One of the homes Heather and I looked at this weekend was located within walking distance of a grade school. We thought this was great, and soon had adorable visions of Annie walking herself to school each morning. Adorable visions, that is, until we watched Diane Sawyer’s interview with Jaycee Dugard, who was kidnapped while making her way to school as a girl and held captive for nearly twenty years.
Suddenly, Annie’s walking to school didn’t sound quite so wonderful.
” I’m walking to school, Dad! Wait… I don’t go to school yet. Oops.”
When I was a kid I wanted desperately to walk to school, but I wasn’t able to for two reasons: A) we lived too far away, and my mother wouldn’t have let me anyway. I was so jealous of the kids who got to walk to school. They seemed so cool – totally adult-like and free – and I was stuck in the back of my mommy’s car listening to her Neil Diamond eight track.
My mom’s overprotective nature drove me nuts as a kid. I wasn’t a baby, damn it! I was a man who just happened to inhabit the body of a nine-year-old boy! I was mature beyond my years, like Mozart or Hailey Joel Osment!
At least that’s what I thought then.
But now that I’m a parent myself? I’m starting to get it. Letting your kid walk about the world by themselves is a scary thing, and it’s even scarier today than ever before. While kids of my parent’s generation may have had to walk uphill both ways in the snow (or so they say), kids today have to deal with weirdo perverts, texting drivers not looking out for kids on foot, and even giant transforming robots. (I’m pretty sure that last one is fictitious).
Despite all of that I don’t want Annie to be raised in a bubble. I want her to be able to take care of herself, and that means allowing her some freedom. The trick, I guess, is somehow finding a happy medium for her that is safe AND independent.
Eric@I've Become My Parents says:
I think it is all about that happy medium–and that’s different for every child. My son is 10 and now walks home on his own some days. I’m not worried about the abduction issue as much as the distracted driver (or walker).
And I’d trust him to walk with some of his friends but not others whose judgment just isn’t solid enough yet. I think the numbers show that the amount of abductions or attempts has actually decreased since we were kids, but our role is to give them the decision-making tools to handle all but the most extreme (and rare) circumstances. From what I read on this bog, you guys’ll find that happy medium pretty easily!
Claire says:
The media has a habit of blowing things out of proportion granted what happened to the girl who was kidnapped and held captive for many many years is terrible and awful the likelihood of it happening is still low.
That being said it is imperative we teach our children how to make smart decisions and not grow up scared of the boogey man.
dysfunctional mom says:
I think that’s one of the hardest things, finding that balance between giving them enough freedome, but not too much. I know I screw up sometimes, but I try.
My son just turned 18 in March, and is leaving tomorrow to go to the beach for two nights with friends, a bunch of 18 year old boys. Holy Crap, talk about worrying! You know how 18 year old boys are. This is his first time doing anything like this. I need Xanax!!
karen says:
I saw that interview last night and had nightmares. I have a baby girl and that stuff just sickens me so much.
I remember wanting to walk to school so badly like my latch key kid neighbors! My mom finally let me walk home with them until she saw me jaywalking across a really wide street with them. How did she find out? She was secretly following about 1/2 a block behind me!
Jennifer says:
Here in Switzerland the kids walk to and from school alone, some starting as early as in Kindergarten. My son was one of the last kids in his Kindergarten to walk home alone – he decided he wanted to once his best friend started making the trek alone. My son also lives further away from school than just about anybody, and the last part of the walk can be a bit lonesome. The American in me was and sometimes still is very nervous about this, but here it’s an important step towards child being considered “Schulreif” – ready for school. So I agreed, because that’s what the kids do here and because my son was the one who said he wanted to try walking. But it’s hard sometimes…
Andrea says:
I agree that finding the balance between protecting our kids and not wanting them to live in a bubble is very difficult. I did some research recently and was surprised to learn that the likelihood of child abduction has remained constant or decreased in the last 50 years. I think the media reports about them are just much more sensational than they used to be so we feel that they are more common.
That being said, would I allow my kid to walk to and from school on their own? Not sure yet….it really is a tough decision to make.
Sam says:
our parents would walk us to one neighbors house, and then we all walked as a group to school.
