Children Catching the Bus

securityguy

Dunroamin wrote: »

And my generation of applicants happily trotted around the UK alone, on the train, for our university interviews and thought little of it..

Precisely. There's a PhD in when and why it changed.

Savvy_Sue

I've just twigged some of the back story on this, and I'm going to say to the OP that it's worth remembering that time spent in the car with a child / teenager isn't wasted.

I don't know if it's three of you in the car for this journey, or whether you drop your mother home before taking your son back.

But even if not a lot of conversation goes on, it is a time when they do sometimes talk. It's non-threatening, because you're not face to face - time spent washing up is similar!

So it might be worth not rushing this decision.

My own experience is of hearing one of my sons calmly say "I've got a lump on my testicle" as we crawled home through the traffic ...

duchy

It's a good point - also the possibility that the young man will be thinking on some level "Dad wants to spend less time with me" .

It seems this is all about what the OP and his mother want but no mention of any discussion either with the child or his mother. It all sounds a bit "Cart before the horse"

ViolaLass

dandelionclock30 wrote: »

Its only a few weeks since that young girl got stabbed to death on a bus on the way to school.So I think its wise to cover everything but to be sensible and allow children some freedom as well.

But that didn't happen because she got into an argument with him and wouldn't have been stopped by her having a mobile phone (chances are she had one). You can meet nutters anywhere, not just on the bus. Going on a bus doesn't put you at more or less risk of meeting one than going to the shops does and the odds of it happening are tiny.

Yes we need to keep kids safe but we also need to give them a sense of perspective.

property.advert

How come decades ago, long before the invention of mobile phones, email or other such communication assistance, I could traverse a 2 to 3 mile bus journey from where I lived into town where I went to school and not once ended up murdered or devoured by the bogeyman. This was by age 6 or 7.

I also knew how to get back to my house from the park, from woods miles away and didn't drown in streams or rivers or get hit by trains on the line.

Were we just not as stupid back then ?

balletshoes

property.advert wrote: »

How come decades ago, long before the invention of mobile phones, email or other such communication assistance, I could traverse a 2 to 3 mile bus journey from where I lived into town where I went to school and not once ended up murdered or devoured by the bogeyman. This was by age 6 or 7.

I also knew how to get back to my house from the park, from woods miles away and didn't drown in streams or rivers or get hit by trains on the line.

Were we just not as stupid back then ?

I think we were less cocooned then.

marisco_2

property.advert wrote: »

Were we just not as stupid back then ?

How far back are we talking here?

No seriously, I think you are right. Adults also had no qualms of approaching a child that may need assistance. Where as now they are hesitant to. Children had far more freedom in previous generations and with that came more common sense at much younger ages.

property.advert

marisco wrote: »

How far back are we talking here?

No seriously, I think you are right. Adults also had no qualms of approaching a child that may need assistance. Where as now they are hesitant to. Children had far more freedom in previous generations and with that came more common sense at much younger ages.

Going back to the 1970s.

It wasn't about adults approaching children - I would not hesitate today if a child looked as though they needed help - but the kids didn't need help.

I mean, it wasn't as though we were traversing the north face of the Eiger here, merely getting on the right bus and getting off at the right place.

The kids would have approached an adult if required and there were conductors which undoubtedly helped, if only for a sense of help being there if required but we didn't need that help too often I remember.

The thing is that in trying to ensure our child is not the one in 100,000 that needs to die to sustain positive evolution, we make the other 99,999 into useless lardbuckets whose only exercise is on a PS3.

That cannot be right and for certain, my little ones will be off out on their own at the earliest age.

Dunroamin

property.advert wrote: »

Going back to the 1970s.

It wasn't about adults approaching children - I would not hesitate today if a child looked as though they needed help - but the kids didn't need help.

I mean, it wasn't as though we were traversing the north face of the Eiger here, merely getting on the right bus and getting off at the right place.

The kids would have approached an adult if required and there were conductors which undoubtedly helped, if only for a sense of help being there if required but we didn't need that help too often I remember.

The thing is that in trying to ensure our child is not the one in 100,000 that needs to die to sustain positive evolution, we make the other 99,999 into useless lardbuckets whose only exercise is on a PS3.

That cannot be right and for certain, my little ones will be off out on their own at the earliest age.

That's the thing that gets me - parents are so over concerned about a tiny amount of danger and so unconcerned about the very real dangers that they put their children in instead.

silvercar

The thing is that in trying to ensure our child is not the one in 100,000 that needs to die to sustain positive evolution, we make the other 99,999 into useless lardbuckets whose only exercise is on a PS3.

If 99,999 are busy on the PS3, then your child is out there and the risk increases.;)