A few things have made me stop and think recently about our cossetted kids in this country. Visited friends in Berlin. Mum is British (although applying for German passport, but I think that topic is well catered for elsewhere!!) Dad is Polish. School started back recently and we went with mum to collect 8 year old daughter, pleasant walk through woods mostly, anyway most German kids at her age walk alone to and from school and mum feels nervous about this as would we with our 8 year old and we can pretty much see school from our house! In fact our teachers wouldnt let him out of class if one of use wasnt there to collect!! Next day we went into Berlin which is about 20mins on tube away, we were sat next to 2 young girls I’d say about 9 or 10 heading into Berlin on there own. After we went to the Natural history museum our hosts kids wanted to go to the School Climate Strike where we saw the two young girls again in the centre of Berlin on their own happy and confident. I found this quite shocking but Germans think it normal. We are not doing the next generation any favours are we?
Today I took son for a bike ride, met some friends on way back who were shocked I had taken him on even very quiet roads on his bike, I admit I have struggled with this and find it stressful although he has improved 200% over the last few months in this regard.
We need to let go a bit if we want them to be healthy and happy dont we?
My question is how to we go against the general view and let them have some freedom without going too far?

Depends on the child, the roads, the trains etc.  I’m in favour of letting the wander around themselves as early as possible.  Walking a km to school by themselves should be within reach of most primary school students by the time they leave.

I agree but recent experience suggests much more is possible but starting to find out is soooooo hard.

It does seem to depend on where you live.  With my brother who lived in Edinburgh there was a group of children who would go from door to door and a group would walk together to school.  It seemed to work well and the younger ones grew up through the system.  With ours (a quieter commune in Brussels)  we just waited until they expressed an interest in walking home themselves and let them guide us home a few times first then let them at it.   It helps that that is preferable to waiting for us to pick them up late from school.  It’s theoretically a bit easier now with mobile phones but in reality I don’t think they make much difference.   I did make sure that they knew our phone numbers and address off by heart and knew the right sort of people to ask in case they really got lost

Thing is, “it takes a village” – its not just about kids and parents, its about the philosophy and mindset of the entire community around them. The feeling of individual, and shared, accountability and responsibility.

Its that piece that would be the hardest to shift, and indeed is lost, in many towns.

There was a recent series on ITV (forget the name) where in Ep 1 they looked at the different levels of freedom given to children at different ages around the world – interesting viewing. In parts of Japan, primary-age kids make their own way to school across the city, with multiple changes of underground train etc. In parts of Africa, young children are trusted with machetes for gathering firewood etc. I do think we wrap ours in cotton wool a little too much sometimes.

I’ve tentatively resumed road riding this year after getting knocked off last summer.

While the close passes and worse used to be like water off a duck’s back I really notice them now, and on my second ride back I had a very near miss where a woman just didn’t stop as I headed into a roundabout with right-of-way.

So in short, I think your friends might have a more reasonable reaction to you taking your lad out road riding than you think, assuming you’re a regular rider and habituated to the **** on our roads.

Also…

our cossetted kids in this country

makes you sound less than open-minded, TBH.

I think in general we’re way too involved in many aspects of children’s lives. They’re over nurtured, protected, coached, so the ability to think for themselves is underdeveloped. This in turn creates a sense in the parents that their children are vulnerable or less capable, which results in more of the above. A vicious circle.

A topic that comes up daily in my life currently, I have two kids 18 and 21, and my partner has three – 17, 19, 21.
She is a micromanager, I am more of a hand-off type. The difference between our kids is stark. She gets endless texts and phone calls for just about everything all times of the day, and her eldest is regularly incapacitated with indecision and anxiety when separated from Mum.

I made some harsh judgements of her kids to begin with, but I later concluded that because of the vicious circle above this behaviour manifests over years and years to the point where you’re not just dealing with problems in your kids lives, but involved in every small detail from simple shopping decisions, to much bigger life decision stuff. This is greatly enabled by our dependence on mobile phones. This obviously perpetuates the problem.

There are many other factors of course; perception of danger such as violence, traffic, disease, etc.

If they’re not exposed to new situations and problems, they wont develop the parts of the brain that deal with problem solving and learning new things.
I come from a very small farm, being left to get on with a menial task, including solving any problems, was normal for me (and many, many others in the same boat).
As an adult, people often tell me i am quite practical wrt solving problems, and my ‘get on with it’ attitude.
So I’d say they certainly need freedom/responsibility to fully develop.
Also, big scot nanny +1.

My kids both walked to school at 9, they walked into town with their friends at 10 and my eldest first went on the train to Newcastle with her friends at 13.

Not all kids are wrapped in cotton wool.

So in short, I think your friends might have a more reasonable reaction to you taking your lad out road riding

We were gravel riding I’ll have you know, on the roads we used we must have been past by less than a dozen cars in two hours!

Also…

our cossetted kids in this country

makes you sound less than open-minded, TBH

Not sure I understand, maybe you just dont?