Julie says:
You might want to check out Lenore Skenazy’s Free Range Kids Blog at http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/. Reading it has really helped me to let go a little and realize that obsessing over all the horrible possibilities can really deprive my daughter of the opportunity to build independence.
Melissa says:
I just came to post this too Julie!
Love Lenore’s blog and it’s helping me be more objective. This story in particular:
http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/please-post-this-everywhere-steady-decline-in-crime/
Ashlee says:
I was about to refer them to that blog as well.
Crime is down. It’s safe-the media blows stuff out of proportion and uses the same sad stories over and over.
Kristen says:
I LOVE Lenore Skenazy and her “free range kids” philosophy. One of the most striking things I’ve read on her site, and that stays with me always, is this:
“If you for some reason WANTED your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, you would have to keep him or her outside, unattended, for 750,000 years for this to be statistically likely to happen. Yes, it happens THAT INFREQUENTLY.”
I would encourage you to read Lenore’s blog to help find that balance you seek between appropriately protective and building independence in your daughter.
Kate says:
I’m another fan of Lenore Skenazy’s blog – thanks for posting it here! The more people who see it, the better. I’m not a parent yet, but my husband and I are already actively working to embrace the free-range mindset. No small feat, when we were both raised by helicopter parents! (me, more than him)
Kate says:
It really is all about a happy medium.
My mom was really overprotective when I was growing up. We lived no more than a block from the elementary school and she wouldn’t let me walk to school on my own until I was in third grade (when I joined a club that met before school and therefore had to leave before my sister). She used to stand at the end of the driveway and watch, though, because she could see me all the way to school. Despite the fact that our neighborhood was seriously only school kids and I knew every person on the block so if something’d gone wrong, I had my choices of houses to run to. She got even more neurotic when I was in middle school and taking the bus, where she used to watch from the front windows while I stood at the bus stop. She only really relaxed when I started high school.
The rub of this? Was that I felt like the town freak. I had latch-key friends and friends who got to walk up to the 7-11 for slurpees when we were in fifth grade and my mother was absolutely OBSESSIVE about making sure I did not go with them. To the point of me being afraid she was going to give herself a heart attack! And I wasn’t a bold enough kid to actually do it anyway, so the rub was that I ended up missing out on a lot of key “kid” experiences that my friends got. In high school, I wasn’t allowed to go away with friends for weekends or go to movie parties after marching band (yeah, that was the kind of kid I was – marching band!) and it all culminated in my mother spending the first six weeks of my college career just IMing and e-mailing and calling me CONSTANTLY. One night, I forgot to charge my cell phone. By the time she called my room and got ahold of me, she was hysterical and crying – and I had 30-some missed calls.
Obviously, that’s about the least-healthy parent relationship you can get. And it’s caused me – now 27, living on my own several states away – a lot of paranoia and worry because she still views me as a little kid.
My point, I think, is this: yeah. There’s scary stuff out there. Bad things can happen, and you and Heather have experienced that in a way that nobody should. But you can’t overreact and try to shield Annie from everything without actually hurting Annie. I look at my cousin who is starting college next month and his 15-year-old sister who is fighting to come spend a few days with me for her birthday, and the way her parents are mimicking how mine acted, and I can’t help but think that for all the scary things they haven’t experienced, they’re also going to have a hard time experiencing adulthood, too.
Leslie Burnham says:
I agree with Claire … with the internet and 24/7 news broadcasts we have way too much information about way too many bad things. I’m not so sure that today’s children have more “weirdo perverts” and other random dangers – yes, there may be texting drivers out there now, but when I was a kid we didn’t use the seatbelts in our cars – it’s just that bad news catches our attention … and sells advertising on TV and the internet, so that’s what we are pounded with.
I agree with protecting your children, but also teaching them about the good out there. And case in point – the way that guy was able to keep Jaycee Dugard captive for so many years was to tell her about the dangers “out there.”
Staci says:
Interesting post and comments. It is really, really tough to find that balance. Because, in Jaycee’s case, no one was at fault. It was just some jerk who decided to prey on a child. Parents can only do so much.
Megan says:
One thing nobody has mentioned here is that walking to and from school is a great way to incorporate exercise into the day. And if you want to get gloom and doom, the risks of childhood obesity are way higher than the risks of abduction.
