At what age would you let your children play outside on their own?

I saw a forum thread on Netmums (via their Facebook page) about letting children play outside alone. The original poster was concerned about some children (aged between 4 and 9) near her who play out on their own a lot and the older one goes to the shop on her own. The original poster was concerned mostly about the risk of abduction it seemed.

This is something I think about a bit as RoRo gets older. As a child, until I was seven, we lived in a cul-de-sac, where there were quite a lot of children. We all played out together from a young age – I’m pretty sure at least three, possibly earlier. I have fond memories of playing What’s the Time Mister Wolf and ball games against the huge wall at the very end of the cul-de-sac. We’d mostly just play out in the street, but we’d also play in each other’s gardens and when we were a bit older, I was allowed to go the park (just up a little path – no roads to cross) with some of the older children. When I was seven, we moved somewhere else in the same village. I used to walk up the (pretty quiet) street to go to the shop for my parents. And I’d go up and play near the stocks with some friends, or just go and call on my friend who lived above a shop up the road. This was all pretty normal and most other children in the village had a similar free(ish) rein. There were rules about not crossing the main road and not taking sweets from strangers.

I did have an encounter with a flasher a couple of times – once when I was with my mum, and once when I was walking up the newsagent. Neither time bothered me or scarred me – my mum steered me away from the first person and told me about such men and how there was usually nothing to be scared of – just to walk away. The second time, I told the newsagent, who chased the guy away. No problems. A friend had a car pull up and the driver offer her sweets and a lift. She knew well enough to refuse and walk quickly to the nearest house. Again, no problem.

We would almost always be out playing in groups. It’s harder to abduct someone when they are surrounded by other children. Not impossible, of course. But that’s always been the case. Why are we so much more worried about this scenario than our parents were? There seems to be an idea that the incidence of paedophiles and child abductions has increased significantly over the years, when it hasn’t – it’s just the media coverage that has increased. A number of people on the forum post, pointed out that many children are far more at risk in their own homes, as abuse by parents is far more widespread than stranger abduction.

So, when will we be letting RoRo and LaLa go out to play on their own? I really don’t know. I have fairly minimal worries about abduction, but I do worry about traffic. RoRo is getting a lot better at crossing roads safely, but she’s not there yet. I think I’d be happy for her to walk round the corner to her friend’s house (no road crossing) quite soon – maybe some time next school year. They run ahead so far when walking back from school, anyway, that doesn’t make a huge amount of difference! And it’s quite possible that I’d let her go to the post office on her own soon, too. But I think it will still be a while before I’d be happy for her to just go and play on her own in the park – it’s not a huge distance and only one small road to cross – and I’m not sure why. Maybe if she were going with a group of friends, including some older ones as I did, but that scenario seems fairly rare these days. I can’t actually imagine any of her friends being allowed to do that.

I think probably LaLa will end up going out unsupervised at a younger age than RoRo, because they’ll go together. I can certainly see a scenario where RoRo is 7 or 8 and LaLa 4 or 5 and they go to the park together.

However, if we lived somewhere different – such as on a cul-de-sac with lots of other children – I think there’s a good chance they’d already be playing outside on their own. If we had neighbours with children the same age (they’re all teenagers now), then I’m sure they’d be in and out of each other’s gardens (as I used to hear the now-teenagers when they were younger) and I wouldn’t be worrying overly about it.

I think it will always be down to making a decision based on location, family situation and responsibility of the individual child. I don’t think there is any absolute right and wrong about what age children should be allowed to play outside on their own.

What do you think? Do you let your children play outside alone? Do you have a plan for when you will? Do you think the world is more dangerous for children now then when you were child?