My kids both walked to school at 9, they walked into town with their friends at 10 and my eldest first went on the train to Newcastle with her friends at 13.

Not all kids are wrapped in cotton wool.

True but as posted in my op these would be late developers in Berlin and yet to my eyes you did well

True but as posted in my op these would be late developers in Berlin and yet to my eyes you did well

I have no real idea, but from my own experience of Berlin I would guess the Crime rates are far lower than any comparable UK city, and as such people are more inclined to feel safe generally, and let their kids have more freedom?

as big_scott_nanny said, it does depend on the community they are in.  If everyone is doing it then you are in an environment that is more conducive to it being safe.  If lots of children are cycling to school at roughly the same time then drivers are more likely to be attentive for example.  It doesn’t make it completely safe but it is a lot easier.

I also suspect our children are more ready for it than we imagine but that doesn’t happen when there is always the backup of getting rescued by a parent.   The earlier you start, the more likely they are to just get on with it

Is there a geographic divide on the walking to school themselves thing? It would certainly not be odd to see an 8 yr old make their own way to school in Scotland. Of course we don’t do the fight for the best school thing that happens in other places – kids mostly go to the nearest school. There are still plenty of parents who drive them, or escort them but it wouldn’t be unusual for them to go themselves (often as a group of friends).

Kids that go to private schools in Edinburgh often get the train to out of town places. I think the schools shuttle them to/from the station in Edinburgh. They can be as young as 8.

The Germans are better at public transport so it’s difficult to compare- they won’t need to deal with busses that don’t show up, and are a shambles. By the time they go to high school here you would commonly see them making simple train or bus journies.

We let 14yrs olds go wild camping on DoE expeditions with only remote supervision. I do think if you tried to set up that scheme today people would be horrified.

My question is how to we go against the general view and let them have some freedom without going too far?

I think we’re of a generation where we remember much greater freedoms from our own childhood but if you were a child of the 70s / 80s there were quite persistent ‘stranger danger’ public information campaigns both on TV and through schools and I think subconsciously it seems to have resulted in a generation that as parents makes them over protective.

It has become so uncommon to see unaccompanied children that you’d fear that your own kids would appear to be at risk or neglected if you did give them a free reign.

I think theres all sorts of ways it can effect the younger generation from general health and exercise through to having poor perception / anticipation of risk in adult lift. It seems to be a real burden for parents too. I just used to walk out the house and do things from 5/6 years old onwards. Now kids have to be taken everywhere – ‘activities’ and ‘play dates’*. Relaxing for children has been turned into a chore for parents who have to manage and supervise (and pay for) their fun for them.

*how the hell did that happen

It would certainly not be odd to see an 8 yr old make their own way to school in Scotland

They might take out dinner money but they’ll never take out freedom!

It would certainly not be odd to see an 8 yr old make their own way to school in Scotland

What about leaving school teachers here literally would not let them out. Also as said in the op the reverse is pretty much true in Berlin its odd to see an 8 year old walking to school with a parent.

My lad is 14, he is very very good on a bike, he’s told by me to ride on the pavement whenever he can. That’s due to all the useless **** driving cars badly!

True but as posted in my op these would be late developers in Berlin and yet to my eyes you did well

Is your example is Berlin atypical though?

Is your example is Berlin atypical though?

Not in Berlin as far as I could tell but obviously I was only there a few days. I have never really taken much notice on other travels as I didnt really have kids.

My lad is 14, he is very very good on a bike, he’s told by me to ride on the pavement whenever he can. That’s due to all the useless **** driving cars badly!

Yep I would be the same just some minor roads dont have pavements.

There was a recent series on ITV (forget the name)

Now I’m home I’ve looked this up – it was Planet Child. Here’s an example:

Can Kids Navigate Their Way Across London Alone? | Planet Child | ITV

Interesting thread.

My boys (youngest is 11, oldest 13) have a lot more freedom that many of their friends and I trust them to use it.

It’s always been small steps: walking ahead of me, first by a few metres and then by many minutes. Or getting a bus on their own into town while I cycle in. For years they’ve walked to the local library (1.5 miles) after school for coding club, to get a haircut. If they stayed on, the library would just phone to check this was OK etc.

The one I remember was several years ago, Went tobogganing and I left the boys to make their  own way home. They didn’t have enough bus money as they’d spent it on pies  (they thought –  there was more in the bag bottom) but the driver let them on anyway.  You could hear their excited chatter as they walked into the street.

Many of wife’s friends called me irresponsible but they had a brilliant adventure. They learnt a lot, and were OK with plenty of plans b’s: friends lived nearby, the library was open, they had a phone with them etc. What could go wrong?