I often walked to and from school in high school, and I used to park my car in a commuter lot and walk about a mile to work in the morning. The biggest advantage is that the walk woke me up. When I rode a bus, I got to work still groggy.
I hope that by the time Annie gets old enough to begin walking on her own (or more likely, with other kids), you’ll know lots of neighbors and feel comfortable with the neighborhood. I think the benefits way outweigh the risks.
Jennifer says:
It also develops their curiosity. My son comes home with rocks, feathers, snail shells and once – a dead mouse (okay, that last one wasn’t so cool).
Tammy says:
Luckily I never had to deal with the issue of walking to school. But after having kids, the statement “having kids is like having your heart walking around outside your body” rang so true. I have a 16 year old who wants to drive herself to the mall. Same situation! Let’s just bubble wrap them and keep them home on a shelf all protected forever, what do you say? (kidding – sort of……)
Sharyn says:
Well, a good place to start would be a cell phone and a taser.
Lisa says:
I walked to school when I was a kid. I loved not having to take the bus, except on snow days when bus kids got the day off but us kids who walked still had to show up (Canadian winters!).
I don’t know if I would let my daughter walk to school now. I want to walk with her at least, but how embarrassing is that. I’m glad we live too far from the school so I don’t have to worry about it.
Hillary says:
Hey Mike!
I totally understand your concern. You should check out freerangekids.com a website about raising our kids to be independent and safe by Lenore. It is AWESOME. I saw that Julie also recommended it. Lenore will really help you to see some of the fear-mongering that goes on by the media and sift through it to find a way to allow Annie to be ‘free-range’! Good luck I wish you the best!
Mama in the Moon says:
I have been struggling with the same fears for my children. It is very scary to think of letting your children out on their own in the world with all the dangers that lurk out there. I think of some of the things my parents let my brother and me do – even though my Dad was a police chief, and my mom was very protective – and I still don’t think I will be willing to allow my children as much freedom as I had. At the same time, like you said though, I don’t want my boys to grow up in a bubble, afraid to step out of the front door. Hopefully finding that balance will be a natural process for us parents…and not *too* terrifying.
Rebecca says:
Once when I was in the 6th grade I walked home from school (it was about 5 miles). I even got home before the bus would have dropped me off. Regardless, my mom blew an aneurysm. To say she was pissed is putting it very lightly. If only I knew then what I know now.
Remember Shawn Hornbeck? He is a boy who was dropped off at his bus stop, or was he just riding his bike nearby his house? Anyway, he was picked up by Michael Devlin and held captive for, I think it was 4 years. And then Ben Owenby was picked up by the same man, he too was dropped off at a bus stop and was trying to walk home.
It’s all very frightening. Shawn lived pretty near where my parents live and the proximity of it all made it all too real for me and scares me daily.
SoMo says:
I remember walking to school in 3rd grade and then later finding out that my mom followed me to school. LOL!! The rest of my school life I wished so hard for my mom to drive me to school. I hated walking and taking the public transit bus. Talk about weirdos
This will not be a problem for my kids. They go to school 20 minutes away from our house and have to cross a river. Also, we live out in the boonies, so public transit is not in their near future. And yes, my 9 yr old complains about not being able to ride the school bus to school. I want to scream at her how plush she has it. I mean I turn on Disney radio for her every morning and they get to watch movies. INGRATES!
Minnyc says:
I don’t have kids yet but I always thought I’d let them walk but secretly follow them in the car. It’s faux independence I know but I think better to be safe than sorry. My mother finally let me start walking the 30 minute walk at 12 with a friend. I encountered 2 masturbating pervs in cars those 2 years of JHS. By the time I started taking the NYC subway to HS, that number doubled fast. Nothing terrible happened but it was scary at the time & I’d like my future kid to avoid this as long as possible.
JenC says:
The reason stories like Jaycee’s make the news is because they rarely happen and are so unusual. I remind myself of that, as I let my 9 year old walk our neighbors beagle around the block – she is visible by us all but a short distance. When she is 10 next year, I plan on letting her walk to school (approx 5 mins but out of site) with my heart in my throat the whole time. My job as a parent is to make sure she is independant and able to be on her own (or so I tell myself as we snuggle at night LOL).
