Seven years old. Was playing unsupervised with friends in a park 40 minutes walk from home at 8pm in the evening.

How many of you would be OK with that and if not, is this really a ‘tragic accident’ or a case of gross negligence on the parent’s part?

STW, yesterday.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/parents-how-old-were-your-kids-when-you-first-let-them-out

(TL;DR, it depends on maturity, not age.)

i wouldnt.

Depends on the area, is it a traffic accident you would be worried about (which is a fair concern) or the bogeyman (of which parental fear is probably going to have a worse impact on the children)?

Not ok as simple as that.

😮

Not sure this day & age, I was often going missing down the fields when I was 7 & was always getting told off by mum & dad (1963).

Times have changed but maybe depends where you live as well.

Nope, too young, too late and too far from home.

Not a bloody chance. I wasn’t allowed that far from home until I was about 14. Even then it would only be to a friends house in another area.

I was thinking about the seven year old boy who was tragically found dead today, in a vertical pipe in a construction site. He’s crawled in to play, falled into this pipe and died.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-33672499

No way.

I used to get a telling off if I didn’t nip back home every hour or so up until being about 14. Even then, the longer bike rides had to be pre-planned and family informed of where I was going.

Just started letting 8yr old go to the park with his sister who is 11. No roads to cross and back within the hour or there will be trouble, would not be out after tea time though. Back when I was a young un I was allowed out all day but it was all very local and with a bunch of mates.

We had plenty of freedom and managed to get into plenty of scrapes when I was 7/8/9 (late seventies, Ireland) – however, thinking back now, to areas which would have been forty minutes from home, there was no way even the most relaxedly parented kids were that far from home at seven, not in my neighbourhood anyway. Y’know, I’m sure his parents will suffer with this for the rest of their lives (and perhaps they should) – but that far away at seven does seem a long way from home. Negligence? I dunno…they’ll have plenty of time to work it out in their own heads.

Playing out unsupervised @ 7- yes, that would be a goal and should be normal imo. Sadly achieving that goal might mean moving areas and plenty of sprog eduction about how to act maturely and streetwisely. However, being a 40 mins walk from home at 7 seems way way too much to me – more like 5 (depending on the area).

In this case the distance from home seems like it was irrelevant – he was found much closer to home than that.

In an ideal world yes, but in ‘THE’ world (or the UK) no way whatsoever!

Depends. On our culdesac, yes. In our old village, field and woods behind our house they were allowed to go as long as they could see the house, from 5/6.

Near traffic? No.

Without details? Hard to say. I’m not sure what “tragic accident” the OP is referring to though.

When I was 7 I used to get the bus across Edinburgh on a Friday evening to go to Cubs. On a nice night I’d walk it and keep the bus fare!

I’m not sure what “tragic accident” the OP is referring to though.

As above:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-33672499

A 40min walk from home at 8pm. You have to hope he was not meant to be out that late, or there is more to the story. Not cool parenting otherwise (despite my pro playing out post above)

My kid is 8 …and I still go everywhere with him……..no kids play outside on their own where I live!!
Not because it’s a rough area….my area is really quiet

But when I was a lad (here we go!!) everyone on my estate played together , everyone knew each other and I used to go out ( as long as I stayed on the estate) from the age of 4

Mind you things where different back then, we even left the key in the door….we had **** all worth nicking!!

No chance !

Don’t even like my 18 yr old daughter going out now, but did remark to Mrs Lannister after the news, that boys are different and it’s a shame the idea of a seven year old out playing so far from home is bound to be frowned on by the mollycoddlers these days and there will be some serious tutting and handwringing, but…

At that age I’d catch a bus five miles to school and when it went on strike I cycled, I’d also spend all day away playing and we had bomb sites, much more fun.

that boys are different

Why do you feel this?

In this case the 40 minutes from home is irrelevant given where he was found. I don’t have kids, but I do think it is a shame for them, and bad for society as a whole, that kids have their freedom restricted so much these days.

I was going to ask if distance from home made a significant difference? Does a year make a significant difference? As per the other thread, our 8yo is just being allowed to go off playing with mates in local park a few minutes walk away, which most people seem to think is fine and if anything would be fine for somebody younger. There is a building site between park and home, less than a minutes walk away, which is sometimes not properly secured in the evening…

Looking at the distance and the roads between the park and home it does seem to far.

But where the actual accident happened and the distance from the home, would probably be within the bounds of unsupervised play for me.

This is just based on the map and satellite picture of the area, there would of course be other factors to consider.

