At what age do you let your older child roam the neighborhood alone?

[Anonymous]

With friends? Without? How far away? Does it matter if there are things like busy streets or lakes around?

[Anonymous]

DS is 10 and walks/bikes around by himself. Quiet subdivision, no really busy roads. I'm not sure how I would feel about the lake. Man made, small lakes would be ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS is 10 and walks/bikes around by himself. Quiet subdivision, no really busy roads. I'm not sure how I would feel about the lake. Man made, small lakes would be ok.

Thanks. Did he just start? I just let my 9 year old go out on his own. I was out by myself way younger, but it just feels weird now.

[Anonymous]

I let my 9 year old bike around the neighborhood alone. She knows which streets she's not allowed to cross. I hadn't thought about a lake because it's not relevant to our neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

6. But, we have a really safe neighborhood with sidewalks, and I know most my neighbors, and we don't have a lake near by.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the child's maturity and how old the child appears to be. The younger the child appears, the more likely someone is to question it. The more mature the child is, the more I trust the child to react correctly to any situation.

[Anonymous]

8, but only biking/scootering between the twin cul-de-sacs in our subdivision. We don't have sidewalks.

[Anonymous]

I let my 7 and 9 year olds roam about with their friends. There are 4 houses of kids their age, and they are all within 3 blocks. They have to stay together and alert the parent when moving from one yard to the next. The moms text each other with updates every hour or so.
We let them go the playground too.
We do live only one block off s fairly busy road, so we occasionally have cara driving too fast. They are very careful and conservative when crossing because we have really stressed it.

[Anonymous]

6 but we live on a very quiet cul-de-sac. My kids are only allowed to go to the immediate neighbors' houses so I'm not sure if that qualifies as roaming the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

We live on Capitol Hill. 10 years old. I also let my now 12 year old DS take his siblings (7 and 9) to the nearby 7-11. 12 year old has a cell phone.

[Anonymous]

Sadly, he's 10 and I still don't let him. He has severe ADHD, and we have just started to medicate him so that he can cross roads safely under my supervision. But he still needs to catch up on all the proper responsibilities and behaviors before we trust him alone.

[Anonymous]

We have a 9 year old severe yet managed w meds adhd boy. He's an only child. We live in a cul de sac. He goes out alone but knows he must stay in sight. I check on him every 15 or so to make sure he's in sight. He has two boys whose house he's allowed in. Their mom and I text while they're together to check in. Pray the boys don't move!

[Anonymous]

8 yo can go alone on his bike for a block in either direction while I'm in the front or back yard. It's a long hilly block and he's not allowed to cross the road. Very safe neighborhood in VA. He's not allowed to do this with friends yet because they would get ideas and go further.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I let my 7 and 9 year olds roam about with their friends. There are 4 houses of kids their age, and they are all within 3 blocks. They have to stay together and alert the parent when moving from one yard to the next. The moms text each other with updates every hour or so.
We let them go the playground too.
We do live only one block off s fairly busy road, so we occasionally have cara driving too fast. They are very careful and conservative when crossing because we have really stressed it.

We have a pack of kids about that age in my neighborhood that roam around and they do lovely things like drop F bombs around adults who aren't their parents, give dirty looks to any adults that try to say anything to them, and they literally pound the shit out of each other.

I often wonder if their parents have any clue what's going on.

[Anonymous]

Literally? Really?