letting kids go to store alone

[Anonymous]

The only thing I'd make sure of is to tell the child how to handle vagrants that may be hanging out outside the story, asking for money. That's common around the 7-11s around me.

[Anonymous]

My daughter went at 9 for the 1st time. She rode her bike to Giant (about 1m away) and bought some bananas - she really wanted to go by herself. At the time I gave her my iPhone to use in case of an emergency, and I had done a few trial runs with her before hand. She was sooooo excited!!!

She later “graduated” to going to Basking Robbins or Starbucks riding her bike, or the pool - by herself or with a friend.


She is now 11 and she has to either wait for me to pick her up after swim team practice for 30 min or walk/bike home by herself. She has chosen to walk and cut through a neighbourhood path/shortcut.

This worries me as I would rather she biked through the main road... I live in Reston and there has been some reports lately of two or three aggressive homeless men, who had asked for money and became aggressive when the person said they didn't have any.

The reports are not from our area specifically, and the path is a 5-7 min walk at most.... But in any event, I just ordered her some self-defense tools: a pepper spray, a taser, and something that makes an ungodly sound.


Do I think she will need it? Absolutely not, but better safer than sorry.

I could always tell her to just wait for me or demand she bikes through the main road, but OTOH, at her age I was riding the bus all by myself to get to the mall in an urban city. A city is known for its high rate of robberies. All things considered, this is a minor risk IMO.