Jen says:
It’s always a tricky question about walking to school. Growing up I walked to school (1 mile in elementary, 1.25 to jr. high, 1.5 to high school) and I envied the kids who were driven, especially on the days when I had wet shoes & pants legs all day. Now we live about 1/4 mile from the elementary school. I’ve let my son walk to & from “by himself” starting in the spring of 2nd grade (age 8). I put that in quotes because there are safety patrols or crossing guards at every intersection & he usually walks with other kids he meets up with anyway. I think that is the key. As long as there are other people around the risk of being snatched is minimal, I would be a lot more anxious if he were truly alone. I also believe that there were just as many perverts in the past as today, we are just more aware of them. That also makes us safer, because we can teach our kids not to go with strangers. Good luck with the house hunting.
Issa says:
I can see both sides of it. I want my kids to learn to be independent. I also know what can happen. I tend to let mine play outside and ride bikes in the neighborhood….but together or with friends. Not alone. I think that when you hear of kids getting snatched, it’s generally when they are alone. My mom always had a group policy and I think that’s what I’m going with as well.
Liz S says:
My kids (now 25 and 22) both walked to school by age 8 but almost always with a group of friends. By 10 they rode their bikes. It’s hard to let go. At 21 my son spent a month backpacking through Europe and my 22-year-old daughter just moved to Italy. I’ve always felt a weird mixture of pride and fear helping them to become independent. Every child, neighborhood and situation is different, but you’ll do what’s best for your child when it’s time.
Colleen says:
I struggle with this for all the same reasons you do. But also because I have a second degree black belt and I teach karate to kids ages 8-16. And it is so hard to balance teaching them to be aware of their surroundings without being paranoid… to use caution because that person over there is a STRANGER DANGER but not judge people for their appearances. I sort of freak out over teaching this to kids who aren’t MY kids.
We haven’t started our boys in karate yet (not entirely sure we will either to be honest… it’s a maybe) but we do talk about stranger awareness and if they offer you candy, puppies, whatever to run like hell and find someone safe (mom, dad, grandparents, police, store owners and/or other moms with kids because they should help too) or to kick and scream and fight like hell if you are grabbed. I also teach them that I love them no matter what and no one else can ever, ever tell them that I don’t. A huge fear for me is to have someone grab them and then proceed to tell them I don’t love them anymore and I wanted them to be taken. (I think I have watched too many 60 minutes stories or something.)
Let me tell you that these teaching moments have already turned in to some fearful tears from my 5 year old. He has an active imagination and despite our best efforts to keep it light, it’s not a light subject. And I am both happy and really sad about it. I want him to have a healthy dose of caution. But I want him to have a carefree childhood.
Anyways – teach them your phone numbers and street address. My older one knew them all by age 4 and we are working on it with our 3 year old. Teach them their parents’ names. Empower them with information, and then snuggle the hell out of them every night.
p.s. we live 1 mile from our elementary school and they will only walk to school over my dead body. They have the majority of their lives to be grown ups. My job is to get them there safely.
Meyli says:
You or Heather (or both!!) could walk with Annie to school
I lived close enough to walk to elementary school, and I always went with my sister and at least 2 neighbors. When we were younger than 5th grade, my mom would come too.
Molly says:
Just to clarify–there are no more perverts, kidnappers, or weirdos today than there were when our parents were growing up, or when their parents were growing up, or their grandparents, and on and on. It’s just that each generation of parents has to answer the question, “How do we deal with evil in the world?” in their own way.
A lot of people have documented and theorized why we see so many highly publicized stories in the media today of young (white) girls being targeted, and it has a lot more to do with our culture’s fears and obsessions than with crime.
Madi G. says:
I lived too far away to walk, but I had a friend who lived about a mile away from the school. We’d walk home to her house after school and my mom would collect me from her house around 4:30.
That all stopped when we were approached by a kidnapper!
Indeed, I was almost kidnapped as a child.
A man drove up beside us in a car, with the word “Taxi” spray painted on the side. He said that our parents had asked him to collect us.
We were old enough to know that this guy was full of it. We ran into the woods and walked through the woods to get to her house.
It wasn’t a big deal to us as kids. I mean, he didn’t try to grab us or anything — he just tried to talk us into the car. We were a bit spooked, but not scared. But it was a huge deal to everyone else — it was on the news, we made composite sketches at the police station, etc.