At eight I was walking to school on my own, which was about a quarter of a mile away, which got exciting during the winter of 1963, with snow on the ground for three months.
Traffic was very, very light then, there were only three or four cars in the entire street, and the population of the town was around 19,000, now it’s around 50,000.
I used to go off and play up the woods on my own, in the local brooks, go off to the park, pretty much everywhere in town by the time I was ten.
A lot of dangers are more perceived than actual, but increasing amounts of traffic certainly does make things much more risky for younger kids, part of the issue there is lack of involvement by parents in training their kids to deal with it, because they don’t deal with it well themselves! Crossing roads without looking, and while staring at a bloody phone shows that all too clearly.

Always a tricky one. We are probably too overprotective of our kids in this country. The chances of it being your kid in the wrong place at the wrong time are incredibly remote, but how do you balance that against the natural parental urge to keep them safe?

Got a dilemma at the moment – daughter is just going into year 8, so 12 years old. She does a couple of after school clubs, which means there is no bus for her to come back to our village. She could walk 2.5 miles home on her own, as none of her friends in the village do these activities, but the first half mile involves an unlit footpath through woods where school girls have been approached/attacked roughly once a year. Last year I used my part time hours to pick her up those afternoons, but this year I’m likely to be going back full time. Do I let her do that walk, or say she can’t do the after school clubs?

Interesting use of the term micromanagement from @berkm.

I am really hands off at work, not interested in the detail and it works for me.

Should try and be a bit more like that at home.

As parents who believe in allowing our child to be free to learn and teaching him the basics, we now have an 8 year old boy who we can trust with with a Stanley knife, power tools, matches, etc, but I admit that its the roads that scare me. One mistake is all it takes.

And is it the idea of ‘how would it look’ if something went wrong that hold people back?

I take my 5 year old on road rides around our quiet Devon town, for example last week we cycled the 8 miles to Escot park (4 there, 4 back).

A few junctions and we cross one mainish road. I ride behind, in front, or alongside of her depending on the section of road.

She’s great, and very aware of safety, looking both ways, when to push, etc.
I’m hoping that by 9/10 she’ll be out on her bike doing rides around the country lanes with friends as I was at that age.

We just need to prepare them, give them the information and skills they need, and then trust in their abilities to act sensibly.

At 7 or 8 I was off all day in the woods and fields around my village, and I hope she’ll be the same.

Laddo has been out and about since he was 11 on his bike, basically big school, with the rule of avoid the road where possible, however we do have a zero tolerance policy with road riding etiquette, he knows if I ever get wind of any dicking about whilst riding on the road thats it, bike in shed, door locked. A mates kid (16) recently got punched by a car driver after a little altercation. I’d suggest 99.9 percent of the folk on here would never behave like that but weve all seen the YouTube clips etc. Tomorrow will involve a good 10 miles of riding to the big off piste stuff that they ride and even now it leaves me uneasy.

The fear has slowly crept in, and now it’s hard to get rid of it.
There have been too many horrible stories in our news and media over the last few decades, and in some of the reporting ,it doesn’t help that they now (IMO) give too much unnecessary detail.
That’s got to make it hard for any young parents to feel comfortable letting their kids go on their own.
Now I remember all the ‘stranger danger’ ads back in the 80s and big crimes like the moors murders, but unless we were somehow shielded from the bad stuff by our parents ,or because the media was less ’24hour news’ coverage ,I can’t remember parents being worried about where we all were. At 9 or 10 years old my mates and I would disappear all day. When we started going to the ice rink (at 11 or 12 yrs old) on a Saturday morning(10 miles away), it was full of kids, and there were very few parents supervising. Sometimes when we spend our bus money on sweets, we would hitch home. Nobody died or got abducted ,maybe we were just lucky. Cycling to school on the road though, I think the risk has changed there and that is sad.

Conversely, when we lived in Munich we arrived in February and we saw NO kids at all out and about on the fields or in play areas. Snow was left virgin, no snowmen, no snow forts, not even any tracks. When the kids finally did appear in April or so they were bundled up in huge coats and the younger ones generally pretty red-faced and sweating as it was 10-15C by this point. So they were quite literally wrapped in cotton wool.

I can only relay our approach and my view – each child and situation is different.

What I can say from work is that to over manage and over protect our children leaves them under prepared for life later, risks poor mental health, lower levels of physical activity, lack of risk judgement and anti-phobic determination.

Ours at 4+ played in the field and woods behind our house.
At 6+ they walked ahead of us to school in a quiet village.
At 8+ they walked to school on thier own.
By 11 they got local train and buses, walked to and from everything unless dark.
By 13 they took a train journey from Scotland to Midlands and back on thier own, on a route familiar to them.
By 14 they walk or cycle everywhere, including in the dark.
By 14 they walk and cycle mountains and local venues or trail centres with friends, no adults.
At 17 they are driving – and quickly he was sent on overnight to youth hostel alone, with car, to race enduro’s.
He’s nearly 18 and just flown to Alps for a fortnight with a friend, on thier own.

I worry more about online activity and poor physicalamd mental health of e didn’t do this.