Reply to gut check -- age to go to park alone with friend

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm really curious what you all are imagining might happen to your eight-year-old on her way to/from the park or while she was there. I don't mean this to sound snide -- is she not good at looking both ways when crossing the street? takes dumb risks at the playground? can't be trusted to stay where she's supposed to be? Help me understand the threat model.[/quote]

OP here.  My particular concern is stranger danger, which yes I know is actually rare.  But as I said in the initial post, this park is sort of isolated / off the beaten path and often empty.  It's also a cut through from a metro station, and we have (although rarely) had an occasional odd person wandering through the neighborhood that gets your radar up.  That's the background that's leading to uncertainty.  As I said, she plays unsupervised plenty, and if the park were teeming with school aged kids and families I'd be fine with it.  There are other places I'd also be concerned to let her go alone due to crossing certain roads because people drive like maniacs around here.[/quote]

PP. I think it's vanishingly unlikely that an odd person at the park would be an actual threat, but I agree that it would be weird and uncomfortable and if it's in an isolated location it would give me pause too. The parks that are walking distance from my house are either relatively busy or directly across the street from houses/next to a pretty well-frequented sidewalk, so there's not that "all alone with a weird adult" vibe. That said, if it were my kid and she really wanted to go do this, I'd have a talk about how sometimes grownups who are not well end up at that park and if there's a stranger there I'd like them to come home.

We also have a dumbphone that I send with kids in circumstances like this, mostly because I want to be able to call them to come home when I need them. [/quote]

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