One of the things I found most surprising about visiting Japan was seeing large amounts of kids of this age and younger wandering around on their own in Tokyo (and other places but it was...
One of the things I found most surprising about visiting Japan was seeing large amounts of kids of this age and younger wandering around on their own in Tokyo (and other places but it was particularly surprising in one of the world's biggest cities). 5-6 year olds just trotting happily along, getting on and off buses and trains, going to school. Sometimes in groups but equally often alone.
When I was 8/9ish I was walking around the town I grew up all by myself. My kid will be doing that same, hopefully, and I live in a city these days, not a small market town.. I shall be sweaty of palms at first but the numbers are pretty solid - kids are safe in the world (and he's been heavily drilled in road safety from as soon as he could walk).
This is a nice experiment. I feel like it fails to address the real issue: we've managed to reduce the number of accidental child deaths pretty dramatically, and one of the ways we did this was to...
This is a nice experiment.
I feel like it fails to address the real issue: we've managed to reduce the number of accidental child deaths pretty dramatically, and one of the ways we did this was to monitor them more closely. Some parents do go too far and don't allow their children any time alone. But sending your seven year old across London alone probably isn't a great idea.
One of the things I found most surprising about visiting Japan was seeing large amounts of kids of this age and younger wandering around on their own in Tokyo (and other places but it was particularly surprising in one of the world's biggest cities). 5-6 year olds just trotting happily along, getting on and off buses and trains, going to school. Sometimes in groups but equally often alone.
When I was 8/9ish I was walking around the town I grew up all by myself. My kid will be doing that same, hopefully, and I live in a city these days, not a small market town.. I shall be sweaty of palms at first but the numbers are pretty solid - kids are safe in the world (and he's been heavily drilled in road safety from as soon as he could walk).
This is a nice experiment.
I feel like it fails to address the real issue: we've managed to reduce the number of accidental child deaths pretty dramatically, and one of the ways we did this was to monitor them more closely. Some parents do go too far and don't allow their children any time alone. But sending your seven year old across London alone probably isn't a great idea.