Letting Your Kids Walk to School

When I was growing up, I can remember walking to and from school at a pretty early age.  My early years, we lived very close to my elementary school, I just followed our street to the end of the block and walked through the school gate. When we moved, I walked to a bus stop by myself in the morning, waited for the bus and then walked from the bus stop on the way home.  I played in the neighborhood, I rode my bike from one friend’s house to another. In High School I walked miles to visit friends or go to work. But that was many years ago, times have changed.  Many of us question if our child is old enough to walk to to school, or even just to the bus stop.

The convenience of kissing your baby goodbye and sending them to off to the bus stop. You know your child better than anyone, and questions are exactly what you should be asking yourself when you are trying to decide about letting your kids walk to school. Is your kiddo mature enough? Age is really a number when it comes to some kids. Some 12 year old still aren’t responsible or mature enough to handle the task of getting themselves to school or the bus stop without stopping to smell the roses or forgetting which way to go. Practice the route to and from school with your child and make sure they understand the rules of the road. What is the route? Check out the distance and time it would take them to complete the walk. The longer route may actually be safer if it has less road crossing. Also how you feel about the safety of the route is a huge factor. Having friends along way, including houses they know they could stop at if they need too, will give you a greater feeling of security. Does your child know what to do in an emergency? This is the real reason we question if our kid should walk to school alone. Our biggest fear. Talk with your children. Tell them what to do if a stranger wants them to go with them. Give them to tools to deal with an emergency.  If a cell phone isn’t the answer, a personal emergency alert device may just be perfect.

I received a V.ALRT in exchange for this post. All opinions are my own.

The V.ALRT, Personal Emergency Alert Device, is an ergonomically designed device that can be carried discreetly in a pocket or a bag, worn on the wrist with the included band or around the neck as a pendant. Using Bluetooth® SMART (Bluetooth 4.0 LE) technology in association with a software application from VSN Mobil, the V.ALRT initiates calls and text messages from a smartphone. With the push of a button, the V.ALRT pings the smartphone to send personalized texts to three pre-selected contacts. The customizable message will indicate that help is needed and also provide location information using the GPS feature on the smartphone (when available). The V.ALRT application can also be set to initiate a follow up phone call from the smartphone to get the attention of the recipient. The V.ALRT is small and easy to use and set up.  I am a huge fan of any device that has an easy app set up. It drives me nuts when you get something you are so excited to use and then you spend hours trying to get the app to sync up to the device. Not so at all with the V.ALRT. I have my almost 8 year old wear the V.ALRT when she rides her bike up and down our block. I feel much better letting her go out. I think it’s amazing that you don’t have to continually charge it and that it has so many different ways to wear it. Grab one here! My babies the most important thing in my life, but I understand that I have to let them go sometimes. Trust yourself and your instincts when you need to decide about letting your kids walk to school.

Have you ever let your child walk to school?