Letting kids walk to school alone

[sbehr]

I read Robin's and Alena's recent posts about leaving kids at home alone and it made me think of this question. At what age do you all think is OK for kids to walk/ride bicycles to school rather than being dropped off at school? For this example the school is less than a mile away from the children's home, they only cross one neighborhood street

Comments

[tdcsnowwhite]

We're in a situation where the school is about 6-7 miles away, and the only route to the school is a busy "highway." (I put highway in quotes, because it isn't an interstate, and the road only has 2 lanes, but it is a state road, and extremely busy, especially during morning rush when the entire county makes a mass exodus toward NYC.) And the kids would have to walk about a mile down a street with no houses, only woods (the home to wildlife, which can be dangerous) to get to the highway. So there is NFW I am letting anyone walk to school, ever. It is extremely dangerous, and it would take about 2 or 3 hours to walk that distance.

So in my case, the question becomes: would I let the kids walk the 0.75 mile home from the bus stop through our residential neighborhood? I probably won't until they are in middle school. There are no sidewalks in our neighborhood, and no shoulders, so until they are big enough to be clearly seen by cars, I'd think that even that short distance would be dangerous. Plus in the winter there is too much snow, (and I'd worry about them being too cold) and in nicer weather we see too many bears. (And the question is moot for the morning until MS because the elementary school bus picks up after DH and I both need to be at work, so some sort of before care will be necessary until MS.)