Too Young?

[znzyzyzx]

Hi, personally, I will not feel comfortable for my kids to go home themselves as long as they are before primary 5.

[ammonite]

You need to also consider the neighbourhood and traffic conditions around that time. If she s not very street smart or alert, maybe it is time to start teaching her what to do for different scenarios now. Start with home and expand outwards. Fire safety rules, electrical appliance rules, stranger danger at the door /lift/ void deck. She must know all these first. What to do if a stranger she feels uncomfortable with enters the lift with her alone, what if she thinks someone is following her etc. If she is not very street smart, you should run all these by her.


If she must go home by herself, see if there is a neighbour’s child going the same way. Safety in number.

My son is 9, pretty street smart, but I will also not ask him to walk home himself. My place will have an MRT station opposite a major road when he is 11. The junction is currently an accident spot. I will definitely not let him take it alone, even with traffic crossing. But if they build an underground pass, I will let him come home by himself using MRT and the underground pass. My immediate neighbourhood is safe.

[ammonite]

I must add that she being a girl, and coming home at a regular time, any stranger with bad intentions will be able to study her travel routes and time easily. So you really need to teach her stranger danger.

[sharonkhoo]

I have 2 teen girls. At 10yo, I would probably have been OK with them walking home alone in broad daylight along a route that is not too lonely. Ideally, she should walk home with a neighbour or friend. The other thing you can do is ask her to phone or text you as soon as she reaches home each day.

[bebebub]

My dd1 takes the public transport (bus + mrt) home after she turned 10. The entire journey does not require her to cross any roads.


My dd is often not quite aware of situations. I notice that she takes my presence for granted whenever we need to get across roads. She does not look out for traffic but instead just follow me blindly. To prepare her, I ask her to lead me to cross the roads instead. That is, she look out for oncoming traffic n lead me to cross the road when safe. This enables me to judge her alertness n judgement, n teach her based on real situations.

The one about sharing lifts with strangers or being followed is a bit tricky to teach. Can only remind her to be conscious of her surrounding and stay alert. Having a travel companion is a good idea. My dd sends me a SMS when she gets onto the bus, so I can estimate the time she will reach home.

[ammonite]

When I was studying overseas, there was a safety course for girls and a safety bus for late nights. One of the things is if you think someone may be following you, cross to the other side of the road or path. If they follow, one of the things you can have handy is a whistle or hold your house key at the ready - to jab them hor, not to open the door. You can also slow down at a safe spot and let them walk past so they are in front instead. Normal men will hurry up and walk past.

[Haneyi]

I've been trained to be independent from young, received house keys in P3, walked home after school in P4 ( after school bus drops me ) and started taking the public transport in P5 ( my parent guides me to the bus stop in the morning though ). Now I'm in Sec 1, and I basically travel by myself to my destinations and back home, sometimes I have activities in schools at night till late and the latest I've traveled was 9:30 or so.


In my opinion, I feel that 10 is an okay age to start walking home from school at the timing stated above and taking the lift alone. However, since you stated that she is ' not exactly the street-smart or alert kind of child ', it might be better to wait until she's in P5. To a certain extent, it also depends on the neighbourhood/place/etc. I've lived in the same place since I was born and I know the people and place well, so I'm perfectly fine on my own.

To add, I don't think that a phone is really necessary and 10 is a bit too young to carry a phone around ( to me ). Even at 13 right now, I personally don't own a phone.

Hope this helps.

[chemistry]

My neighbour child starts walking home herself when she was p3. She is also left alone at home after school. Her mum will prep her lunch in a thermo flask. My neigbourhood is quite safe and she needs to get across 2 traffic lights to reach my block, so i guess it is quite ok for her.


For me who is a protective parent, i think i will only let my girl walks back in P5 or P6.

[heyhoe]

It is difficult to let go but we finally did it this year. My eldest ds is in P5 this year. He stay at home after school and I prepare food in thermos flask for him. He usually walk home with his classmates to our place which cross 1 traffic light.

At P5, he stayed back at school around 3 times in a week.

There are a few incidents as my ds1 is a dreamer:-
1)He forgot his keys (that’s when he got locked out) and we had to rush home. Found him outside the door, hungry and looking very tired. (We did asked him to get help from neighbour - but he refused).
2) He didn’t call me (forgot his hp was on "silent mode"). He got us all worried that we had to rush home again.
3) He played games without permission.
4) He played games with permission but forgot to do what is necessary first.