-cautious these days. Even the active shooter drills schools are holding are mostly nonsensical. Yes, school shootings happen but they are still incredibly rare. Meanwhile the NRA and many here absolutely defend the right of citizens to be armed to the teeth, defending that over someone else's right to life. Which is one of the inalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.

[LAS14]

31. I do it only because my son is of the belief that it's a school requirement. It certainly...

... is nuts.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

33. Double check with the school.

If it is a requirement, I'm honestly appalled.

When my son was first going to school we lived about a mile away, too close for a bus. This was in Boulder, CO. And since it literally was uphill all the way to school, although downhill coming home, having him walk it in kindergarten and first grade. A class mate lived two houses away, and the other mom and I did a carpool thing. Towards the end of first grade we tried to get them to walk home, but they'd get about 3/4 of the way and then go into the the South Boulder Rec Center and politely ask a staffer to please call a mom to pick them up.

We were slightly annoyed but did think it was hilarious and pretty enterprising of them.

We then moved to Overland Park, KS, and the school was three blocks away. Needless to say, he walked.

[ismnotwasm]

21. I used to walk my oldest grandson to kindergarten when I could.

(I had him when my daughter was deployed)

The world has moved on, and access to all kinds of media has created monsters, or at least the monsters are finding each other, finding validation, and finding inspiration to act.

I’m not letting one of my grandkids become food for monsters.

I live in a city, though, I suspect there are many areas that kids would be safe running around. I just don’t know where they are.

[Ohiogal]

22. We live a couple miles from the school complex in our township

And my kids would have had to walk on the side of a busy road, no sidewalks, used by trucks, where the speed limit is 45. So, no, my kids couldn’t walk to school because it wasn’t safe. If they missed the bus, someone would have to drive them. 99% of the time, that someone was me.

I lived in the city as a child, and walked 5 blocks to school by myself starting in kindergarten. They drummed it into our head at school never talk to strangers, and that was about it.

[Freddie]

26. Big controversy locally about that

Rebuild the land-locked high school in town where lots of kids could walk, or build on a huge and expandable tract in the boonies where NO kids could walk (safety/no sidewalks plus no one lived in walking distance!). The huge school in Outer Boonovia opened a couple years ago.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

34. A couple of miles, no matter how good the sidewalks,

is really too far. Regardless of any other considerations.

[NBachers]

28. 1. Walk to the school. 2. Pick up your grandsons at school. 3. Walk home with them.

You could even let 'em walk halfway down the block from you, so everyone thinks they're walking by themselves.

[LAS14]

45. Exercise isn't the only benefit of walking to and from school. Being...

... on your own is a really big one.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

35. As a child in Utica, NY, in the 1950s

my parents sent us to Catholic school. I seem to recall we were driven there by someone's dad, for whom it must have been convenient. But we took the public bus home.

Kindergarten was half day. I took the bus home by myself and never felt the least bit concerned. I will repeat that this was the 1950s.

[maxsolomon]

36. why don't you walk over there and walk back with them?

win/win

[madinmaryland]

41. Thread win!

[LAS14]

44. Today I was focusing on exercise, but there are a host of other reasons...

... why kids should walk to and from school and being on their own is a big one.

[TheBlackAdder]

37. I live in a safe community, and skeezers will try to pull up to elementary school kids often.

.


They do this when they are just a few blocks down the street from a crossing guard, who can still see them.
It seems to go in spurts, where a pedo will cruise a community for a little bit and move to another one.

One time, I pulled up to talk to my daughter, and a township cop was next to me within seconds.

.

[TexasBushwhacker]

40. It only takes a few high profile cases

To give everyone the "stranger danger" paranoia. The one I remember was Etan Patz in 1979. The first day he was allowed to walk to the bus stop alone he was abducted and killed. The case was unsolved for decades.

[Luciferous]

43. When my daughter was young (she's 20 now) she was allowed to ride her bike all

over town, but we lived in a very small town at the time. My son is in middle school and a lot of the kids walk, but again even though we live in a larger town it is very safe and a lot of the kids walk in groups.

[Captain Stern]

48. "Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave."

Heh. That's become a bad joke.

We're a people that are scared all of the time now.

[ellie]

50. I don't have kids

but I don't think I would let them walk. But then again, it would depend. Where I live now, a neighborhood, I see kids walking home alone.

[EllieBC]

51. I let my 9 year old walk but

that’s a new development.

I didn’t let her walk alone before this year. Too much traffic. She can learn independence at 9 and 10. Independence isn’t learned after being smoked by a dump truck.

