Walking home from school is variable. A lot depends on how far away you are from school and whether your kids have to cross a major road.
I wanted my daughter to start walking home on her own in first grade but she didn't feel comfortable with that until 3rd grade. So I'd walk up to school and fetch her on the days I didn't work. At third grade I said, "You're old enough. Do it. You'll be fine." And she was and all was well though she was really concerned at first.
Kids younger than first grade need to walk with someone older. Our local elementary school allowed older siblings to walk their younger siblings home. Packs of kids were allowed to walk home from our local school together starting at about 2nd grade, especially if there were older kids (4th or 5th graders) in the group.
For her middle school, the kids could take the public buses home and the youngest kids are 11 (6th grade). Up until this year, the students even got free rides on the public buses. Unfortunately due to budgets cuts, that service is gone.
The kidlet's dad doesn't think she's old enough to ride the buses on her own yet but I think she could. We're still negotiating that.
It's weird because I'm the country kid. I grew up in rural southeastern Virginia without public transit anywhere and I want the kidlet to learn to navigate public transit to get herself places on her own.
I didn't walk much as a kid because nothing was within walking distance. And the one time I walked home from my high school (I was 16 or 17), which was about a mile and a half from my house, I got called in to talk to the principal because it was too dangerous for me to walk home. (Admittedly, there were no sidewalks and people drove like maniacs on my road but my parents let me collect aluminum cans all the time, on my road, by myself.)
My husband, who's the suburban guy, is way more conservative than I on letting our daughter ride alone. We take her on all forms of transit, all over the place (she's ridden subways and buses in San Juan, NYC, San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, and DC), so it's not an aversion to transit. It's the letting her out in a wide world that isn't particularly kind to women. I'm of the learn to deal with it now, when you have someone to help explain it and he's of the shelter her a bit longer mind set.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 04:17 pm (UTC)I wanted my daughter to start walking home on her own in first grade but she didn't feel comfortable with that until 3rd grade. So I'd walk up to school and fetch her on the days I didn't work. At third grade I said, "You're old enough. Do it. You'll be fine." And she was and all was well though she was really concerned at first.
Kids younger than first grade need to walk with someone older. Our local elementary school allowed older siblings to walk their younger siblings home. Packs of kids were allowed to walk home from our local school together starting at about 2nd grade, especially if there were older kids (4th or 5th graders) in the group.
For her middle school, the kids could take the public buses home and the youngest kids are 11 (6th grade). Up until this year, the students even got free rides on the public buses. Unfortunately due to budgets cuts, that service is gone.
The kidlet's dad doesn't think she's old enough to ride the buses on her own yet but I think she could. We're still negotiating that.
It's weird because I'm the country kid. I grew up in rural southeastern Virginia without public transit anywhere and I want the kidlet to learn to navigate public transit to get herself places on her own.
I didn't walk much as a kid because nothing was within walking distance. And the one time I walked home from my high school (I was 16 or 17), which was about a mile and a half from my house, I got called in to talk to the principal because it was too dangerous for me to walk home. (Admittedly, there were no sidewalks and people drove like maniacs on my road but my parents let me collect aluminum cans all the time, on my road, by myself.)
My husband, who's the suburban guy, is way more conservative than I on letting our daughter ride alone. We take her on all forms of transit, all over the place (she's ridden subways and buses in San Juan, NYC, San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, and DC), so it's not an aversion to transit. It's the letting her out in a wide world that isn't particularly kind to women. I'm of the learn to deal with it now, when you have someone to help explain it and he's of the shelter her a bit longer mind set.