Reply to Do your teens walk home from school?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]the OP has the right to be concern.  As the old saying "when your neighbor loses his job, it is a recession.  When  you lose your job, it is a depression."  Crime statistics is meaningless if it happens to your child.

Is it safer if your child walk home from school in the Mclean area versus Falls Church?  Not necessarily.  Pedophiles live in both Mclean and Falls Church, just saying.

Yes, your child can walk home in a group of at least 4 kids that live within one block from your home.  Otherwise, the answer is NO.[/quote]

The kid is 14, not 4. You're not doing your child any favors by trying to constantly bubble proof the world they live in, and not allowing them to develop the confidence to walk 10 minutes without a parent or grandparent.

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I think that it is actually prudent to know which kids are walking home on your street.  If you have several other kids walking home around the same time that your kid is or you know that there are neighbors home, there is a certain safety in that even if your kid is technically walking alone.

Stranger abductions might be rare.  But things like having a car follow you or a weirdo flashing you happen - especially when you're walking alone and[b] it is scary when it happens. [/b]
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But then you learn you can cope with "scary".  Do you think they will never be confronted with anything scary?  Talk through things that might happen, how to handle it.  You don't help people grow up into capable adults by shielding them from never, ever potentially running into anything that might possibly not be roses and sunshine.[/quote]

[b]Actually, I think you can go your whole life w/o ever being followed by a stranger or chased by a guy with his dick in his hand. [/b] I don't think that I needed those experiences to grow up to be a capable adult.  As a teen, I walked my familiar route home every day, usually with a friend or two but even when I walked by myself there were lots of other kids walking home at the same time.  It was good exercise and for the most part a good lesson in autonomy and personal responsibility.  Out of the years that I walked home I had maybe 4 or 5 scary stranger danger experiences where someone was actively following me, trying to talk to me or...yes, even chasing me.  What I learned from those experiences is "Don't be a straggler".  The creeps are looking for stragglers.

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Yes, why are some parents so certain that the world is full of creeps just waiting for their kids to be briefly unsupervised.  I walked to/from elementary and then to/from middle and high school bus stops, walked and biked alone all over my suburb and never got followed or saw some guy's dick.  I hope my DS and DD never do either but I'm not going to let the fear that it *could* happen keep them from a normal, healthy level of independence for a teenager.[/quote]

I guess I've had some bad luck because I not only got chased by a weirdo as a teenager on the walk home from school but I also got chased by a creep when I was 20 something on a fairly high travel trail.  I can not tell you how terrifying being chased by a predator is - both while it's happening and after you escape.  It literally took me years to be able to be able to exercise on that path again even though nothing had actually physically happened to me.

I think part of it was because I was pretty and didn't weigh too much.  I looked vulnerable and easy to take down even though I felt strong, healthy and quite capable.[/quote]

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