This occurred in the safest of safe communities — an upperclass suburb, where all the city’s doctors, professors, businessmen and other professionals lived. Until recently, there wasn’t a murder in that town for 30+ years. It was/is “safe” and yet this occurred.
So you’re not being overly protective if you don’t allow Annie to walk to school. You’re being realistic.
Heidi says:
We live pretty far from our kid’s elementary school (1.25 miles) for me to feel comfortable with them walking by themselves. Not only that, but our walking path (while lovely) takes them through a lot of forested areas where I never see anyone else and while surrounded by homes, still feel pretty isolated. They can, and do, take a bus to school, but they really love to walk (as I said it’s a very lovely way to school, past a pond, over small bridges, etc) and it’s great exercise for me, so we walk as often as the weather allows. (Living in the Pacific Northwest that means hardly ever throughout the winter months.) I love our walks to, and sometimes, from school. It gives us a chance to talk about the day and I love it when they still hold my hand (getting less and less these days). That being said, I still take them and pick them up from the bus when they take it, and it’s just 2 blocks from our house. Now that they are going into 2nd and 3rd grade, I won’t stress as much if I’m a little late getting to the bus stop and they love to walk the 2 blocks by themselves (suburb blocks). I think I keep doing it more because *I* get out and chat with other parents, but I know they feel really grown up when they walk it together themselves.
Fortunately we live only a few blocks from the middle and high schools. By then I’m sure I’ll be letting them walk (or bike) themselves. Heck, by then I’ll be worrying about them wanting to DRIVE!! Ack!!!
It’s scary to let our children grow up and spread their wings. I’m still pretty protective, but I agree I need to give them the chance to try things on their own, but I’m also keeping in mind their ages and maturity levels.
Mama Bub says:
My brother begged and pleaded to walk to school one day. My mom finally agreed… and then followed behind him in her car.
Kristen says:
My husband is a probation officer who supervises sex offenders. It is his experience that these offenses are typically committed by someone you know, rather than the stranger in a car trying to lure your child. That doesn’t necessarily help your dilemma, probably just gives you something else to worry about. I don’t have a problem letting my 7 year old walk to a friend’s house in our neighborhood, but we are sometimes overly suspicious of friendly neighbors, etc.
As for the people commenting that there are no more perverts now than in the past, I don’t have any statistics to prove or disprove that, but I can tell you that my husband’s caseload keeps growing and growing with Megan’s Law offenders.
Lorie says:
My 12 year old daughter’s bus stop is a 5 minute walk from our house and I still drive her to it every morning because of the kidnapping fear. My husband says I worry too much. I don’t get off work until an hour after her bus brings her back home so I sit and wait for my phone to ring and hear her say she is home safe. I would be there to meet her bus every day after school if I could. Maybe I am being a little to worriesome, but I can’t stand the thought of finding out she never made it to school or home one day. Luckily, she is big for her age and my husband says that kidnappers go for the tiny, easy to get kids; nobody kidnaps 5′ 5″, 140 pound 12 year olds. lol
jess says:
I was driven to the bus stop in the AM b/c it was early and my parents couldn’t see the bus stop from the house. But I did walk home from the bus stop a lot. I had really over-protective parents because I had Guillian Barre when I was little so I was in the hospital for a month and then missed 6 months of school for rehab.
I wasn’t allowed to ride a bike on the road (we didn’t live on a road that was used much, we lived on a dead end) because when I was 13 a friend of mine was killed while riding his bike on a road in town. Sadly he wasn’t wearing a helmet. It was a complete accident, he looked behind him to see if the car was going to pass, his bike got into the path of the car, and he got hit.
Would I let my kids (when I have them) walk to school? I don’t know. It’s so dangerous these days. But then again if we overprotect them they will go and do dangerous and stupid things to disobey us. I think like some have said above it’s up to the parents and a happy medium. And always talk about stranger danger. I just read about a kid in Florida whose kidnapping was stopped because he wouldn’t stop screaming for the police officer at the Nascar event to help him. His mom told him about stranger danger. Here’s the article:
http://AmiteToday.com/bookmark/14663333
Hopefully that link works.
You and Heather are great parents, I have no doubt you will do fine.
Becki says:
Ok. Grim advice but from an “expert”.