[Polybius]

52. I'm a little confused...

Are you saying it's against school policy for them to walk three blocks home alone, or is it against policy to walk home period? The former I would agree with, because that's way too young to be walking alone.

Now, if they don't let them walk home at all (even with an adult with them), then that's crazy. My mother walked me to and from school everyday (10 minute walk each way) in the 80's, until I was in the 7th grade and did it myself.

[happybird]

53. I walked to elementary school in the 80's

from first grade on, along with all the kids in the neighborhood we lived behind. Some of the big kids kept an eye out for the little ones.

The biggest danger we faced was the Great Dane named Napoleon who lived on the lane that led to the school. He was tall enough his head rested on top of the fence and, if you ran, he'd leap the fence and give chase.

Come to find out he was a good boy who loved kids and just wanted to play, but the kid rumor mill had him pegged as a vicious, rabid beast.

We were free range kids and I have a lot of great memories from childhood because of that. You are so right: it is a big confidence booster.

[luvs2sing]

54. My mother was crazy overprotective, but..

We lived in a new subdivision in a small town. There was a main road and a four-lane highway nearby. When I started first grade in 1964, Mom drove or walked me the quarter mile to the bus stop at the main road or drove me if the weather was bad. By spring of that year, she and the other mothers learned they could stand in their back yards and watch us get off the bus and meander down through the vacant lots. By the next year, a fancy new school was built right in the subdivision. It was about an eighth of a mile from our house, and I walked that every day, again, with Mom watching from the kitchen window till I went in the building or arrived home.

I rode the bus in junior high. The school was three miles away, out on the four-lane. My challenge then was to be allowed to walk or ride my bike about a mile down the main road to the Stop-N-Go. All my friends were doing this by third grade, but I wasn’t allowed till I was 13, and then only if I went “the back way”, cutting through residential streets and staying clear of the main road. I didn’t always comply. 😁

In high school, I walked unless the weather was lousy, when I would take the bus. The high school was two miles away, and my best friend lived in between, so I would walk to her house, and we’d walk together. If we left early enough, we’d have time to stop at the bakery and get a pastry on the way. In the afternoon, we’d haunt the mall on the way home. I would sometimes walk home from her house but most of the time Dad would pick me up on his way home from work. Some of my best memories are of walking home from high school with my friend, singing all our favorite songs

Yes, there were creepy people, but everyone knew to avoid them, scream, and run like hell to a grown up. I always knew danger existed, but I was never afraid.

I don’t know how kids today learn autonomy or how to trust themselves.

[TeamPooka]

55. Ego-centrism applies in many areas to those afflicted with it. In a country where most Christians

think they are so special in the history of their religion that THEY will be raptured, so of course they all think their precious child will be the one who is kidnapped.
They all think they're going to win the lotto and be rich too.
We are a deluded nation.

[underthematrix]

56. I live in a small town that's a

walking and dog community. Everyone walks all hours of the day. We're retired and walk our younger chi everyday while our older boy goes for a ride walk in his stroller about three or four days a week. We started walking in earnest after our healthcare team made walking part of our disease prevention plan. Now we love it.

A couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that walking actually makes for a safer cleaner healthier happier community. I now feel a sense of responsibility to my community to walk.

When we walk, we speak to all our neighbors along the way with the Greeting "Good Morning or Good Afternoon neighbor. I don't need to know their names. I just want them to know how happy I am to see them walking and enjoying our beautiful safe community. It also gives me an opportunity to model POSITIVE civil behavior by picking up any trash (very rare) I see and using a poop bag to pick up and dispose of my dog's poop. We have always full poop dispensers on major walking intersections.

In today's world, I would not let my children walk to school.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

57. Do your grandsons have a grandparent who can WALK them home?

Exercise for all, if grandma or grandpa is fit enough to walk that far.

Hopefully, all are well.

[LAS14]

61. We live 45 minutes away and pick them up only every couple of months, but,

as I said in the OP, today's focus in my mind was on health, but that was added to other concerns, like the value for kids of spending time on their own. So walking with them doesn't address all the issues.

[TheBlackAdder]

60. Besides not walking with them, check out to see if there are local pedos in the police database.

[Polybius]

62. You haven't responded, which one is it?

Are they not allowed to walk home at all, or just not allowed to walk home without an adult accompanied by an adult?

[LAS14]

63. Not allowed to walk without an adult. But, if you're going...

... to suggest that I walk with them, I want to make clear that excercise is only one of the many issues surrounding not letting kids walk home alone. It just happened to be one that hadn't occurred to me before.