I used to walk to school on my own at that age, though we lived in a village and there wasn’t much traffic in the 1970s.

The little lad actually died on a building site about 200 yards from home,there appears to be some doubt about which park he went to,as there is a local park near his house.

In cases like this it is often useful to consider the social standing of the parents. If he was from a broken home, single-parent on benefits type then it’s poor parenting. If his parents are two middle-class professionals (e.g. doctors) then it’s a tragic accident.

As much as you love to shoehorn the McCann case into these things druidh, their tragedy was hardly an “accident” was it? Your desire to get your opinion of it in has clouded your sense of rationale. Not for the first time and not the last either for sure. Two very different incidents and not really that comparable.

In cases like this it is often useful to consider the social standing of the parents. If he was from a broken home, single-parent on benefits type then it’s poor parenting. If his parents are two middle-class professionals (e.g. doctors) then it’s a tragic accident.

😆

In cases like this it is often useful to consider the social standing of the parents. If he was from a broken home, single-parent on benefits type then it’s poor parenting. If his parents are two middle-class professionals (e.g. doctors) then it’s a tragic accident.

sad

I saw this yesterday in the news and my first thought was that I wouldn’t let them out my sight at 7 years old, never mind a 40 minute walk from home on an evening without another adult with them.

Spoke about it with people at work and everyone shared the same opinion.

convert – Member
that boys are different
Why do you feel this?

Permit me to correct..

Boys should be different, I realise in this day and age of PC blundering, molycoddling, no blame, no bullying, and certainly no risk taking, we are selectively breeding away the little ball bits…

And as to the incident it was a tragic accident, fate, it could have happened right outside the house, or even from falling out of his bedroom window, it was written that’s it.

Boys should be different, I realise in this day and age of PC blundering, molycoddling, no blame, no bullying, and certainly no risk taking, we are selectively breeding away the little ball bits…

See, that’s not what I meant – entirely the wrong way around. Why do you perceive girls to be so soft and lacking independence they can’t do the stuff that you think (as do I) boys should do? Very old fashion view if you ask me.

Isn’t hindsight wonderful. At what age would you let them have a bit of freedom?

When I was a kid we used to ride our bikes all over Cambridge on our own…..

Boys should be different, I realise in this day and age of PC blundering, molycoddling, no blame, no bullying, and certainly no risk taking, we are selectively breeding away the little ball bits…

Blimey that’s even worse than what you first said!

Why are you against “PC blundering, molycoddling…etc” for boys but okay with it for girls?

Apart from anything else you are completely undermining your own objection: if a generation of mothers are brought up in over-protective bubbles then they’ll bring up their sons in the same way.

Isn’t hindsight wonderful. At what age would you let them have a bit of freedom?

“a bit of freedom” being letting my kids go to a park 40 minutes walk away on their own? Let me think. Maybe when they’re 14/15?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing which is why I want to protect my kids as much as I can. The last thing in the world I imagine anyone would want is to think “I wish I did that differently” when the result was their dead child.

At the end of the day, letting a 7 year old out on his own to go to a park a 40 minute walk away, along/over main roads and for him to then end up dead on a building site, to me, smells more of child neglect than when the McCanns went for a meal and left their kids “safely” in an apartment nearby.

My girls (2 of them) do about 99% of the things that boys do, and the rest they just discard because they’re too sensible.

Tyrion, me old son- disrespectfully, you’re talking cobblers 🙂

DBW – whilst you would be far from alone in thinking a 40min walk from home is daft for a 7 year old what you said was “I wouldn’t let them out of my sight”. With respect for me that’s too much the other way (which is the point aracer was making I suspect). Allowing kids some freedoms and showing them how to use it sensibly is a key part of growing up and good parenting. Still, you know your kids and the geographic limitations of where you live best.

Yeah, but at what age would you let them out of your sight, as you claimed neither you nor your colleagues would with a 7yo?

As has already been pointed out, the accident happened a lot closer to home than that, within the sort of range many of us think reasonable for a kid close to that age. My 8yo will certainly be allowed out to play with mates in the next few weeks if they come calling, to go playing in the park 5 minutes away – as he was last week. 6yo is sometimes out of my sight if within a shorter range. Your “not out of my sight” smacks of knee-jerk.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing which is why I want to protect my kids as much as I can. The last thing in the world I imagine anyone would want is to think “I wish I did that differently” when the result was their dead child.

Personally I don’t want to be thinking “I wish I did that differently” when my kids have problems due to lack of freedom when younger.