My Dad is the most POSITIVE, upbeat person you could meet. He is a retired Chief Deputy Coroner (NOT a doctor – think Quincy’s boss, lol).
He says it’s a different world. You don’t let your kids walk to school unless you are next door and can watch them. It’s just not worth it. You have to err on the side of caution. Too many weirdos, wackjobs and empty houses (because both parents have to work now).
Glenda says:
I was 12 taking public transportation in NYC. I always had a friend to walk to and from the bus stop. When she didn’t go to school I’d walk alone. I was followed on two occasions by a pervert in a car.
Both my kids wanted to walk to school. I didn’t allow it. I drove them and worked PT to be able to pick them up. It’s scary out there. When they were 12 I dropped them off at the theaters and picked them up with a group of friends. There is a happy medium.
rebekah says:
I am really overprotective too — but I try to remember that really crime rates HAVEN’T gone up since we were kids — it’s just the way the news portrays things these days, lots of scary hype. Insane horrific stories like the Jaycee Dugard case are thankfully so so so so so so rare. But I agree — it makes me think twice about things too!!
Jessica says:
The media sensationalizes those kind of stories… Well, only if it’s a white girl involved… At any rate, crime rates are lower than at any other point in our countries history. (At least since we’ve been keeping records.) It’s still incredibly rare that a child gets kidnapped by a stranger. (Far more likely scenario is a relative.) You can’t worry about the bogeyman. My parents MADE me walk to school when I was in 3rd grade. They refused to drive me anymore and I lived too close to catch the bus. I had to walk through a drug infested area. Unfortunately there were (a police station down there has since cleaned up the area) severe drug problems in the apartments that surrounded our schools. The elementary school, middle and high school were all on one campus. At any rate, I will teach my kids what to do if someone attacks them…. But in all those years I walked to school, I never had a problem, other than a bully that continually tried to beat me up until he get expelled from school. Oh and btw I was a skinny little white girl. (Seriously tho, look up the FBI crime statistics. Life isn’t quite so dangerous as the media types want us to believe!)
lauren says:
I strggle with this also. I want her to be independent but I do have this fear. And to be honest I live in a really good comunity and just two months ago a man in a carf started to follow a young girl as she was walking in the street. she ran very fast to a neighboor. so it can happen anywhere.
Becki says:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/leiby-kletzky-dead_n_896871.html?icid=main%7Chp-desktop%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk1%7C218784
Yesterday.
Sorry. But like my Dad says, better safe than sorry. He says you do NOT want to be that set of parents he had to counsel and convince it wasnt their fault.
You can give them independence other ways.
Minnyc says:
There’s a breaking news conference on here in NYC that made me think of this post. An 8 yr. old boy, Leibby Klutzky, walking 7 blocks home from school disappeared Monday & was found this morning in the worst possible scenario. So sad.:(
Ray says:
With the horrific and heinous murder of Leiby Kletzky (http://images.optonline.net/News/AP/Article?fmId=53063090), I say: hold onto your children for as long as possible. And that might mean allowing them to go to school alone at the age of twelve, or thirteen. An age where they should be able to understand the meaning of, “IMMEDIATE DANGER.”
And even at those ages, you must STILL be careful and enforce safety measures with them repeatedly.
Karen says:
One other factor which will play a role in the walk to school/independence decisions is Annie herself…
to wit: when one of my kids was 6, I found a couple of bus tokens in her backpack. Turns out she was taking them to school just in case nobody was able to pick her and her sister up. (School would not let her leave unaccompanied, so we’d never discussed “what to do if nobody comes to get you”.) Upon examination she knew where to go to catch the bus, which number bus she had to take, which direction it would be going (both physical direction and final destination), and approximately where to disembark (there are 4 stops within 2 blocks of our house). She also knew the names of teachers at school who sometimes take that bus home, so she could ask one of them to help her.
In contrast, my other child insisted that until she was 11, she would be too young to take the bus unaccompanied.
In general, kid #1 needs me to find situations where she can safely be independent, and kid #2 needs to be allowed independence when she finds situations which feel safe. Neither is “right” or “wrong” because for both kids there are parents or other adults making judgment calls about what actually is safe.
You’ll figure out what Annie needs and how she can be both safe and independent in the community where she’s growing up!